The Bridgerton cinematic universe feels like it’s constantly expanding. With the recent release of the back half of Season 3, the show has at last revealed how the latest batch of Bridgertons fared in their introduction to society, solidifying Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope’s (Nicola Coughlan) love story while also teasing a queer future for Francesca (Hannah Dodd). Last year’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story similarly explores the life and love of the show’s incomparable monarch, connecting the events of Bridgerton’s spin-off to its main characters by showcasing the backstories of supporting roles like Brimsley (Hugh Sachs), but one of the show’s most surprising plotlines was that of the affair between Violet Bridgerton’s (Ruth Gemmell) father and Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh). And while Queen Charlotte hints at the Bridgerton matriarch’s suspicions, the Bridgerton Season 3 finale has finally confirmed that Violet knows about her father’s infidelity.
Beginning just after Agatha’s first husband, Lord Herman Danbury (Cyril Nri), dies on the night of their first successful ball, Queen Charlotte plants the first seeds of Lady Danbury’s (Arsema Thomas) affair when she meets Lord Ledger (Keir Charles) on walks around her property during her mourning period. The two begin by making mundane observations about the songs of starlings, but their conversations quickly grow to encompass Lady Danbury’s dissatisfaction with her life and culminate with Lord Ledger gifting Agatha one of his famous paper hats for her birthday. A series of intimate encounters follow and abruptly end, causing Agatha to hide her lover’s hat as a closely guarded secret, but Bridgerton Season 3 finally acknowledges Lady Danbury’s empowering relationship in a way that reaffirms the show’s focus on positive female friendships.
Lady Danbury’s Affair Teaches Her To Fight for Herself in ‘Queen Charlotte’
The importance of Lady Danbury’s affair cannot be understated. At the time it begins, Agatha is reeling from having lived her entire life at the direction of her first husband, a self-centered man whose own complicated history with Britain’s royals never justifies his improper treatment of his wife. Queen Charlotte’s worst Danbury delights in sleeping with Agatha violently while she’s facing away from him. He also takes credit for many of his wife’s great accomplishments in the series, such as when Agatha procures their estate in London, which Lord Danbury assumes was only given because the Crown finally recognized his worth. Agatha’s affair with Lord Ledger, on the other hand, allows her to reclaim control of her sexuality and explore her honest emotions for the first time in the second half of Queen Charlotte’s first season.
When Agatha and Violet’s father are intimate, Agatha seizes the chance to finally carve some intimate empowerment out of their relationship. Although it seems like a minor change for her, one of the most important moments in this affair is when Agatha claims the top position while having sex with Lord Ledger, forced to stare mindlessly at her ceiling anymore. Instead, Agatha finds the strength to assert herself in the company of Violet’s father, seizing the guiding role in their physical dynamic while also reversing the submissive gender norms expected of Bridgerton’s female characters. As a result, Agatha’s relationship with Lord Ledger teaches Lady Danbury how to act on her authentic desires, feelings she was never granted by the domineering lust of her first husband.
The affair also enables the young Lady Danbury to pursue her honest feelings about the world with someone who actually cares to hear what she has to say. In contrast to Queen Charlotte’s scenes depicting Agatha being uncomfortably penetrated by her husband, the scenes involving Agatha and Violet’s father are sweet because they rely upon insightful dialogue about both characters’ lives. Rather than appearing together only for social functions or because of Lord Danbury’s insistence that his physical cravings are met, Agatha and Lord Ledger only ever see one another when they are not expected to appear together at all.
The pair’s walks allow Agatha to experience true companionship for the first time in her life, and the awakening that she experiences with Lord Ledger later allows her to realize it is independence she craves above all else. This lesson enables Lady Danbury to turn down Adolphus’s proposal in Queen Charlotte’s finale, choosing herself over another man who will turn her into a fixture of his own court, but she doesn’t shut herself off completely. Notably, Lady Danbury keeps the hat that Lord Ledger gave her through the present Bridgerton timeline, demonstrating how she cherished her memories of Violet’s father, even if she never gets the chance to tell Violet that in Queen Charlotte.
