So, if you watch Pride and Prejudice, then you're probably familiar with Mr.
Darcy, the fact that he is super rich and has a really cool house
and Elizabeth marries into money...
or does she?
Exactly how rich is Mr.
Darcy?
Is he super, super rich?
Just kind of rich.
Okay. Maybe not that rich.
He's good for maybe the middle class, but compared to those
super wealthy he's not that great?
Let me know in the comments down below what you imagine, Mr.
Darcy's social standing to be in Pride and Prejudice.
Because what we're going to be doing today is putting Mr.
Darcy into context.
We're going to see exactly where financially he stood
compared to his peers.
And try to answer this question, I feel like a lot of people have
of exactly how good of a catch financially Darcy really was.
So my name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel.
We were talking about literature.
History and apparently how much money Mr.
Darcy has in life.
And if you want to learn more about any of those things, then definitely subscribe.
So in today's video, I'm not going to be doing that thing where I adjust Darcy's
income from Regency times to today and be like, "Oh, he's worth this many millions."
Because really my opinion is that doesn't work.
And the main reason being that the way their entire economy
and world was structured is completely different from today.
So we can only understand it within context of their own time, because
it simply does not translate well.
Like the way we live is so different from the way they live.
So today we are going to really be focusing on how Mr.
Darcy would have appeared had he been a real person within the financial
structure of Regency England.
And really we're going to be looking at Mr.
Darcy's wealth by analyzing a couple of quotes from characters
who often get dismissed.
In particular, Mrs.
Bennet and Mr.
Collins.
I feel like a lot of people, usually think, "Oh, they're both silly characters
who kind of over-exaggerate stuff a lot."
But the thing that's super fascinated me while researching this was how
much insight these two characters have when it comes to money.
And the more I thought about that, the more I realized, yeah, that makes sense.
They're both kind of obsessed with money.
I suppose they would understand how it works.
I mean, at least they do in these selected quotes.
I'm sure they say other silly or exaggerated things in life, but
in these quotes they are dead on.
And I think that's super interesting.
So first up, let's say look at what Mrs.
Bennet has to say about Mr.
Darcy.
And this quote is coming from right after Elizabeth gets engaged to Mr.
Darcy.
She's worried to tell her mother, about how her mother will react.
She tells her, and this is one of the things her mother says in reacting.
Mrs.
Bennet says: "My dearest child," she cried.
"I can think of nothing else.
10,000 a year, and very likely more.
'Tis as good as a Lord.
And a special license.
You must and shall be married by a special license.
But my dearest love, tell me what dish, Mr.
Darcy's particularly fond of that I may have it tomorrow."
Okay, so much going on in this quote, let's break it down.
First up, 10,000 a year, and very likely more.
If you've seen my video on, "Does Darcy really have 10,000 a year?"
Then you know, that she's 100% correct?
Because of several different factors.
Mr.
Darcy does have very, very likely more than 10,000 a year.
So already Mrs.
Bennet knows what she's talking about.
Second thing she says is "'Tis as good as a Lord."
Which I really want to go into this topic for a second.
So every once in a while I feel like someone says like, "Oh, well, Mr.
Darcy must not be that rich.
Otherwise he would be a lord of some sort, right?
He would be a Duke or an Earl or a viscount."
And of course, if you want to learn more about what an English Lord
is, then definitely check out my video "What is an English lord?"
But what's really fascinating about this is that, again, Mrs.
Bennet knows what she's talking about.
In 1803, the average annual income of an English Lord was 8,000 pounds.
That's correct.
On average, 8,000 pounds was the annual income of an English Lord.
So how much would Darcy be making in 1803 then for comparison?
Well, assuming the 1811 slash 1806 timeline that we talk about in that
video on Darcy's 10,000 pounds.
If I deflate it down to 1803, Mr.
Darcy would be earning at least 9,000 pounds.
So here we have the Lords' average of 8,000 pounds versus Darcy's 9,000 pounds.
And remember it's 9,000 pounds plus because that is just one aspect of
his income coming off of estates, doesn't include his investments.
Where the Lords' income would include their investments, and
that would be their total income.
But with all of that aside, you can see that Mr.
Darcy actually makes more than the average English Lord during this time period.
The only difference is that he just doesn't have a title.
Now the question of course then comes up if Darcy is definitely rich enough to have
a title, then why doesn't he have one?
And that's a very interesting topic I'm going to go into in a different video.
So definitely subscribe if you want to see that.
Okay.
The next thing that Mrs.
Bennet says is that Elizabeth and Darcy should be married by a special license.
