How Did Elizabeth Warleggan Die on ‘Poldark’?

Poldark returned to PBS for its fifth and final season last night, picking up right where Poldark Season 4 left off: in the wake of Elizabeth Warleggan’s death.

Elizabeth (Heida Reed) had been a major part of Poldark since the beginning. After all, it was her love that motivated Ross (Aidan Turner) when he was suffering on the front lines of the Revolutionary War. It was her marriage to Ross’s cousin Francis Poldark (Kyle Soller) that threatened to tear the former friends apart, and it was Elizabeth who George Warleggan (Jack Farthing) pined after for years before finally marrying her. Her death at the end of Poldark Season 4 has left a void in Season 5, but what exactly happened to her? How did poor Elizabeth die on Poldark?

To understand what happened to Elizabeth, you have to remember how hot, heady, and desperate the love triangle between her, husband George, and former flame Ross became in earlier seasons. After Francis’s death, George Warleggan swooped in, trying to woo Elizabeth with the promise of financial security and never-ending treats for her son Geoffrey Charles. Eventually, financial insecurity and a bit of loneliness broke Elizabeth, and she agreed to marry George. This inflamed Ross so much that he stormed Trenwith and slept with Elizabeth. (The scene was controversial because it was unclear if this extramarital affair was consensual in the first place.)

Almost as soon as Elizabeth marries George, she knows she is pregnant, and likely with Ross’s child. She does her best to stage a scene that suggests a premature delivery, but she remains terrified that George will do the math and realize that his “seven month baby” isn’t his. Things get headier in Season 5 when George begins to suspect she and Ross had an affair — and it doesn’t help that Valentine, their “son,” is the spitting image of Ross Poldark. So when Elizabeth finally becomes pregnant with George’s baby, she hatches a plan to cover her affair with Ross once and for all. (And Ross even gives her the idea to do it!)

In the Poldark Season 4 finale, we see Elizabeth using a fake name to procure a tincture from a back alley doctor to induce early labor. She’s warned it could cause complications, but goes ahead with it. The desperate hope is if she has another “early” baby, George will believe Valentine is his. She has an awful delivery, but finally gives birth to daughter Ursula. Then, her health fails, and she dies of an internal complication. The suggestion is that her potion caused it.

Ironically, Elizabeth’s death almost proves to George that Valentine isn’t his. At least, that’s the suggestion in his angry proclamation to Ross: “Go see what we have brought her to!” You know, implying that their rivalry for her affections has driven her to desperate means to make both men happy.

So Elizabeth died due to complications in a childbirth she tried to speed along with shifty back alley medicine. Her death has left George shattered, to the point where he’s now hallucinating visions of her. Ross, however, seems to be coping just fine, and has even brought Elizabeth’s eldest son, Geoffrey Charles, under his wing.

RELATED: Poldark Season 5 Premiere Recap: Secret Agent Ross

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