So I guess now’s the time to admit to everyone that in 2008 I copyedited the leaked chapters of Midnight Sun, printed them out, and handbound them into a book.
The Bridgertons are by far the most prolific family in the upper echelons of society. Such industriousness on the part of the viscountess and the late viscount is commendable, although one can find only banality in their choice of names for their children. Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth — orderliness is, of course, beneficial in all things, but one would think that intelligent parents would be able to keep their children straight without needing to alphabetize their names.
Pen, you have not heard what people are saying. Lady Whistledown has gone too far this time.And I thought you her greatest admirer.Not when she has smeared the name of my greatest friend.
On the west wall of this stupendous room is an enormous portrait of the family that owned and created it. Almost seventeen feet wide and eleven deep, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, and his Family c.1635 is the largest painting ever made by van Dyck, a joint portrait of the 4th Earl of Pembroke and his children. Each of the ten figures it portrays is just larger than lifesize and they dominate, as they were meant to, the gilded space in front of them. The painting is full of grace and aristocratic poise, of riches at ease with themselves, of what now would be called privilege and was then considered nobility. It exudes a distant and forgotten handsomeness, an abandoned world of elegance and power, neither stiff nor louche, but regal and familial.
featured on: Pride and Prejudice (2005), Emma. (2020), Bridgerton (2020)
