Pride & Prejudice

[MenopauseSucks]

Have put this in chat as it's not a particularly literary, just a query.

Who inherits Rosings after Lady Catherine de Bourgh?
It can't go to her daughter can it? Even if she marries? Is there a son or brother?
Or will it go to her nephews Colonel Fitzwilliams & Mr Darcy?

Was re-watching the BBC P&P & it's thought that wandered into my mind...

It goes to her daughter- it is not entailed to male heirs

Longborne is entailed alone the male line and that's the way it was when Mr Bennett inherited it, hence can't go to any daughters.
Not all property inheritance is the same so Lady Catherine's daughter could inherit Rosings. Its covered in the book at the beginning :)

Timely thread, I also have a P&P question:

The 5 girls are Anne, Elizabeth (Lizzie), Mary, Katharine (Kitty), and Lydia. Why, after naming the first 4 after English Queens, was number 5 named Lydia?

Also, people seem to know far too much about the income of strangers. Almost the first thing said about Mr. Bingley is that his income is £5000 a year. How do people know this, surely Mr. B doesn't go around telling everyone. Also, Darcy has £10,000 a year.. same question.

Jane not Anne is the eldest Miss Bennett

There were public stats on the wealth of individuals wgich were published

Anne de bourgh was set to inherit Rosings. And wealth was everyone's business.

Anne de Bourgh inherits - there's no entail. It's probably why Lady Catherine thinks the match with Darcy is such a grand idea, joining two huge estates, and can't understand why Darcy would refuse such an heiress in favour of Elizabeth Bennett with a relatively tiny dowry of a thousand pounds.

Its probably coincidental that 4 of the 5 names were also names of English queens rather than them being specifically named after them. In Regency England those names were incredibly common for 'well to do' girls. Lydia was another common name, just so happened not to have the royal comnection.

I don't think it was a case that people's income was discussed, its mentioned a lot in P and P more as a character trait of the gossiping middle aged women (Mrs Bennett, Mrs Phillips et al) and also because they would make it their business to find out because they had a vested interest in knowing people's income and wealth so they could determine who was of a higher social status than who.
Income is mentioned mostly in P and P, but if you read Jane Austen's other books set at the same time they will reference a gentleman's occupation more than specific income.

I used to wonder the same thing about income, but think I now know.

If it's inherited wealth it's possible to get a reasonable idea, because wills and the accompanying inventories were (and are) public documents and were even reported in the papers.

So it would be possible for any Tom, Dick or Lizzie to know that Mr Bingley Senior left a fortune of x thousand pounds in total, and that he specified an income of, say, £2000 a year to go to each of his daughters, or perhaps they'd get the liferent interest of y amount in the 3 per cent Consols, the sum to go in fee to the daughters' children; and the residue to go to his eldest son, Charles, in fee.

The reader can then do the sums and work out what Charles got as the lump sum, and the likely yield. Interest rates and likely incomes seem to have been bread and butter knowledge at the time.

We know young Mr Bingley did not inherit land (real estate), because first he rents Netherfield, then at the end of the book he buys an estate near Pemberley to settle. So it's all about the personal estate valued in his father's inventory.

It’s not entailed but if it were I think it would have gone to Lady Catherine’s husbands male heirs. Col Fitzwilliam & Mr Darcy are Lady Catherine’s siblings sons. To go to them would be like Mr Bennett’s estate going to the eldest Philips boy rather than Mr Colin’s.

Thanks for that!
I haven't read the book for a very long time just the tv...
I wonder what would happen if the daughter never married or produced a male heir.

They used to gossip about Darcy's & Bingley's income, but I wonder how much Lady Catherine got a year?
Must've been a pretty penny to keep up Rosings.

Thank you for clearing that up!

I wonder what would happen if the daughter never married or produced a male heir.

Oh a lot of the C18th and C19th wills I've read cover that, too. The will might specify an heir or line of heirs to whom the estate reverts. Or it might state explicitly that the estate is the heir's to dispose of by their own will – but that should that heir not make a will and not have any children to be heirs-at-law, then the estate should go to <specified reversionary heir>.

If there's no such clause providing a reversionary heir, then lawyers get very rich arguing about it...

It's been a few years since my latest re-reading of P&P, but is it really correct to say that characters 'know' that Darcy has £10,000 a year, etc. Or is it that the specified figures are the ones that the gossipers have settled upon .... in the same way that they settle on the 'truth universally acknowledged that a man blah blah blah.
Could it be that Austen is deftly presenting something as 'fact' while at the same time making it clear that it is just a kind of shared speculation?