While it is well known—especially from her teenage History of England—that Jane Austen was a lover of history with a disdain for the Tudor dynasty, it is less known that Austen may have drawn inspiration from the Tudor period for characters’ names and stories in her adult work. This possible inspiration can be seen in her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility. In her choice of the surnames Brandon and Willoughby, and most significantly in the backstory of Eliza Brandon, the ill-fated first love of Colonel Brandon and mother of Eliza Williams, Austen appears to have been inspired by the life of Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk.
Portrait of Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk (1519–80), by Hans Holbein the Younger.
After the death of her father, Baron William Willoughby, in 1526, Katherine Willoughby, aged seven, became one of the wealthiest heiresses in Europe (Harris 66). She then became the twelfth Baroness Willoughby de Eresby and a ward of the king. Two years later, Henry VIII sold her wardship to his close friend and brother-in-law Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who quickly intervened in a Willoughby family dispute over estates (Goff 17–18). With Katherine as his ward, Brandon was at liberty to betroth her to anyone he pleased. Brandon first engaged Katherine to his son, but weeks after his wife’s death, he married his fourteen-year-old ward himself (Goff 23–24). This marriage gave him access to Katherine’s large fortune and estates—necessary because Brandon had lost a large portion of his income after the death of his late wife, the king’s sister Mary (Baldwin 1).
Scholars who have written about the actual places, history, and people Austen used in her novels have pointed out the likelihood that Austen was influenced by her knowledge of history in choosing the names Brandon and Willoughby. Margaret Doody asserts that Charles Brandon is a “likely historical source,” arguing that he “grievously abused” his duty of guardianship and that Katherine “presumably had no say in the matter” (99). Austen, whose novels show that to fail in one’s duty was one of the most terrible faults a man could be guilty of, was likely to have been moved by this tale. Janine Barchas briefly mentions Katherine Willoughby as one possible inspiration for the names Willoughby and Brandon (163–65), but she does not examine their potential social and political meaning. Austen’s adaptation of Katherine’s treatment as a ward shows the significance of Austen’s novels as works of social commentary.
In Sense and Sensibility, Eliza Brandon’s tragic fate is the sinister backdrop that sets a major plotline in motion and defines Colonel Brandon’s motivations. Even though it was difficult for women to write directly about politics, Austen, like other female authors of her time, wrote novels about how politics affected women and families. Through the Eliza Brandon plot, Sense and Sensibility demonstrates Austen’s concern about the unjust ways women were treated by legal systems in areas such as guardianship. Contemporaries such as Ann Radcliffe, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Charlotte Smith also used guardianship in their works to examine “the abuses of asymmetrical power relationships and practices of patriarchal authority” in their society (Gessell-Frye 2), indirectly commenting on political issues through domestic fiction that on the surface was concerned only with marriage and family life.
The system of wardship, particularly during Tudor times, was often used to the detriment of the young wards themselves. In 1540, just a few years after Katherine was orphaned, Henry VIII established his infamous Court of Wards and Liveries. Heirs who had lost their fathers before the age of majority became wards of the Court, which could then sell the guardianship rights to whomever would pay the most. Guardianship was profitable for those buying and selling. A guardian had the right to the profits of his ward’s land as well as the right to marry his ward to a person of the guardian’s choosing (Hurstfield 140; Fikkers 4).
It’s clear from The History of England that Austen detested men like Henry VIII who abused their power over women. “The Crimes & Cruelties of this Prince,” she writes, “were too numerous to be mentioned” (MW 142). Austen undoubtedly would have counted the treatment of young Katherine Willoughby by Henry VIII and Charles Brandon as one of those cruelties. Henry VIII was entrusted with her wardship, and he broke the trust placed in him by leaving her at the mercy of a man grasping for her fortune. As evidenced by her opinion of Elizabeth I’s treatment of Mary, Queen of Scots, Austen abhorred anyone who was a “deceitful Betrayer of trust reposed in her” or him (MW 144). Given the parallels between the fictional Brandons and the historical Charles Brandon, in Sense and Sensibility Austen seems to signal her contempt for the ill-treatment of vulnerable young women.
In Sense and Sensibility, the relationship between the first Eliza and the Brandon family echoes that of Katherine Willoughby and Charles Brandon. Both situations involve a young girl with a large fortune orphaned and left as the ward of a Brandon who takes advantage of his guardianship to access her fortune through marriage. Colonel Brandon’s father is reminiscent of Charles Brandon, with the slight difference that the fictional Brandon marries Eliza to his son rather than taking his ward for himself.
This difference, in fact, indicates the small improvements in the system of guardianship and the attitudes toward it from Tudor times to the Georgian period. While it was permissible for a guardian to marry his own young ward in the court of Henry VIII, such an overt abuse of power would have been unlawful in later centuries. After the Restoration, the Court of Wards was abolished, and the Court of Chancery regained wardship jurisdiction. Under the new system, called wardship in socage, guardianship was given to the heir’s next of kin, who could not inherit the property himself and who was audited by the court. A father could also appoint a guardian in his will, or heirs could choose their own guardian at the age of fourteen (if they were aware of this law). This system improved the situation of wards and gave them and their inheritance more protection. This protection, however, was only useful if wards were aware of their rights. Wards were under the protection and care of their guardians until the age of twenty-one, so guardians still had great influence (Blackstone 1: 448–52; qtd. in Fikkers 15–16).
