Iocane powder!! It comes from Australia.
That’d be a brilliant solution, but is it reasonable for Anna or Bates or a judge or a lawyer to be able to figure it out?
Agreed. In the real world, he would’ve been long gone, never ever to return, after being caught stealing wine. Even now, there are witnesses to his recent naughtiness in advising the Very Tall New Footman on how to remove a stain (i.e. badly damage) Matthew’s dinner jacket, and making Mosley his patsy in falsely suggesting that O’Brien would soon be leaving Downton Abbey. Carson already dislikes and distrusts Thomas. O’Brien could easily get him fired… but that wouldn’t be as entertaining as seeing him remain on staff but on the receiving end of her dirty tricks.
I don’t think you can build immunity to arsenic. Doesn’t it just build up in the system until you reach a toxic level? Although, it’s entirely possible that she was misinformed and that’s what she thought she was doing. . .
Left at the altar by a man twice her age? That’s beyond humiliating. At least if he said something before the ceremony they could pass it off as Edith breaking the engagment.
Thomas admited to giving Alfred advice, but there weren’t any witnesses when he actually showed him what chemical to use so he has plausible denibility there (plus Carson was unsure about Alfred’s skills to begin with, and definatly not happy over how O’Brien got her nephew hired). And Mosley already has a reputation as a drunk, plus O’Brien’s the only person he told about Thomas and she has other plans for Thomas (as opposed to having Mosley rat him out to Carson).
O’Brien played several pranks on Ethel that both Mrs Hughes and Lady Grantham are aware of. Thomas is in the same position as O’Brien; he answers directly to his master, not Carson. Nobody downstairs really has any contol over him, and Lord Grantham is just as blind & ignorant about Thomas as his wife is about O’Brien. And O’Brien’s done far, far worse things than Thomas.
As evidenced by the fact that he asks, “Are you not popular downstairs, Thomas?”
Because, for some reason, that’s how I thought it was spelled.
I’m guessing this was in reply to something in the last couple of spoiler boxes? So now it didn’t help that I opted NOT to click on the spoiler boxes? :dubious:
I refuse to participate in boxing guesses. That’s just ridiculous. Nobody is giving actual answers here.
According to The Straight Dope, you can build a tolerance (not an immunity) to arsenic, and, as mentioned in a spoiler box above, arsenic tolerance is a well-known device in British mysteries dating from the time period of Downton Abbey.
I reckon all us goofballs think alike. 
OK, sorry. I thought anyone who didn’t want to have a guess spoiled wouldn’t want to see my joke based on a guess.
Lord Fellows is just giving general “here’s the situation” pointers to the cast just before saying “Action!” rather than writing the show this season, isn’t he?
Does anybody think that Mary is supposed to be portrayed as unlikable? She has a choice of using her husband’s one time only-will never happen again-out of the sky huge inheritance (again, there isn’t going to be any more) to prop up a white elephant that has twice very nearly been lost to financial catastrophe in her father’s lifetime. The first time it was saved by Robert’s marriage to the American, the second time if it’s saved it will be to the Legacy of Lavinia, but both times have proven irrefutably that the palace is not and cannot be supported without massive quantities of outside money, and even that is only a temporary fix.
Or, she can sell it and live in a sprawling mansion that, apparently, can be easily supported by the family’s revenues into near perpetuity. Let’s go with the palace.
And what would Lavinia’s dad have left? The equivalent of $100 million in today’s USD? Because in any era it would take the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in today’s currency to sustain that beautiful monstrosity.
Also, if Robert can break the unbreakable entail to sell the palace, I wonder why he couldn’t break it to leave a larger inheritance to his daughters. I also wondered how Cora’s father would ever let that one slide since he could easily have stopped it as he was under no compulsion at all to add to the Crawley fortunes and could have clearly stated “This money is earmarked for my daughter and her children, not for House Crawley” with her dowry.
Plus Violet doesn’t live at Downton but in a mansionette presumably nearby owned by the family as part of the village. Why would she have to move? Clearly they can divorce the village from the palace- they said as much.
Lots of loopholes.
In the documentary, didn’t they say upkeep was about a million a year?
This was a major plot point in the first season. Robert refused to separate the title from the estate.
I think Cora’s dad was already dead at the time of her marriage, and the very young Cora was bullied into signing a sort of pre-nup, tying whatever money she had into the original (entailed) estate.
Yes, I see your point. Except, since I hadn’t clicked on the spoiler box there was no way to know if your reply was revealing a real spoiler or not. But besides that, in my view, if I decide to opt out of clicking a spoiler box, you don’t get to take away my option just because you think the spoiler box contents aren’t valid spoiler box contents.
[QUOTE=Martha Levinson]
Because your grampa tied the money down; he felt that the Crawley family had had quite enough.
[/QUOTE]
Mr Levinson was alive when Cora got married (or at least engaged) and was aware where her dowry was going. Now it’s possible he did die before the details of the marriage settlement & entail were worked out, but he knew Cora’s money was going to be tied up in the estate. Besides it would’ve gone to Cora’s heirs, if only she bore a son. It doesn’t look like it ever occured to anyone that would’ve been a problem.
I see it more as, “Oh, but Daddy! I love him! And he loves me! If I can help save his estate with my inheritance, I really should! Why wouldn’t I? Please, Daddy!”
And Daddy couldn’t say no to his little girl.