Penelope Made A Ton Of Money As Lady Whistledown On Bridgerton

From Amy March’s Little Women monologue to the very first sentence of Pride and Prejudice, money is always a major player in period marriages.

But Colin and Penelope’s marriage in Bridgerton Season 3 flips the script because her secret writing gig was quite lucrative before she ever entered into the prominent Bridgerton family. It’s how she afforded such an impressive new wardrobe in time for her metamorphosis.

But just how rich is Penelope in Bridgerton, exactly?

She’s A Regency Girlboss, Actually

Given the popularity of Lady Whistledown’s gossip column, you probably assumed Penelope was earning good money on Bridgerton. But during Episode 8 of the latest season, the show dropped some specific numbers, and they’re quite impressive.

As Portia and the Bridgertons fret about how to handle Cressida Cowper’s £10,000 blackmail, Penelope assures her family that she’s good for it. “I can pay her,” she says.

“You have made that high a sum?” Eloise asks, shocked.

“Slightly more, if we are being honest,” Penelope says. (As Cher once said, “Mom, I am a rich man.”)

When Colin tries to talk Cressida out of the blackmail scheme, she raises the price to £20,000, and Penelope says she doesn’t have that much. So her nest egg in Bridgerton is somewhere between £10,000 and £20,000 in 1815, when Season 3 is estimated to take place.

According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, this range equates to about £746,000 and £1,492,000 today. For American viewers, that’s about $943,000 to $1,886,000. So Penelope is essentially a Regency millionaire — or very close to it!

The Bridgerton Books Say...

You can also consult Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books for a more thorough idea of Pen’s income. In Colin and Penelope’s story, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, her fortune is said to be £8,246 plus a bit of interest — so not quite as much as her onscreen counterpart, but certainly “enough to keep any reasonable person happy for several lifetimes,” Quinn writes.

And that’s just what Penelope had saved. She gave some money to her mother, too, but pretended it was from her late aunt’s estate. She also donated to charity!

While explaining her finances to Colin, the pair talked about how to use the rest of Penelope’s money, and ultimately decided to save it for their future children. “Our daughters should have money of their own,” she says. “Separate from their dowries.”

Quinn notes that this would have been a “rare” arrangement, but Colin happily obliged.