Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews) has hardly had a few days of rest in between seasons of Bridgerton this past year. That’s because, while Season 2 of Bridgerton premiered back in March 2022, and Season 3 is yet to get a release date, the ton’s favorite gossip columnist had to devote some of her free time to cover the events of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Though the Shonda Rhimes-created spin-off of Netflix’s hit romance series focuses mostly on the life of young Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio), long before the birth of one Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), there is still a lot going on in the “present” days of Regency Britain. The Crown is facing an imminent succession crisis, the queen (Golda Rosheuvel) must get her rakish sons to settle down, and that’s not to mention all the drama taking place behind closed doors at the Bridgerton and Danbury households. Indeed, there’s too much hot gossip even for someone as omnipresent as Whistledown to cover. But whether they have made it to the society papers or not, of one thing we can be certain: all of these events will certainly have consequences on Season 3 of Bridgerton.
Based on the fourth novel of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the third season of the Netflix series created by Chris Van Dusen will have the budding romance between Penelope and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) at its forefront. The new run of the show will pick up from where Season 2 left off, particularly from the cruel rejection faced by Penelope. The final episode of last year’s season ended with the young Miss Featherington overhearing her beloved Colin telling his friends that he would never dream of courting someone like her. As if that wasn’t enough, she also lost the friendship of her dear Eloise (Claudia Jessie), who felt betrayed after learning that her childhood companion is actually the person behind Lady Whistledown.
As far as B plots go, Season 2 of Bridgerton didn’t leave much for Season 3 to work with. Sure, there’s Benedict’s (Luke Thompson) crisis of consciousness that will certainly have to be developed before Season 4, but, apart from that, everything was settled by the season finale. In comes Queen Charlotte with some new loose threads for Bridgerton Season 3 to tie up. Split into two timelines, the new miniseries from the Bridgerton-verse introduced us to royal characters that will certainly make at least a couple of brief appearances in the upcoming season. One of them is none other than Prince Regent George (Ryan Gage), but, most importantly, the show put two of our most beloved characters in a very delicate situation. No matter what happens at Buckingham Palace or at the fancy ballrooms in which Penelope and Colin will certainly fall in love with one another, Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) will certainly have a lot to talk about…
What Happened Between Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgerton in ‘Queen Charlotte’?
Now, this is some fresh info that not even Lady Whistledown is privy to: Queen Charlotte reveals that, back in the day, Lady Danbury had an affair with Violet’s father, Lord Ledger (Keir Charles). It all starts after Lord Danbury (Cyril Nri) passed away, but before that event, Agatha never felt any affection for her husband. In one episode of the prequel series, she tells her maid, Coral (Peyvan Sadeghian), that she was promised to Lord Danbury when she was merely three years old. After the wedding, her married life was marked by loathing, resentment, and an uncomfortable recurrence of marital rape. Lady Danbury’s storyline is by far the most disturbing of Queen Charlotte — and, yet, when her husband passed away, Agatha couldn’t help but grieve. After all, her life had revolved around his for so long that she didn’t even know how to be her own person.
While trying to figure out who she was without Lord Danbury, Agatha takes to taking walks around her property. She walks for so long that she accidentally trespasses onto the Ledger estate. There, she runs into Lord Ledger, a big fan of walks himself, particularly those that keep him away from his wife. Lord Ledger and Lady Danbury quickly strike up a friendship. This friendship, in turn, transforms even quicker into something else. Though the two only share a bed for one day, at least as far as Queen Charlotte tells us, the affection between them likely lasts for the rest of Lord Ledger’s life.
Little Violet is none the wiser to her father’s relationship with the young Agatha Danbury, though she does witness a few suspicious exchanges between them. As an adult, however, Lady Bridgerton begins putting two and two together. Queen Charlotte has the Bridgerton matriarch struggling with the reawakening of her sexual desire years after the death of her husband. Through a series of conversations with Lady Danbury, she realizes that marriage isn’t the end of a person’s story. The two ladies become quite close as Violet tries to understand how she can have a, ahem, love life without her dear husband. But the nature of her relationship with Lady Danbury shifts when, during a visit to her friend’s house, Lady Bridgerton comes across a colorful paper crown that she remembers from her childhood days.
It turns out that Lord Ledger had a habit of making “birthday hats” for the people he loved the most. Violet had mentioned this habit a few episodes prior when confessing to Agatha and the queen that she herself made some hats for Lord Bridgerton. When she was still a child, Violet saw her father making a hat for a friend. She offered to lend him a hand, but he declined, stating that he had to make this hat all by himself. Said hat was the very same one she found all those years later at Lady Danbury’s.
Seeing the birthday hat makes something click inside Lady Bridgerton’s head. Suddenly, all those smiles between Lady Danbury and her father gain a whole new meaning. Throughout the final episodes of Queen Charlotte, Violet tries to get her friend to come clean about her relationship with Lord Ledger. Lady Danbury, however, deflects her insinuations. Still, the show ends with the two women clearly at odds with one another. There’s something standing in the way of their friendship that will have to be dealt with by the time Bridgerton Season 3 comes along.
Will ‘Queen Charlotte’s Prince George Find a New Wife in ‘Bridgerton’ Season 3?
India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest in Queen CharlotteImage via Netflix
Queen Charlotte also has her own fair share of problems to deal with in her self-titled miniseries, and not just in the immediate aftermath of her marriage with King George (Corey Mylchreest). In the Regency-era timeline, Her Majesty has to avert a succession crisis that becomes imminent once the Prince Regent’s wife dies in childbirth alongside her baby. Since Prince George’s child had been set to be the future heir to the throne, and since none of the other royal children and grandchildren have babies of their own, this tragedy bomes an even larger problem than it already was. After all, not only is the Prince Regent devastated, but there are also no young heirs to keep King George and Queen Charlotte’s lineage alive.
Lady Whistledown is quick to latch on to this piece of gossip. This, in turn, incenses Queen Charlotte, who begins to pressure her sons, daughters, and granddaughters to marry and have children already — or, should we say, legitimate children? Either way, the royal kids, who are actually all grown-up, don’t take kindly to being told what to do. Still, after some turmoil at Buckingham Palace, Prince Edward (Jack Michael Stacey) and his wife, Princess Victoria (Florence Dobson) come to the queen with the news that they are expecting a child: the baby that will grow up to become the future Queen Victoria of England.
Whether this royal baby (or pregnancy) will feature prominently in Bridgerton Season 3 is still anyone’s guess; however, there is one central character from this succession crisis that will certainly have to make an appearance at the ballrooms of the ton. Said character is the Prince Regent, George. Now a widower, the future king will certainly be on the market for a wife. We’re bound to at least see him sulking around the corners, sad that his mother doesn’t take his grief seriously. For a show set in Regency Britain, Bridgerton has never featured much of the Prince Regent himself. We’ve seen the Queen and the King, but not the man whose title defined a whole time period. After the end of Queen Charlotte, it sure looks like Bridgerton will put the Regent back in the Regency.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is now available to stream on Netflix.
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