The ‘real Lady Whistledown’ was actually a man who ended up in court over ‘fake news’
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Dear gentle reader, Bridgerton is officially back and finally, we get to see the relationship blossom between Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton
Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan drove us wild their effortless chemistry and trailers filled with chaste glances – but now fans can devour the season.
Of course, no season in the Ton would be complete without Lady Whistledown, our not-so-anonymous scandal author who has captivated the gentry.
While Whistledown might be a work of fiction, she is inspired by the very real scandal and gossip sheets of the 1700s and 1800s, which were unsurprisingly very popular.
In a shocking twist, however, the original author was not a wallflower debutante taking aim at her peers but rather a middle-aged man writing ‘fake news’.
‘They took off in the 1770s for the first time and it was a specific guy, Henry Dudley,’ historian and genealogist Laura House told Metro.co.uk.
The real Lady Whistledowns of history were far less fabulous than Nicola Coughlan (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix © 2024)
The Rev. Sir Henry Bate-Dudley was notorious and even ended up in court
‘He founded the Morning Post and he was very notorious. Henry was a clergyman so he was a man of God but by night, he was not so much a man of God.’
Dudley did not write under a pseudonym though, these sheets were legitimised by his paper which blindly published rumours without so much as a fact check.
‘Everyone knew who he was and he actually got into trouble in court for what he was doing,’ the Family History Expert at Ancestry added.
‘The scandals created were so atrocious that people did fight back and there were court cases. They had to because reputation was so important.’
Dudley was imprisoned for his fake news in 1781 after libelling the Duke of Richmond – in true Bridgerton fashion he also found himself in a handful of duels too.
Unlike Lady Whistledown, the ‘most notorious editor in London’ would not name and shame those he wrote about, although it wasn’t hard to work out their identities.
Whistledown is never afraid to name and shame her scandal makers (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
However, Penelope isn’t spreading fake news (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
One particularly salacious snippet from the Morning Post in 1815 – at this point edited by Nicholas Byrne – shared a very scandalous affair indeed.
It read: ‘On Sunday morning last, when Lord — returned from Church, he was met on entering his house by his daughter, a child only six years of age, whom he accompanied to the door of the nursery, which he found closed, and on looking through the key-hole, he saw his Lady with an intimate friend of his Lordship in a situation that is not to be described.’
Laura explained that sometimes a first initial of a name would be given to make sure the person was recognisable.
‘There’s something so underhand in the fake anonymity and this illusion of respecting privacy when actually it was atrocious, so exposing, and often completely untrue.’
She likens to a 1800s’ version of Twitter; ‘a quick thought with no fact checking’.
We’re not sure Henry Dudley would be quite so compelling as a romantic lead (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
Most of the scandal sheets contained fake news (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
She laughed: ‘I probably prefer it how it is now because at least we’re not pretending to be polite.’
A feminist entrepreneur like Penelope, sneaking out of her bedroom to run down to the printers was incredibly unlikely but she may have written in anonymously to snitch on her neighbours.
Laura continued: ‘Journalism itself was almost exclusively men just because women weren’t allowed into that sphere until much later.’
The scandal sheets were all printed by in-house publishers and a young lady would never be trusted in an office, or worse; the printing rooms.
‘It’s hard to tell how much of it is men and how much of it is women as [anyone] could anonymously send in anything [she] wanted to so you never know, it could all be women.’
For Laura, the scandal sheets – which in turn became tabloids and now online blogs like Deux Moi – just prove how our ancestors aren’t that different from ourselves.
Women were not allowed to be journalists – or anything really (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
Henry wasn’t very popular with his readers, they even took him to court (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
‘It’s easy to see people in the past as not human or like they’re so different to us and they don’t feel like they’re the same as us,’ she shared. ‘But they were the same as us in so many ways.
‘If you took yourself and all of your ancestors going back to 1700 on one [family] line, there would only be about seven of you in the room. It’s not that many people.
‘It feels like a long time ago. It’s not. It’s a heartbeat ago, really. So this is important. It’s important to know where you come from and understand the context in which you exist.’
She continued: ‘Everything we’ve been through people have been through it before and that’s very comforting because they survived, or we wouldn’t be here.
Hopefully, the same fate does not await our Lady Whistledown (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
Season 3 is streaming now (Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix)
‘Having that connection to our ancestors and seeing them as not just remote historical figures that are completely unrelatable but as people who were like us and lived lives and got into a fight with their neighbour. It’s just so amazing to be able to humanise those people.’
As for Bridgerton’s little historical inaccuracies, Laura is happy to let the history book slide in this instance as it’s all so ‘anachronistic’ anyway.
‘Bridgerton’s like an alternative universe period drama,’ the historian praised. ‘A lot of period dramas try to keep the illusion that there’s historical accuracy and then when you see a little anachronism, it’s really irritating.’
This alternative regency period allows for a mixed-race Queen Charlotte, an early slave trade abolition, and a wallflower with a wicked quill making her own money.
‘Can you imagine if our ancestors saw us now?’ laughed Laura, ‘They’d be shouting “It’s not even true” at us.’
Bridgerton season 3 part 1 arrives on Netflix on May 16, with part 2 to follow on June 13.
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