The Death of Edmund Bridgerton: Julia Quinn's book and Netflix show

[It's not just because of Daphne Bridgerton's sizzling romance with Simon Bassett, Duke of Hastings. You may remember that the show's first eight episodes featured a curious number of bees flying around in both the opening and closing scenes, complete with waistcoats and bejeweled accessories. And while the significance of that bee imagery was mysteriously left out of the Netflix show's debut, all will finally be revealed in the second season, which premieres March 25 (open in new tab).

In a nutshell, as avid readers of the Julia Quinn-authored romance series (opens in new tab) that inspired the show already know, that incessant buzzing actually contains some pretty dark symbolism. His death had such a profound effect on his eldest son, Anthony, that it makes sense that the bee mystery would rear its head in both the show's second season and Quinn's second series, The Viscount Who Loved Me. Here's how Edmund's tragic end plays out in both versions, with light spoilers for season 2 of "Bridgerton."

See an excerpt from the prologue to "The Viscount Who Loved Me" (opens in a new tab). In summary, 18-year-old Anthony returns home from horseback riding with his brother Benedict to find that his father has died from a bee sting. Edmund dies at the age of 38, just as he and his wife Violet are expecting their eighth and final child, daughter Hyacinth.

Anthony's reaction was disbelief that a little bug had killed his father: "It can't be. It can't be. Edmund Bridgton was young and strong. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his muscles were strong, and I swear to God, no insignificant bee could have beaten him," he muses in his book.

But when his worst fears are confirmed, Anthony soon becomes convinced that he will not outlive his father, "the center of [his] world," and begins to fear that he too will die young. After the late Viscount's death, coupled with his "overwhelming sense of responsibility for his family," Anthony creates a checklist of ideal wives that makes no mention of actual love.

His on-screen cause of death remains the same as in the book: Edmund, played in a series of flashbacks by "Charmed" star Rupert Evans, dies almost immediately from a bee sting to the neck. Several details surrounding his death, however, have been tweaked for dramatic purposes. Most importantly, it is Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), not Eloise (Claudia Jesse), who must watch his father die helplessly when he returns to his sprawling country home after the hunt.

The effect of Edmund's death on his eldest son is also slightly different in the show, with the novel's Anthony's obsession with his own death and the obvious fate of dying young not mentioned at all in the Netflix adaptation. Yet he is driven by tragedy, choosing his wife with his head rather than his heart, much to the chagrin of his family.

Anthony is shown to be greatly affected by his father's death throughout the eight episodes of the season. Not only does he repeatedly zonk out in the middle of a conversation and reminisce about his memories of his father, but this tragedy sets up an internal battle that drives almost all of Anthony's actions throughout the show, for better or worse.

For one thing, with his father gone, Anthony is solely responsible for ensuring the long-term prosperity of the Bridgerton family and leading his sisters into desirable marriages (as seen in the show's first season). With this heavy responsibility on his shoulders, he is single-minded about making his ideal marriage partner, ideally a young woman who is well-educated, well-bred, and able to carry on a conversation.

As the season progresses, we learn that Edmund's death is another reason why Anthony has avoided true love literally like the plague. Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) lost her husband a few weeks before Hyacinth was born, and Anthony, still a teenager, was not equipped to cope or understand. Anthony, who has since refrained from a loveless marriage, tells his mother that he has always avoided love because he never wants to be the cause of the intense grief that Violet experienced after Edmund's death. It was all Violet could do to persuade her son, as Tennyson wrote only a few decades later, that "it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved."

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