Traditionally queens dowager were styled “Her Majesty Queen N”, but to avoid confusion with her daughter Queen Elizabeth formally added “Queen Mother” to her style. Before her it was only a descriptive term (for a queen dowager who is also the mother of the current monarch).
All children of Barons & Viscounts are “The Hon. N.N”, daughters of Earls, Marquesses, & Dukes are all “Lady N.N.”. The eldest son of an Earl, Marquess, or Duke uses on of his father’s lesser titles as a courtesty; younger sons of Earls are
“The Hon. N.N.”, and younger sons of Dukes & Marquesses are “Lord N.N.”. Women take the feminine form of their husband’s title, unless they’re qualified for a higher one on their own. So Sybil was still Lady Sybil Branson (though she prefered “Mrs Tom Branson”. Edith would’ve been Lady Edith Strallen intead of Lady Stallen (an earl’s daughter outranks a baronet’s wife).
Lord John Smith’s wife is Lady John Smith; the Hon. John Smith’s wife is the Hon. Mrs John Smith. One never says “the Honourable” aloud; when speaking it’s Mr/Mrs/Miss as appropriate. If a woman marries a peer she automatically takes the feminine form of his title, except on the very rare occause when a woman hold’s a peerage in her own right. Then she only takes her husband’s title if it’s higher than hers (eg if the Countess of London marries Viscount Cardif she stays Lady London, but if he marries the Marquess of Belfast she becomes Lady Belfast). Very few peerages can pass thru the female line though.
They’ll both be dowager countesses, but as the senior widow only Violet will be the Dowager Countess of Grantham. Cora would be Cora, Countess of Grantham until Violet dies. This is also how a peer’s ex-wife is styled (eg Sarah, Duchess of York). If the new is single the old peer’s widow doesn’t change her style at all untill he marries. And if she remarries she either takes her new husband’s style, or reverts to the one she had before she got married.
Correct. Matthew is only the heir presumptive; he doesn’t get a title Robert dies. Andy children of Matthew & Mary would be plast Master/Miss N. Crawley until their dad becomes the Earl. Scottish titles work a little differently. In Scotland the heir (apparent or presumtive) is style the Master/Mistress of (title) so Matthew would be "the Master of Grantham). Of couse since most Scottish titles can pass to women Mary would’ve been her father’s heir all along.
You may be wondering why the feminine form of “Earl” is “Countess”?
Good question. IIRC, it has something to do with the Norman Conquest. The gentry wanted to hang on to the Saxon title of Earl, instead of the French equivalent (Count), but it was ok for their wives to be Countesses.
I keep forgetting to add: While I understood Cora’s wish to have her bed to herself, I thought it was unforgiveable to add to her daughter’s emotional burden by asking her to carry the message to her Father. I actually got nauseous and wondered if I might vomit, it was so sick self-centered.
Yeah but he’s no nice guy either. He was good crying when Sybil died and that was about it. He would be a pain to work with.
I think the theme of this episode was Everyone Finally Stands Up to Robert. Tom did over his daughter’s name and religion. Cora certainly did and so did Matthew and Mary and even Violet. Hell Mrs. Patmore said to fuck with it and ran to help Ethel. I hope we’re not meant to feel sorry for the guy because he really has screwed up and should be called to task for it.
Got some different answers there on # of episodes left… if next week is two hours, is that the last one? Tell me it isn’t so.
The scene with Violet, Robert, Cora, and the doctor was powerful. Once again, Violet’s immense grief and wisdom came through. She was pale as a ghost and that slight gesture of steadying herself on the mantle spoke volumes.
That evil look on O’Brien’s face made me think of Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.
I recently read the Lark Rise to Candleford books (there are actually three of them), and they are pretty different from the TV series so I’d have reservations about recommending them to a fan of the show. The setting, many of the characters, and a few storylines on the show are drawn from the books, but the books are mostly the author’s memoirs about her youth in the late 19th century and a reflection on how things had changed since then. (She wrote them during WWII.) There’s not much plot to them, and many of the chapters are just the author’s recollections about a particular aspect of daily life, like what games children played or the different ways people handled bathing and grooming. Characters that are important on the show, like Alfie or Pearl and Ruby, are based on people who are only mentioned in an anecdote or two in the books.
This has already been answered, but I wanted to mention that the easy way to remember it is that a married woman’s first name was given to her by her parents while (traditionally) her last name comes from her husband. So if her “Lady” comes to her through her father it goes with her first name, and if it comes to her by marriage to her husband it goes with her (married) last name. This is why an unmarried woman cannot be Lady Lastname. A married woman can however be Lady Firstname if her husband doesn’t have a title or his title is outranked by her father’s.
Next Sunday’s episode will be 120 minutes long; that’s the end of the third series, perhaps seen as 2 episodes Over There. The following Sunday, we’ll see the episode shown on Christmas day in the UK, at 90 minutes…
I wasn’t really that fond of this episode. There were a lot of parts I liked in isolation, but as a whole, I didn’t really think it added too much. It seemed that not much actually happened, and that there was a lot of padding to make a fairly insubstantial episode an hour long.