Content Warning: The Prologue Summary and the Analysis of this section include discussion of the death of parents.

Anthony’s parents, Violet and Edmund Bridgerton, shared a strong love for one another, and the couple were both young when they started their family. Anthony is their firstborn child, and while he was growing up, he treasured the close bond he had with his father. Just before Anthony left to attend Oxford at the age of 15, he visited his family at Aubrey Hall, their ancestral home. Violet was pregnant with her eighth child, and Anthony wondered if, like Edmund and Violet, he and his future wife would keep having children even when they were older. When Anthony entered the main hall, he was shocked to find his younger sister, Daphne, sitting on the floor, crying. Daphne tells Anthony that Edmund died. At first, Anthony did not believe her, but she tells him that their little sister Eloise saw it happen: “He was stung by a bee” (6). Anthony recalled that several years before, he and his father were both stung by bees, and Edmund was fine. Anthony rushes upstairs to find Violet, and she was also in shock.