Yes, Richard Bellamy was very much a product of the middle-class. This was an issue when his brother visited. The Bellamys were basically living off the interest of Lady Marjorie’s dowry (rent-free in a house her father owned). This became an issue when she died, and no provision had been made for Richard because it was assumed she’d outlive him. Remember for most of series 3 & 4 James was technically master of the house and Richard just lived with him. Then after Hazel died and Richard remaried James let them live there while went into rooms because he didn’t want to sack all the servants. Richard was created a Viscount circa 1918 as a way of getting him out of the House of Commons (& active political life).
To be fair everything Lady Edith said was true, Lady Mary’s the one that made up a lie. It was very stupid of Lady Edith to reveal the proposal in front of her sister, condsidering Lady Mary had alread confronted her about the letter. One of them is going to end up a spinster, and the other in trapped in loveless marriage of convenience. Lady Sybil will end up marrying for love instead of money, and her bitter sisters will spend the rest of their lives looking down on her for it.
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I wonder why it was so expensive. It’s not like there’s a lack of costumes and scenery for period dramas in the U.K. (I could see battle scenes of WWI with hundreds of extras being expensive ,though on Upstairs Downstairs they didn’t show any come to think of it). Even renting a couple of horseless carriages - I’ve seen those here when car shows are being held
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Oh yeah… I remember that now. God, I loved that show… my (then) husband and I used to watch it on Sunday afternoon while drinking gin and tonics. I soooo wanted Hazel and Richard to get together after James… you know…There was some definite chemistry between them. But Richard’s second wife was very nice, too.
Carry on.
Does anyone else remember when Lord Grantham was the Tidy Bowl Man?
Actually, as such, either one. It’s not uncommon to refer to a noble family collectively by their title rather than their actual family name. Especially considering that titles were in use centuries before family names.
What Edith said about Mary wasn’t any of Edith’s business, let alone to spread tales to the embassy. They didn’t need details like what Mary and their employee were involved in. Especially, a sister, shouldn’t go around nailing your sister about an indelicate situation. Just opens Edith up for what she got back, as she should have. Eye for an eye and all that.
I’m sure the location shooting added quite a bit to the budget. I’m looking at Wikipedia and:
Edith was motivated solely by jealousy and anger over being treated as the ugly sister by nearly everyone. What she did was utterly hateful and could ruin Mary’s life. Mary is no saint, but I at least give her credit for only wrecking Edith’s chances with Lord Whosit, not destroying her reputation among everyone they know. If Lord Whosit wasn’t so vain and worried about being old, Mary’s gambit wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Not all of Mary’s conflicted feelings re Matthew had to do with being opportunistic. If she had accepted Matthew’s proposal she felt honor-bound to also tell him the truth about Pamuk. She needed to decide how she felt about Matthew, and also work up her courage to tell him about her scandalous behavior. And if she told him the truth she didn’t know if he would then reject her. I think she was trying to sort all that out within her swirling emotions, right along with all the opportunistic factor, and also along with her growing affection and respect for Matthew. She just hadn’t had time to figure out what she felt, or how she felt about what she felt. And until she figured it out for herself she couldn’t possibly be expected to discuss it with Matthew. The timing of her mother’s miscarriage was unfortunate, but that’s also why it happened when it did, written into the drama by the author at that point to make the story even more complex and interesting.
Since Edith had done unforgivable harm to Mary with that letter, of course Mary had to get revenge as part of the continuing dramatic battle between them. I felt sorry for Mary, but I didn’t feel sorry for Edith when Mr. TooBoring walked away without proposing. I thought Edith just got what she deserved, proving once again that she’s out of her league when trying to take on Mary. In my view Mary is being portrayed as evil, but still has a few redeeming qualities. She’s only a partial devil compared to Edith. That’s why Carson has a soft spot for her too. And despite her beauty, Matthew couldn’t like her enough to consider marriage if she was 100% evil.
