About Lara : Lara's Biography - Duchess of Saint Bridget

We've seen on several old fansites, in Lara's biography, the fact that she held the title of Duchess of Saint Bridget. However it wasn't Core Design who gave Lara this title, but actually a fan. Richard J. Pugh of the website ‘Lara’s Scrapbook’, circa 1998, had written a story called 'Duchess of Saint Bridget’ and had used and reworked Core’s official biography for his own fan story. It is a story of how Lara acquired her own wealth when one of her ancestors was given an island that he had named 'Saint Bridget'. He gained the title 'Duke of Saint Bridget' as travellers had nicknamed him 'sir' and Queen Elizabeth later made it official. Since he was forced out by warlords and battles, he never returned to his island and it was sold to the British Empire by Americans to become a part of the Virgin Islands. His title however belonged to his descendants if they could claim his hidden treasure.

When Richard learnt how fans took to using the title in Lara's biography, he said this:
“Another interesting point that people make is Lara’s possession of a title. References to Lara’s title as Duchess, and her estate in the Virgin Islands shows up all over the place. Well, on that front, I’m going to make a big confession. Perhaps I should kept this a secret, but I made up the Duchess of St. Bridget stuff. The games provided no basis for that. But then they didn’t provide something to prohibit it either…. Anyway, Core didn’t make Lara a Duchess, I did. I wasn’t expecting Lara fans the world over to take her "title” and run with it though. Before I knew it, I was seeing the title show up all over the place. I must confess that I’m quite pleased that it happened though; it almost makes parts of my story official."

However, Crystal Dynamics does make Lara Croft the Countess of Abbingdon!

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Source:

Richard's explanation for the mix up, Dated at the latest to November 14th 1998
http://web.archive.org/web/19990209002322/http://patriot.net/~rjpugh/lara/millions.html