#colbourne

While Colbourne has a brother and a mom who he may have had a good bond with, we know most of his interpersonal relationships were a disaster. Colbourne is very very traumatized and filled with self-hatred because of them. We see that in everything.

He was beaten as a kid by his governess. He had a dad who loved drinking, and whom he clearly detests from the way he tells Lady D he's "nothing like him".

He clearly grew up without a warm loving family. Kids with abusive parents grow up with very low self esteem, they often blame themselves for their parents and guardians hurting them and think they deserve poor treatment. People with childhood trauma also frequently have emotionally unsafe attachment styles, either remaining distant or getting too close too quickly and taking all the blame in relationships.

In episode 5 it is clear he feels very guilty for what he said to Lucy after she cheated and became pregnant. Practically no one reacts politely to a spouse cheating. After he got mad he still took her home and took care of her, but he still blames himself in part for her depression and suicide. He believes he made her so unhappy she first left him to go to London (not worthy of her time), then cheat on him (not man enough to take care of her needs, and then she didn't write to him to tell him the truth (not good enough to be trusted with it).

Even though depression doesn't work like that, Colbourne saw himself as the sole reason for her suicide. He believed she hated her life with him so much she rather died.

That's also why he stayed away from Leo and Augusta, because he sees himself as nothing but a burden who makes others unhappy. He only grows closer to his daughter and Augusta when Charlotte tells him his distance is doing more harm than good and clearly he doesn't want to harm a soul. He always takes Charlotte's advice because he clearly trusts her more in regards to taking care of others than himself.

He only starts absolving himself of a bit of guilt when Charlotte tells him Lucy's death wasn't his fault in episode 5 and in episode 6 when she says he's allowed to move on. But he's carried this hate and guilt for a decade, it won't just disappear.

Lennox is tormented, having just discovered that he has a child he never knew about and that he left the woman he loved behind while pregnant. Lennox has just discovered he actually had a family and he instantly had to give it up because he knew that because he's always on the move and he never married Lucy that he can't be a proper father for Leonora. Telling her the truth would make her feel like an orphan, it would make her feel bad about herself as she would be a bastard. Lennox hates himself and Colbourne. He's wounded, so he lashes out to make Colbourne hurt as much as him. So stabs him right where it hurts by once again hammering home Colbourne made his wife so unhappy she rather died.

Colbourne falls for the manipulation because he still believes it's true. He doesn't have confidence. He doesn't fight for Charlotte because he believes he has no right to fight for her. He thinks he's doing the right thing in letting her go. He thinks she'll be better off. He's being dumb but selfless.

And in season 3 he'll be confronted with the reality that he hurt Charlotte and himself more by sending her away than by keeping her. She's now on the path to a loveless marriage, the same thing he'd been stuck in and the same thing that made Lucy cheat because living without love is torture.

In season 3 Colbourne will have to let go of his trauma and get over his self-esteem issues and open himself up for new experiences, love, and the potential of being hurt again. Charlotte has locked herself off for love as she believes the hurt isn't worth it. She's been loved but she's never had a viable proposal. Nothing but a firm guarantee that she is loved and that a marriage is guaranteed will make her reconsider.

Charlotte always had to be the party asking men to be open with her, now he will have to be the one sharing stories about his life and his feelings. Now he will have to be the one to chase, and that won't be easy for someone who doesn't believe himself to be a worthy suitor. He'll have to grovel and give reassurances that her heart will be safe and protected this time, not easy for a man who feels like he failed that before. He'll have to be vulnerable, not easy for a man who keeps everyone at a distance. And he will have to do all of this while Charlotte is engaged and keeping her distance.

Lennox, I admit, makes a dashing first impression. He's charming, he's funny, he's got abbs, he shows genuine interest in Charlotte and says he admires some spunk and independence in a woman, and he has quite good game.

Obviously both Charlotte's potential suitors, Lennox and Colbourne, have some history. Even with each other. The actors admitted in the interviews that Lennox and Colbourne had a - and I quote - "spicy" relationship.

So what's going on? Here's what we know:

Lennox encourages Tom to gamble

Lennox trusts Edward (not a good look)

Lennox is a war hero

Lennox "does not have that pleasure" of a wife and child, or so he tells Charlotte, Georgiana and Alison

Colbourne is a conservative recluse who has lived on the outskirts of Sanditon for "some years"

Colbourne had a wife who died under mysterious circumstances

Colbourne daughter Leonora looks to be younger than 10, probably 7-8. He also looks after his brother/sister's daughter Augusta, who says she's been living in the "prison" that is Colbourne's house for a few years

Colbourne says something about "trust me miss heywood, I know what happens when a woman falls wrong of society's expectations" which gives us the idea that Colbourne knows a particularly sad story about a woman who didn't adhere to the rules of society and paid the price.

In episode 3 Lennox accuses Colbourne of stealing his wife

Lennox and Colbourne have their real first showdown at Lady D's garden party in episode 4 (according to episode descriptions) where they will shoot arrows

According to the episode 5 description, he and Colbourne will fight about Charlotte

Okay, Sanditon, from its very first season, has always used plot points and story beats from the finished Jane Austen novels. So let's play "who is it" with the characters and plot points, and try and guess how the story might turn out from there. My apologies beforehand but I avoid Mansfield Park like the plague so if there's parallel's from that book, I can't see them.

A character that's associated with gambling, getting a poor girl pregnant and having no qualms with dropping her, and having an unhappy marriage is Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility. Willoughby loathes Colonel Brandon, whom he calls old and boring and accuses of making excuses to skip out on fun gatherings. So we have a rogue calling an honourable man who is busy with cleaning up Willoughby's mistakes (i.e. helping Eliza after she was impregnated by Willoughby) bad names.