Besides Mary as a character in this drama, I’m really enjoying how well Michelle Dockery is playing that role, and bringing that proud/stubborn/petty/caring/scared/vengeful/vulnerable/confused/hatable/likable character to life. Brilliant.
I think Matthew was most gloriously radiant in his anger and frustration at Mary in the final ep. Wow.
According to wikipedia “Michelle Dockery, Dame Maggie Smith, Brendan Coyle, Rob James-Collier and Dan Stevens have all signed up for the second series”, which includes Tom’s character played by James-Collier.
For anyone who’s interested, all episodes are viewable online for a limited time…
And I do wish you folks would stop with the details about Upstairs Downstairs, as I’ve never seen it and have to skip over posts so as not to risk spoilers. Thx.
This has already been answered, but for anyone who’s interested in this sort of thing then there’s an easy way to tell whether a woman is a capital-L Lady by birth or by marriage. If she’s called “Lady Firstname” she’s the daughter of a titled nobleman. IIRC she must be the daughter of a fairly high ranking nobleman at that. I think it’s only Earls and above whose daughters get the courtesy title “Lady”. If a woman is “Lady Placename” or “Lady Lastname” then she’s married to a man with a title. This need not be one of the higher-ranking titles, the wife of a Baronet or Knight would still be a Lady.
On Downton Abbey this is why the Earl of Grantham’s wife Cora is called Lady Grantham (or the Countess of Grantham) while their daughters are Lady Mary, Lady Edith, and Lady Sybil.
I actually did feel worse for Edith. Yeah, she started it, but she was hurt in a different way. Mary might have good reason to get Edith back, but it seemed like a disproportionate response.
It’s hard though because I’m looking at it through 2011 eyes, and in my head I am thinking “It’s just your reputation,” but I know 100 years ago reputation for a woman was everything. And then I go too far in the other direction and I think “What was Mary thinking?” While it was horribly unfair, it was the standard of the time. Losing your virtue to a brown foreigner when your entire estate is on the line? (I wouldn’t let my fiance share a bed even non-sexually with me in my family’s house in this era!) But I liked that it had me pulled in so many different directions and questioning actions through the lens of that era and ours. It made me think and grateful to have been born now, where at least if a foreign guy died in my bed, I’d be embarrassed for a while, but it wouldn’t ruin my life forever.
So I will kick around in my head for a long time “Was Mary worse than Edith?”
I really enjoyed the whole series and avoided this thread for spoilers, but I’m so glad to read it’ll continue.
I hope it doesn’t pick up immediately and I don’t think we need to see all of the characters that just appeared in every future episode. Life changes, people move on. Sometimes shows go off the rails too much when they cram everyone in where they don’t belong any more.
You’re right. Children of Viscounts or Barons are only “The Honourable John/Jane Doe”. Younger sons of a Dukes or Marquess (yes that is a masculine title) are “Lord John Doe”, the wife of such a man would be “Lady John Doe” (unless she’s the daughter of an earl/marquess/duke or is a peeress in her own right). The younger son of an Earl is only “The Hon. John Doe”. The wife of a peer can only use “Lady” with her husband’s title, never her given name. Likewise the wife of a knight or baronet can only use “Lady” with her husban’s surname, never her given name.
Unless she marries a peer the daugter of a peer keeps her “maiden style”, but uses her husband’s surname. So Lady Edith Crawley would’be become Lady Edith Strallen since the daughter of an earl outranks the wife of a baronet and naturally she’d use the higher style. Lady Mary Crawley, after marrying Mr Matthew Crawley, would become Lady Mary Crawley. Then when her father died she’d become The Countess of Grantham (Lady Grantham for short) and her mother becomes “The Dowager Countess of Grantham”. But if Granny Violet is still alive she get’s to stay “The Dowager Countess of Grantham” and Cora becomes “Cora, Countess of Grantham” until her mother-in-law dies and she get’s to be “Dowager Countess…”.