And she's talking about special marriage license.
This is something I cover in my video on "Why is Lydia
running away to Gretna Green?"
There were several different ways to get married in Regency England.
The most expensive and the most exclusive was to get a special marriage license
from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Now, this is a really interesting topic because opinions vary so much on whether
Darcy and Elizabeth could actually qualify for one of those special licenses.
Because the people who usually qualified to get a special license were English
peers, children of English peers, members of parliament, Knights,
Baronets and other similar people.
There's an actual list of people who qualified.
So what's really interesting is I saw in a 1852 marriage guide about how to
actually get one of these special license.
And it did list out those requirements of who could get it.
But then it specifically stated that essentially anyone could apply to receive
one, if they felt like they had a special or a weighty reason for having one.
Because the Archbishop pretty much has the ability to give them to whoever
he wants at his own discretion.
So even though Darcy and Elizabeth wouldn't be on those lists of essentially
people who have been pre-approved for a special license, Darcy could
very well apply for one anyway.
And what's fascinating too, is the fact that Jane Austen's own brother
Henry, when he married their cousin, Eliza, had a special marriage license.
So Jane Austen would have been very familiar with special
marriage licenses since one was used, even within her own family.
And her brother, Henry was not anywhere near being on that list of
people who were approved to get them.
And he was nowhere near the social standing and wealth of Mr.
Darcy.
So Darcy with his social standing and wealth, I personally think could have
probably gotten one if he wanted to.
So again, here we have Mrs.
Bennet to being right about Mr.
Darcy.
So now I really want to put Darcy into context of the overall
social hierarchy at the time.
And we're going to do this with a quote by Mr.
Collins.
And this is when Mr.
Collins is writing to Mr.
Bennett to congratulate him on Jane and Elizabeth's future marriages.
This is why he says.
He says, "Your daughter, Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long
bear the name of Bennet after her elder sister has resigned it.
And the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably, looked up to has one of the
most illustrious personages in this land."
Right?
Darcy is an illustrious personage.
And of course, when I used to read Pride and Prejudice
casually, I used to think, "Okay.
It's Collins being over-exaggerating Collins again."
But no, Mr.
Darcy was literally one of the most illustrious personages
in the land financially.
And let's look at why.
So as a landed gentlemen, Mr.
Darcy fell into the top tier of society.
Of course, that top tier included Temporal Lords, which is Lords like
earls and viscounts and dukes and stuff.
Spiritual Lords, like the Archbishop, baronets, knights, esquires and gentlemen.
And of course that would just be those who are land owning gentlemen.
So in British society at the time, this top tier of Lords and archbishops
and land owning gentlemen was the top 1.17% of the entire population.
So just simplifying that down.
They were the top 1% of society.
And this top 1% usually had at least six times as much annual
income as the average annual income.
If you were a poor person in the top 1%, you still had six times
what everybody else averaged.
That's how rich these people were.
So really let's analyze this top 1% here.
And I'm going to put up this social chart from 1759.
I've of course, deflated Darcy's and the Bennet's income down to what it
would have been during this time period.
And what do we see?
Well, Darcy's family fell in very high bracket of this 1%.
In fact, his family would have been in around the top 300 richest
families in the entire country.
In fact, he's the top 1.7% of the top 1%.
When you're the top 1% of the top 1% you're really, really rich.
And in fact, the main bulk of the people in this top, 1% only had one
fifth of Darcy's income or less.
Which is of course right around the place that the Bennet's fall.
So while Darcy is in the top 300 families, Elizabeth Bennet's family
would only be in around the top 2000 families in the country.
There is a big difference there.
Editing Ellie here.
I just wanted to pop in and explain something really quick about this 1%
I'm talking about in the social chart.
So the top of society was defined by two different factors
as we're looking at here.
One is their income.
They were some of the top earners of society.
I'm going to talk a little bit about how the richest merchants also made
around 600 pounds a year, which would be ranking in the lower levels of this 1%.
But the reason they're not included in this 1% I'm talking about is
the second factor of social class.
So really the spiritual and temporal Lords and the landed Gentry really did form the
social class at the top of society, while also forming some of the richest people.
Does that mean that some merchants didn't make as much as some of this 1%?
No, but those merchants were not included in the 1% here because
they didn't have the social ranking.
And of course, social ranking in society at the time was a huge factor
to be taken into consideration.
Though, with that being said, there were still very relatively few families out
of the millions of families in England at the time that would have made anywhere
near close to what these guys made.
So again, they really are in general, the richest class of all society.
So let's dive back into that now.