Wickham is a very charming military man who wasted his inheritance on gambling and big expenses and now has to be in the army to have some form of income. He talks very well of himself and very poorly of Mr. Darcy, whom he accuses of cheating him out of his inheritance. So we have a character accusing another character of something they didn't do.

We have an honourable military man in the shape of naval captain Frederick Wentworth, he is handsome, charming, well off and is straightforward about looking for someone to marry. He holds grudges towards those who go against his convinctions. This could be the case if Lennox is an honourable man.

Colbourne can, as far as the Austen spectrum goes, be compared to Mr. "I don't like public gatherings" Darcy who is bad at expressing himself and is accused by Willoughby of "stealing" something. Colbourne can also be compared to Colonel Brandon in that he's an older, quiet man who is at present taking care of a child that's not his own (Augusta, and perhaps, ...) and tries to stay away from the drama. Just like Brandon there was a tragic woman in his past who suffered the consequences of not adhering to society. Brandon was in love with his unfortunate woman, perhaps Colbourne was as well... Perhaps the woman he was speaking of was his wife.

In all cases this much is clear: the first person who accuses the other of being bad, is usually the person who has the most dirty laundry. Lennox can also already be compared with more of Austen's rakes than her heroes. The precedents set by Austen don't look great for Lennox. Everything depends on...

The wife: this will be the big drama point in the backstory of our male heroes. Did Colbourne steal the wife? Such an accusation would drive Charlotte away from Colbourne, but would it be true? And if it's true, are there circumstances in which that would be acceptable?

To answer that question, let's look at the cheaters of Jane Austen:

A lot of cheating in Mansfield Park, all bad. They get their comeuppance and it's not forgiven

Lucy Steele does not cheat on Edward Ferrars when they're married, but they were engaged when she switched brothers and decided to marry Robert Ferrars instead. Breaking an engagement was very scandalous. If you were engaged, you were as good as married, it would warrant someone saying "you stole my wife". It would also cause a woman to fall from grace and not be welcome in polite society. And well, Colbourne is quite a recluse. Could that be because he and his wife had quite a shameful elopement?

Eliza Brandon was unhappily married to Colonel Brandon's brother and started cheating. His brother divorced her and she was left pregnant and penniless, ending up in the poorhouse before being rescued by Brandon. I think the chance is very slim the showrunners would have one of the people pursuing Charlotte be an actual adulterer. Most watchers would find that quite unforgiveable, but what if Colbourne was the Christopher Brandon in this story? What if Colbourne was in love with Lennox's wife before and during when they were wed? What if, once Lennox divorced his wife, Colbourne saved her and her baby from the poorhouse and married her so the baby could have his name? A very sweet thought, but I doubt Lennox would then say Colbourne stole his wife.

As to non-cheating but still quite unfortunate women who were "stolen":

Georgiana Darcy was seduced and was almost married to Wickham so he had access to her wealth. Colbourne is wealthy. Was that money acquired through marrying the woman Lennox wanted? Orrr did Lennox try to marry a wealthy woman for her dowry, but did Colbourne prevent them from eloping?

Eliza Brandon the second was seduced by Willoughby, made pregnant, and left behind, thinking WIlloughby would come back to marry her once he had found some money. Could Lennox have left the woman Colbourne stole in such a state? Did Colbourne, like Brandon, sweep in and rescue her and bring her to his estate? Perhaps the Eliza 1 and Eliza 2 stories were merged for Colbourne: what if Colbourne loved Eliza, but Lennox seduced her, engaged her, but compromised her honour before going off to fight at Waterloo, promising her that once he was a war hero he would be able to marry her? Colbourne, hating what Lennox did to the woman he loved, could quit the army, pick her up, marry her and pass the child off as his own. Leonora is around 7, the Napoleontic wars raged quite heavily around the time of her birth, it could be.

How did these two men actually meet? When did the drama start? All Austen books point towards two options:

The story either starts when Colbourne swoops in and steals Lennox's fiancée or wife, the way it happened with Eliza 1 and Eliza 2

Or the Darcy-Wickham route where they went to school together/grew up together/did something together. This is the most plausible route. Why? Because Little Leonora wears a redcoat uniform. Where did she get that? The answer is so simple: from her father. Lennox and Colbourne were in the army together, before Colbourne left for dramatic reasons that probably tie in with the "stolen wife".

Conclusions:

Most hints point in the direction of Lennox and Colbourne being two friends or acquaintances who fell out so drastically about a woman (broken off engagement and marrying someone else, cheating and being divorced while pregnant, ...) that Colbourne probably left the army for it. The woman ended up living or being with Colbourne, birthed a child and she later wound up dead. Colbourne clearly loved the woman as her portrait still hangs in his home. Colbourne is clearly the richer of the two frenemies, and Lennox doesn't like him and tries to slander his reputation. That calls for Willoughby and Wickham parallels. Colbourne does his best to keep details around his marriage and himself vague for outsiders, it's clear he's protecting a secret with a certain kind of discretion, something we've only see Darcy and Colonel Brandon do. It makes me think that perhaps the marriage was a rushed affair, or perhaps the timeline of the pregnancy and the wedding didn't add up because the woman was already pregnant. Perhaps the woman's mysterious death could be a suicide because she was ostracized by society for breaking the rules. After the drama that happened with the "Stolen Wife" Colbourne tries to lead a quiet life and tries to keep his charges/children from becoming like the "stolen wife"/ tragic tale.