Spoiler alert: This story includes details from the final four episodes of Netflix’s “Bridgerton” Season 3 (now streaming).
NEW YORK — If there is one person in the world of Netflix’s Regency-era romance “Bridgerton” who has managed to impress the formidable Queen Charlotte, it is Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews). Mayfair’s anonymous gossip writer has captivated the Queen for many social seasons, and despite the queen’s multiple attempts to unmask her identity, she has escaped every time.
In the first season, the queen tasks the fifth child of the Bridgerton family, Eloise (Claudia Jessie), to find out who Lady Whistledown is. Last season, she assumes Eloise herself to be the author after her footmen spot Eloise speaking to a printer’s shop apprentice, Theo Sharpe, in Bloomsbury, until the real Lady Whistledown steps in to save Eloise by publishing a scathing expose on her consorting with “political radicals” and her budding relationship with Theo.The search continues in Season 3 and in the final episodes (now streaming), her obsession with the scribe reaches new heights when she offers a reward for whomever reveals Whistledown’s real identity. That brings us to the question: Why is Queen Charlotte so obsessed with Lady Whistledown?
“The Ton is a very insular place,” says Golda Rosheuvel, who plays her, in an interview last week. “And to have somebody come in and kind of shake that up a little bit is intriguing to the queen. There’s a lot of respect there for this person, who has dared to come in and shake up the Ton. There’s a sense of ‘how dare you,’ but also there’s a sense of ‘who is this?’ And I slightly respect her. Because this is a dangerous thing to be doing and whoever it is has the respect of the woman at the top of the food chain.”
