Arthur Osgood
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| Portrayed by Ed Stoppard | |
| Full Name | Arthur Peter Llewellyn Osgood |
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| Title | Duke of Pevensey |
| Associated Noble House(s) | Duchy of Pevensey, Marquessate of Brookwood, Earldom of Larkhill |
| Date of Birth | January 31st, 1768 |
| Father | David Osgood |
| Father's Rank | Duke |
| Mother | Josephine Osgood |
| Mother's Rank | Duchess |
| Town Residence | Park Street / St. James' Square |
| Income | £120,000 |
| School | Eton |
| University | Oxford, St. John's College |
| Year Attained Title | 1769 |
| Year of Marriage | 1787 |
| Spouse | Ava Werlington |
| Spouse's Rank | Gentry |
| Spouse's Death | 1800 |
| Issue | George Osgood, Harriet Osgood, Henry Osgood (paternity disputed), Felicity Osgood |
Arthur Osgood is the ninth Duke of Pevensey.
Arthur is played by Ellie
Family
- Father: David Osgood (1737-1769)
- Mother: Josephine Osgood (1748-1769)
- Wife: Ava Osgood, nee Werlington (1768-1798)
- Son: George Emanuel Osgood, Marquess of Brookwood (1788)
- Daughter: Lady Harriet Nerys Osgood (1789)
- Son: Lord Henry Carwyn Osgood (1792)
- Carwyn is in fact the son of the Earl of Wyck
- Daughter: Lady Felicity Rhiannon Osgood (1794)
History
Arthur has been the Duke of Pevensey for as long as he can remember. Born the first child of the eighth Duke and Duchess of Pevensey in the winter of 1768, his parents would die a year later in a fire that gutted the East wing of their Sussex family seat. The young duke was removed by his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, and her second husband (the Earl of Branksea) to their home in Dorset, which was left to him upon the earl's death in 1790.
He attended Eton, then St. John's College, Oxford, and there was very little time for the young Pevensey to truly be considered a catch for he proposed to Miss Ava Werlington, a granddaughter of the Duke of Beaumont, in a whirlwind summer romance during the holidays of his second year of university. The pair married a year later, after the completion of his studies. Arthur officially left his grandparents' house to return to Sussex, and his first children soon followed.
A few months before the birth of their daughter he became deeply involved in politics and grew abruptly distant from his family as he became wrapped up in a world where he was listened to and respected not just because of his rank. He was not so ignorant as to believe that these men would respect his opinions half so much if he were not a duke, but he was certain that he grew in their estimation over the days and months, his attitude and intellect belying his young years. He campaigned vocally alongside family friend Rawdon Montgomery III, the then Earl of Alderhan, for the total abolition of the slave trade and put his name to any number of proposals that might improve relations with the Americas, visiting once or twice with political delegations.
As he spent more and more time away from home, the young, sweet-tempered duchess was left alone, feeling rather as if she had been abandoned with two young children who simply would not stop asking why it was that papa didn't want to see them anymore, a question to which she did not have any kind of answer. She was mostly naïve to the attentions of gentlemen, she had known only her husband as a suitor and most men were wise enough not to attempt to involve themselves with the wife of a duke - though once he wasn't around, it was something of a different story and it was all too easy for one particularly charming earl to get under the skin of the lonely, neglected girl.
She faltered only once, but once was all it took. Arthur has never asked Ava who the child’s father truly was, he has his suspicions and has never wanted them confirmed. They had hoped against hope that it would be easy to pass the boy off as his - they managed to hide the birth by a month or so, but as Carwyn has grown older it has become evident that he resembles neither Arthur, Ava, or their respective families. It was a difficult time for the couple, but it brought Arthur to his senses, helped him to reconsider his priorities, and the couple reconciled a little before the boy was born. He has let those in Dorset who wish to gossip assume he fathered a bastard; he feels it is the very least that he can do for his poor wife's memory. It was six years after the pair of them reconciled that Ava fell sick. The doctor called it 'a malady of the breast', and warned him there was nothing that could be done but to make her comfortable. Ava's family were less willing to heed that doctor's advice than Arthur was and pressed him to take her to a surgeon in London, who claimed to be able to perform all sorts of brilliant new-fangled procedures. Against his better judgement he agreed -- and Ava died alone, in agony, on an operating table with only the surgeon for company.
After her death he retreated from society, electing to move his family from their Sussex home in the grounds of Pevensey Castle to the Dorset island that his step-grandfather had left to him, where his mild-mannered (and now very forgetful) grandmother still resides. Arthur has never forgiven himself for not protecting his wife and so he has protected his children fiercely -- but perhaps to their detriment. Until his eldest son left for university, none of the four children had left Dorset since their move eight years previously. It was little wonder, then, that Emanuel felt the urge to get out and see the world. He had always had daydreams of joining the Navy, which had been impossible given his father's protective disposition and the fact of the future inheritance. Arthur has raised Carwyn as his own, and he has been afforded all the same love as his siblings, but there is talk enough that Arthur is hesitant even to allow him to attend university, let alone consider that perhaps he might inherit the Osgood title when he is certainly not one of them. No matter how much he has come to love the boy, Arthur reasons that Emanuel must inherit. They eventually reached an agreement - Emanuel would join William Lewis, an old friend of Arthur's who captains an Indiaman, for a year or two before returning to England to fulfil his familial obligations. It is a compromise and it is, Arthur rationalises to his son, better this way, as he may travel under William's watchful eye and remain out of trouble.
If only he'd known.
A vague but alarming letter from his son has brought him back to London, anticipating the return of The Hermes within the next fortnight. He agonised as to whether to leave the rest of his family on Branksea without him, or to keep them with him in a dangerous city, eventually deciding that he would feel more comfortable if they were with him and that, depending on what Emanuel has done, he might well be glad of their assistance.
Personality
There was a time when he was younger it was thought that, perhaps, the Duke of Pevensey could make an excellent Prime Minister. He is well known in his political circles for being a helpless bleeding heart, but also as a bright and engaging speaker, with a quick wit and the invaluable ability to make whoever he is speaking with feel valued and understood. (He is also, as most politicians are, rather fond of the sound of his own voice.) With the right guidance, they murmured to each other, he could do them proud, and thus Pevensey's departure from society and from the House was considered a great blow.
More prone to jealousy and quiet, cold rage than he was in his youth, he has certainly been hardened by his life experience. has yet to truly find his feet as to who he truly is. He has been Pevensey-the-Husband and Pevensey-the-Politician and Pevensey-the-Father, but now it seems he is to be none of these things: his wife is dead, his children grown and he has been so long recused from politics that he doubts most in the House or the city even remember him anymore. Outside of quiet, sleepy Dorset society and the small circles he still distantly moves in, it is only assumed that he yet lives as the young Brookwood was, indeed, still the young Brookwood at Oxford. Most presume that he must be ill or ailing, the more romantic types whisper that he must be sickened by a broken heart.
The truth is that he is simply extremely overprotective of his children, particularly Carwyn who matches his mother for her naïve and trusting temperament if not her looks. Arthur has had a tendency to become hyper-fixated on the greater good since he was a very young man, indeed it was what caused him to drift from his family in the first place. This time round, it has bonded him tightly to them. But they are hardly recluses, it is not as if he confines them to the island. The family is well known and popular in the local area and he is highly conscious of his duty to those who live on and around their lands, not only in Branksea but also in Sussex (currently rented out, but the tenant farms are maintained by the duke).
But there is hardly a great deal for them to do in Dorset - which is precisely how he likes it.