Lobelia Sackville-Baggins

The feud over Bag End

Lobelia was born a Bracegirdle of Hardbottle in T.A. 2918 (S.R. 1318) and married Otho Sackville-Baggins, the son of Longo Baggins and Camellia Sackville, and so a first cousin of Bilbo's father. Otho was Bilbo's nearest relation on the Baggins side and expected to inherit Bag End. The couple were therefore the chief losers when Bilbo, presumed dead, walked in on the auction of his goods in June 2942; Lobelia was found already measuring his rooms and had to be persuaded, in Bilbo's later opinion never entirely, to give back the silver spoons. Their son Lotho grew up in the shadow of this grievance.

Bilbo's adoption of Frodo in 2989 ended the Sackville-Baggins hopes for good, and at the Farewell Party in 3001 Bilbo left Lobelia a case of silver spoons, the label on it making it clear he had not forgotten. Lobelia was among the first to arrive at Bag End the next morning, the last to leave, and was found carrying off a few small items that had not been given to her. Otho died in 3012 at the age of a hundred and two; Lobelia, a decade younger, outlasted him, and at last in 3018 she got what she wanted. Frodo, needing an excuse to leave the Shire, sold her Bag End, and on 23 September, the morning after his fiftieth birthday, she arrived with Lotho to take possession and found the keys handed over, her hostility towards the departing Frodo undimmed.

The Lockholes

She had it for a year, and it brought her nothing. Lotho's schemes made him first Chief Shirriff and then the prisoner of the Men he had hired, and when Saruman came to Bag End to rule the Shire from it, Lobelia was turned out. She did not go quietly. Meeting the ruffians' leader on the lane, she went for him with her umbrella, and was dragged off to the Lockholes at Michel Delving, an old hobbit of a hundred, for her defiance. It made her popular for the first time in her life. When the Lockholes were opened after the Battle of Bywater she came out on Frodo's arm, thin and bent but still with the umbrella, and was cheered by the crowd.

Restitution

The news of Lotho's murder broke her. She did not return to Bag End but gave it back to Frodo outright and went home to her Bracegirdle relations at Hardbottle. When she died in the spring of 1420 she left all that remained of her money and Lotho's to Frodo, to be spent on the hobbits made homeless by the troubles. The Shire, which had disliked her for eighty years, was surprised and much moved.

Died at Hardbottle in the spring of S.R. 1420, leaving her money to relieve the homeless of the Shire.