In the case of the fictional Eliza Brandon, orphaned in infancy, her uncle was probably appointed as guardian in her father’s will, and her guardian probably did not inform her of her rights. Colonel Brandon tells Elinor that Eliza Brandon was “‘one of [his] nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of [his] father’” (205). Seventeen-year-old Eliza was “‘married against her inclination to [his] brother’” because she inherited a large fortune, and the Brandon family’s estate was encumbered with debt. Austen illustrates the power of a guardian over his ward in the fact that Eliza “‘was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement’” (206) until she gave in to the elder Brandon’s pressure to marry.
Colonel Brandon condemns his father’s conduct, recognizing his failure of duty toward his ward. After telling Elinor how his father forced Eliza to marry against her will to obtain her fortune, he bitingly remarks, “‘And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian’” (205). After a brief, unhappy marriage that ends in adultery and divorce, Eliza is left destitute and dying, “‘worn down by acute suffering of every kind’” (207). In effect, the Brandon family has legally stolen her fortune and cast her aside. The novel implies that Colonel Brandon’s fortune, which became his after his brother’s death, has come from Eliza’s inheritance. Only Colonel Brandon cares for Eliza herself. When he finds her near death, he moves her to more comfortable housing and sees that she is looked after, visiting her everyday “‘during the rest of her short life’” and staying with her “‘in her last moments’” (207).
Austen crafts the noble-hearted and trustworthy Colonel Brandon as a direct contrast to his duplicitous father. When after the death of Eliza Brandon, Colonel Brandon is entrusted with the care of her illegitimate daughter, Eliza Williams (208), he sees little Eliza as a person, not as a financial asset or liability. Even though Eliza has no fortune and costs Colonel Brandon both money and (since people falsely believe she is his illegitimate daughter) reputation, he sees her as “‘a valued, a precious trust’” (208). He does everything possible to ensure Eliza’s well-being, giving her a good education and visiting her often.
Austen presents Colonel Brandon as adhering to a moral standard that the historical Brandons and Willoughbys lacked. Colonel Brandon displays a sense of duty and compassion, trying in good faith to honor the trust that has been placed in him. He is shocked at his brother’s cold-heartedness, and later by Willoughby’s seduction and abandonment of the younger Eliza, declaring that Willoughby had done “‘that, which no man who can feel for another, would do’” (209). He feels guilty when he believes he has failed in his duty to protect the second Eliza. He even hesitates to tell Elinor the whole story, fearing that he is distressing her and may seem to be attempting to “‘raise [himself] at the expense of others’” (210)—in other words, to make himself look like a better suitor for Marianne than Willoughby. Colonel Brandon is more concerned with Marianne’s happiness and recovery than with his own desires, advising Elinor to tell Marianne only as much of the story as she believes will console Marianne and “‘lessen her regrets’” (210). Through her depiction of Colonel Brandon, Austen sets forth the principles of good character she expects a man to possess and act upon. She exemplifies in Colonel Brandon the standard by which men should treat women, especially vulnerable women whose lives are in the hands of the men to whom they are entrusted.
The ideas about the maltreatment of women under the inherently patriarchal English legal system that Austen sets forth in Sense and Sensibility are valuable aspects of a work of domestic fiction. Austen observes and challenges the unfair situations in which society places women. She recognizes that in her world, women often had either no good choices available to them or no choices at all, so they were not completely responsible for the poor choices they were pushed into. Though all her novels center on the idea of marriage and her heroines marry at their conclusions, Austen certainly uses her fiction to criticize the injustices that women sometimes faced in marriage. The inescapable truth throughout her novels is that her heroines usually must either marry or end up destitute.
Through her novels, Austen displays her opinion that the men’s control over women through systems like guardianship too easily end in disaster for everyone involved, and that such systems were to blame. Everyone involved in the Brandon family’s unhappy situation has a tragic fate, either dying or despairing of their circumstances. Colonel Brandon and the second Eliza suffer the consequences of the actions of others. Colonel Brandon becomes clouded by a “gloom” that, in the beginning of the novel, makes him appear “infirm” and even “forlorn” to Marianne (206, 37)—permanently and deeply pained by his recollections of Eliza’s marriage, divorce, and death, and later by her daughter’s disappearance and seduction. Multiple times, Colonel Brandon exclaims to Elinor that one cannot imagine how he felt or what he endured (207, 209).
