Though seldom on stage, the Fitzwilliam clan is the highest-ranking family in the novel, with connections to virtually every aristocratic character we meet. Presumably they are fairly prestigious, though given that last generation’s daughters seem to have married down the social ladder, it is not unreasonable to assume that the prestige of their title may outweigh their actual financial wealth.
Based on the characters we meet in novel, we can infer the following about the Fitzwilliam family tree:
- The Late Earl of ------- had the following children:
- The Earl of -------, who married an unspecified woman and has at least the following children:
- Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam, who married Sir Lewis de Bourgh and the following children:
- Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, who married Mr. Darcy Senior and had the following children:
It is possible that there are more children of the late Earl, but they do not appear in the novel. We have no information about where the ancestral estate might be; based on the patterns of the time as well as the fact that Fitzwilliam daughters married into families from wide-ranging Derbyshire and Kent, it is likely that the family is well-connected in London society.