I think I misinterpreted that scene. I thought that Mary was referring to a second suitor of Edith, not the old fuddy-duddy (i.e., Sir Anthony Strallan).
Almost fooled me too, but when I figured out what Mary was really doing it was even more fun to watch that scene. Also, it showed why Mary is such a worthy opponent in the revenge game. If it had dawned on the “fuddy-duddy” that Mary was indulging in sibling rivalry he might have been inclined to disregard Mary’s comments. Or he could have been distracted/appauled by Mary lowly evilness. But the way she played it so innocently left him with no distractions, so he could focus his entire attention on his own pain and shame.
And then there was Edith’s moment of realization when she saw him leave, then looked over at Mary who offered a slight knowing nod, while also ever-so-subtley raising a glass of champagne in triumph. Whew.
You said it. Whew indeed! Great scene, and further proof that Mary is not to be trifled with. As Roald Dahl wrote, “Women with titles go for your vitals.”
BTW, I meant to ask: the doctor implied that women about to enter menopause can be exceptionally fertile. Any truth to that, or was it a 1910s-era medical myth?
I thought the whole point of his using the doctor for a reference (“I want to help people get better” gak) was to get into the Home Guard so that he wouldn’t be assigned overseas. Pretty savvy move on his part.
Pre-/Peri-menopause is not so much of a predictable downward slide; much more like a topsy-turvy rollercoaster, with fits and spurts, and stops and starts. I’m no doctor but thinking of my own experience it’s easy for me to imagine it also includes unexpected periods of heightened fertility.
I also thought of another question, for anyone. When O’Brien didn’t pick up the soap, and kicked at it with her foot, I thought she was being lazy, or was miserably distracted by her belief that she was about to be replaced. When she kicked at the soap I thought that was a half-hearted attempt to push it out of the way, so it wouldn’t be an immediate hazard. Or was she trying to intentionally create a hazard? And did she later regret that her laziness/distractedness caused such a terrible loss? Or did she regret harming someone who was actually innocent? Anyway, at least she showed some signs of regret and remorse, whereas someone like Tom would have celebrated his success at causing such an unfortunate misery.
Sort off. As she approachs menopause a woman’s menstrual cycle can become highly irregular (which is a very bad thing if you’re using the rhythm method) and changing hormone levels can cause the release of mulitple eggs per cycle (thus increasing the risk of twins). A missed period (or other bodily changes) that a younger woman might interpret as a possible pregnancy might be dismissed by an older woman as “the change”.
It’s also not uncommon for a woman to go through years of apparent infertility, give up all hope of having a child and stop using any kind of birth control, then accidently get pregnant in her 40s. One of my great-grandmothers went through 22 years of childless marriage then had 2 twins at the age of 42, followed by another set 2.5 years later.
I wonder if the Granthams have been practicing any kind of family planning at all? Their most likely options are Withdrawl and the Rhythm Method and Lord Grantham did ask “What did we do differently?”. Plus Lady Mary did make that comment about “smart people sleeping in seperate bedrooms”. Given the importance of a son I don’t think they would make an effort to avoid pregnancy unless Cora had problems with pregnancy/miscarriage and her further pregnancy wout put her life at stake. Then again she didn’t seem all that concerned about her most recent pregnancy.
raindrop, I thought it was pretty clear that O’Brien purposely and maliciously put the half-bar of soap where Lady Cora would slip on it, then went into the other room, spoke to herself reproachfully, thought better of what she’d done, and was just giving a warning when she heard Her Ladyship slip and fall.
Then when her father died she’d become The Countess of Grantham (Lady Grantham for short) and her mother becomes “The Dowager Countess of Grantham”. But if Granny Violet is still alive she get’s to stay “The Dowager Countess of Grantham” and Cora becomes “Cora, Countess of Grantham” until her mother-in-law dies and she get’s to be “Dowager Countess…”.