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Now onto today's video, Who is Agnes van rhijn based on?
If you enjoy the HBO show The Gilded Age as much as I do, then you might be wondering who
inspired the character of Agnes Van Rhijn played by Christine Baranski.
We know that the show's writer, Julian Fellowes (who also wrote Downton Abbey), fashioned the
Dowager Countess of Grantham after a great-aunt of his that fit the dowager's tyrannical personality.
But, what about Agnes and her sister Ada? What we know so far is that Agnes is a
widow with the last name of Van Rhijn and Ada is a spinster who goes by Miss Brook.
In a early episode it was revealed that Agnes had to marry a cruel man for his money
because her brother Henry Brook had lost the family fortune.
Ada explains to their niece Marian about the man Agnes had to marry: “And he was not an easy man.He
was not a man you would like to be alone with.”
This man was the source of Agnes's wealth and why she is able to comfortably support her sister Ada
along with her son Oscar and now, her newly arrived orphaned niece, Marian.
It seems that one thing that we do know about Agnes is that she represents old
New York and the old money families that make up the upper echelons of society in the Gilded Age.
But it is hard to know more about who Agnes really is. I scoured through the different
episodes to glean as much information as I could from the few clues that have been dropped,
about Agnes and Ada's family history. We have been given just a glimpse here and there,
such as this which tells us some of their family lineage.
"My mother, your grandmother, was a Livingston of Livingston Manor.
They ruled justly until the new people invaded. It's not quite as simple as that. Yes, it is."
So who were the Livingstons of Livingston Manor?
The Livingstons of Livingston manor can trace their roots back to nobility in
Scotland starting with Alexander Livingston, 5th Lord Livingston of Callandar, Stirling Scotland.
Actually there were a few lords before him but the records of his lineage are
not very detailed so I went with the 5th lord as a starting point.
What we know is that Alexander Livingston was a commander of the Scottish forces against
England in 1522. He served as an Extraordinary Lord of Session
in 1542 and as one of the eight Lord Keepers of Mary, Queen of Scots in
her infancy. Lord Livingston became Joint Custodian of the Queen Mary in about 1543.
He was paid 813 pounds for keeping the infant queen in Linlithgow Palace before she moved to
Stirling Castle in July 1543, where he was also her keeper. He served as Privy Councillor in 1545.
When Queen Mary went to France in 1548 following her betrothal to the young King of France,
Francis II, Livingston accompanied her and remained there until his death in 1553.
All of which means that he served and had close association with the Queen of Scotland.
He married twice, both times with women who were daughters
of men with the rank of Earlship and bred 8 children into nobility.
Now Fast Forward to The Livingstons in America.....
The Livingston lineage in America begins with Robert Livingston the Elder who hailed from
Scotland but grew up in Holland when his father was exiled there for his religious beliefs.
During his time in Holland, Robert became fluent in the Dutch language which helped him greatly in
his later career in New York and New Jersey, both part of the former Dutch colony of New Netherland.
In 1673, Robert Livingston sailed for Boston to find his fortune in
North America where he landed in Albany New York to become wealthy from the fur trade.
He then obtained a patent to 160,000 acres along the Hudson that would
become Livingston Manor spanning 2 counties in the state of New York.
In 1686, Robert and his brother-in-law Pieter Schuyler persuaded the Governor of New York
to grant Albany a municipal charter like that awarded to New York City a few months earlier.
Appointed as clerk of the city and county of Albany, Livingston collected a fee for each
legal document registered. With Pieter Schuyler, he led the opposition in Albany to Leisler's
Rebellion which threatened royal rule of new netherland. He served as Secretary for Indian
Affairs from 1695 until his death. He was elected repeatedly to the New York provincial assembly,
serving from 1709–1711 and 1716–1725. He was elected speaker in 1718.
According to one account, "Robert Livingston valued public life primarily as a source of
private profits. Livingston's generation looked upon politics as a business."
Even today we know of the Livingston family as a prominent New York family whose descendants
include Presidents of the United States George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush,
First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Congressman Bob
Livingston of Louisiana, much of the wealthy Astor family, New York Governor Hamilton Fish,
actor Montgomery Clift, and actress Jane Wyatt.
And what about the Brook side of the family?
Well there just wasn't much I could find on that.
I am guessing that the Brook side of the family is referenced in this scene where Ada has lost
her little dog Pumpkin and Agnes tells Ada: "You Survived A Civil War, Yet You Collapse Because A
Lap Dog Is Missing? Pull Yourself Together For Heaven's Sake. You Are A Soldier's Daughter."
Taking this tidbit of information, I searched for anyone with the surname
of Brook in the Civil War but came up short. If you have any ideas about the
ancestry of Agnes Van Rhijn or who the character of Agnes might be based upon,
please leave a comment below this video and let us all know your thoughts on this topic!