And now, remember, this is only the top 1% of over 1.5 million.
Families in the country where their average income during
this time period would have been more around 46 pounds a year.
That's correct.
46 pounds.
That's all they had to live off of as an entire family.
Meanwhile, even the richest merchants were averaging around 600 pounds a year.
Master manufacturers got about 200.
A farmer had a range between 40 and 150 pounds a year.
And the poor average laborer in London only made around
27 and a half pounds a year.
Now I want to talk about though, one of the reasons, that sometimes
people think that Darcy wasn't that rich and that is because they compare
him to the very, very, very top.
So of course, if we look at this chart again, we see that the very top of it
would have been around 26,950 pounds.
But remember there's only 10 families in the whole country averaging that.
And one of those 10 families happened to be the Dukes of Devonshire.
So the Devonshires in 1764 were averaging around 36,000 pounds a year by 1813/1815,
that had gone up to 70,000 pounds.
And I think this is where a lot of people think, "Well, the Duke
of Devonshire has 70,000 pounds.
Darcy only has 10,000 pounds.
Darcy must not be that rich."
But really, as we see from this chart, that family was an
outlier even among the rich.
They were abnormally wealthy.
And as we talked about earlier with the Lords average being around 8,000
pounds in 1803, clearly they were abnormal, even for the peerage set.
They were astronomically rich.
So I really just because there were these few outliers of extreme wealth,
this does not mean that Darcy was any way less extraordinarily rich.
Just to give you a modern example of this, I went on forbes.com and I looked
up the richest people in the world.
And of course this is all net worth stuff because I couldn't
find their annual incomes.
But the day I checked, the richest man in the world was Jeff Bezos
of Amazon with $177 billion.
Now, even among billionaires, Jeff Bezos is kind of an outlier.
Him, Elon and Bill are some of the very few people to have
gone over that 100 billion mark.
Anyway, Jeff Bezos is number one, 177 billion.
So then I wanted to find someone who had only one seventh of that wealth.
And I went down the list to number 64, who has 25.5 billion.
And that guy is named Leonard Lauder.
Yes, he is the Estee Lauder cosmetics company guy.
And he has only one 1/7th the wealth of Bezos.
Which is of course the same ratio that Darcy has presumably
to the Dukes of Devonshire.
And yet, if we look at the Estee Lauder guy, he's still the
64th richest man in the world.
I don't think there's anyone out there being like, "You know who
doesn't have that much money?
The Estee Lauder guy.
He's like middle class.
Compared to Bezos, he's nothing.
So he must not be rich."
No, nobody is saying this.
Obviously the Estee Lauder guy still is very, very rich.
Likewise, Darcy, even though he only had one seventh of the Dukes of Devonshire's
money, he was still ridiculously wealthy during this time period.
And of course Darcy's illustriousness also comes in, when we think
about how much land he owns.
Of course, in order for Pemberley to generate as much income as
it does, he has to own at least 10,000 to 15,000 acres of land.
And of course in the 18 hundreds, 10,000 plus acreage land owners were at the
very top of all landowning gentlemen.
And it reminds me of the scene in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth is looking
at Pemberley and she thinks this about Mr.
Darcy.
It says, "As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's
happiness were in his guardianship.
How much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow?
How much of good or evil must be done by him?"
So here we see Elizabeth thinking about the fact that he is this
massive landlord and land owner that does have so many people's lives,
livelihoods and homes in his hands.
And so really Darcy's, landowning alone was a massive venture and put
him at the top of society again.
Which is of course why everyone in Pride and Prejudice reacts to him that way.
He is a big deal in the book because in real life, Regency England, he
would have been a very big deal.
As Mr.
Collins pointed out, with being one of the top 300 families in the country.
He's literally one of the most illustrious personages in the land.
Anyway, just to pretty much sum up what we learned in this video.
Basically was Darcy actually that rich?
And the answer is yes, he was ridiculously, extremely rich.
And that is exactly why, as I said, everyone in Pride and
Prejudice reacts to him that way.
Because he was, he was a really, really, really rich.
Admittedly, he's not even real, but if he was real, he would have been really rich.
Which at the very end of Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth is asking Darcy,
what made him fall in love with her?
She points out that she thinks it's because unlike all the other
girls, she didn't fall all over him.
Do you think that's the real reason Darcy fell in love with her?
Because admittedly, a lot of girls were probably after him, him being one of the
most eligible gentlemen in the country.
So was her indifference, the key to his heart?
Let me know in the comments down below and keep having an awesome day.
Cause you're awesome. Bye!!!