Colonel Brandon never blames Eliza Brandon, even for her adultery. Instead, he blames his father, who took advantage of his guardianship over Eliza and forced her into a loveless marriage. He also blames his brother, declaring that Eliza “‘experienced great unkindness’” (205–06) from his brother, who “‘did not deserve her’” or “‘even love her’” (205), and whose infidelity and maltreatment pushed her into an extramarital affair: “‘from the first he treated her unkindly’” (206), and after enduring too much, “‘the misery of her situation . . . overcame all her resolution” (205–06). Brandon calls Eliza’s reaction “‘but too natural,’” asking Elinor, “‘can we wonder that with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her, . . . she should fall?’” (206). By putting this speech into the mouth of Colonel Brandon, the novel’s moral compass, Austen seems to indicate that it is her belief as well.
Colonel Brandon’s lamentation underlines the difference between the first Eliza and Marianne—a difference in their familial support, and thus the difference in their fates. Colonel Brandon assures Elinor: “‘Their fates, their fortunes cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet disposition of [Eliza] been guarded . . . she might have been all that [Elinor] will live to see [Marianne] be’” (208). Though Eliza and Marianne have—in Brandon’s view—similar personalities, he believes that Marianne’s family and friends will ensure a happier outcome.
Katherine Willoughby Brandon enjoyed the happy ending that Eliza Brandon did not. Her marriage to her second husband, Richard Bertie—a trusted gentleman usher in her household—was a love match (Read 88–92). Their two children, Susan and Peregrine Bertie, both survived to adulthood. Peregrine inherited her title and became the thirteenth Baron Willoughby de Eresby. Katherine’s family estate, Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, remains in the Willoughby family to this day (Grimsthorpe). If Austen was aware of Katherine Willoughby as a historical figure, she was most likely aware of how her life turned out. Austen departs from the real history of Katherine Willoughby and makes the clear choice to give Eliza Brandon a tragic ending, showing the unhappy fate that was the reality for many. Further, by drawing inspiration from a real-life story while changing the circumstances and the ending, Austen can experiment with how character, personality, and conditions can affect the outcomes of different people in similar dilemmas.
Why did Austen choose to give Katherine’s maiden name, Willoughby, to Sense and Sensibility’s villain? Since it seems that Austen may have drawn inspiration from multiple sources when choosing names for her characters, it is possible that John Willoughby’s villainous character is not related to Katherine Willoughby Brandon, but rather to a character from another fiction. As Barchas suggests, the rakish Sir Clement Willoughby from Frances Burney’s Evelina may have partially inspired the name and behavior of the rake John Willoughby (163–64).
Austen’s interest in the historical Katherine Willoughby is unsurprising, considering the opinions expressed in her writing. Just as Catherine Morland laments in Northanger Abbey that, in her history books, “‘the men [are] all so good for nothing, and [there are] hardly any women at all’” (108), Austen demonstrates a particular interest in the overlooked women of history. While it is impossible to know how Austen might first have encountered the tale, she may have been aware about the history of the Willoughbys through family connections. Three years before Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility, in 1792, Jane Austen’s brother James married Anne Mathew, first cousin of Lady Priscilla Barbara Elizabeth, twenty-first Baroness Willoughby de Eresby and the descendant of Katherine Willoughby through her son Peregrine Bertie (Le Faye 588).
Another possibility is that Austen might have become familiar with Katherine Willoughby from reading John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a popular book of Protestant history. Katherine was named as a Protestant martyr for her tribulations as a Marian exile and her fierce commitment to the Protestant cause. She, her husband Richard Bertie, and their children spent four years in exile on the Continent while the Catholic Queen Mary reigned (Baldwin 2–3). It is possible that Foxe’s Book of Martyrs would have been in the Reverend George Austen’s library; Farnell Parsons notes that it was often included in reading lists recommended to educate young ladies (90). (It is not, however, listed in the catalogue for the library at Godmersham, Austen’s brother Edward’s estate.)
Jane Austen and the Reformation, Roger Moore argues that Austen’s work was greatly inspired by her knowledge of the history and the religious and societal consequences of the Reformation (1–4). Her works—such as Northanger Abbey and her satirical History of England—show that she lamented the destruction of the monasteries and the loss of the charity and good works that those communities performed. During her life, she visited several former abbeys, including Stoneleigh, home of her mother’s relatives, the Leigh family (Stoneleigh). Interestingly, Henry VIII’s legal yet immoral use of power to strip the monasteries of their wealth mirrors the way in which he and other influential men used the legal power they had to steal the fortunes of young women like Katherine Willoughby.
The similarities between Katherine Willoughby Brandon and Eliza Brandon demonstrate Austen’s disdain for the mistreatment of young women by those who were supposed to be their guardians. By telling the story of Eliza Brandon’s fall from grace and death, Austen illustrates the tragic consequences of allowing men control over women. Through the character of Eliza Brandon, Austen suggests a historical reality familiar to her readers to highlight the real-life systemic issues that had been faced by women of the Tudor age and that were still present in Georgian society. By ingeniously adapting the story of the Willoughby and Brandon families, Austen ensures that contemporary readers would have recognized these persistent injustices. At the heart of every Austen novel are the stories of women and a recognition of the injustices that they often face.
