This fits well enough that it should become canon (and really, how they managed to make him more pale after the death is beyond me - the makeup crew should win an Emmy for that). I expect some fanfic along these lines posthaste.
Yup, still are (with a few exceptions). It’s called “spousal privilege” not to compel testimony.
It was the hennaed highlights that got me. WTF?
Zombie Lavinia & Zombie William can show up for the Christmas special–isn’t it wonderful how the holidays bring people together?
It was Anna who pushed for the marriage to be so soon. Around 41 mins in she and Bates have a conversation, where he tells her about the letter Vera wrote to her friend, and they discuss how it really looks bad for him. Then about 1:05, she speaks to him during dinner and tells him that he won’t agree with it, but they will get married by special license so she can be his next of kin. He objects at first, but she is firm.
While I don’t think Bates did it, I think maybe Anna thinks he might have.
[QUOTE=Misnomer]
I think I’ve read this entire thread, and I don’t recall anyone mentioning The Duchess of Duke Street…
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The lovely Eve gave it high marks in post #92.
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
Actually, what was Vera’s evidence of the Dead Turk in the Night to begin with? {snip}
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I’m with you on this. Had Vera gone directly to Lord G with her threats, he would have had her thrashed soundly out of the county and given her no more than two 10-pound notes for her trouble. Since he had not an inkling that anything untoward had happened on the The Night of The Dead Turk, he would have scoffed at Vera’s allegations. Except for Lord G, everyone and their butler has heard something about the incident, so they take seriously Vera’s threat to the Granthams’ reputation. (“The Granthams” meaning Robert Crawley, his wife and children, and not “the Crawleys” which would include Matthew and Isobel. Sorry about the pedantry.)
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…how they managed to make [Matthew Crawley] more pale after [Lavinia’s] death is beyond me…
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If he gets any paler, he’ll be translucent.:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=MLS]
This is not a spoiler. It’s a guess. I have no facts about the Christmas special or any subsequent episodes.
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Fear not! Conjectures, WAGs, suppositions, surmises, and speculations are welcome, as long as they’re based on a complete ignorance of upcoming plot points. 
That reminds me, can anyone explain the whole “Special License” thing to me? Was there a mandatory waiting period for marriages or something?
And Sybil mentioned “Until the Banns are read.” I always thought this was just an ancient custom, not a legal requirement? In their time period would it have meant just a newspaper advert?
I don’t think Bates killed Vera, but I think he had a physical altercation with her shortly before her body was found. Not proof he killed her, but certainly evidence the prosecution can and will use against him.
I don’t think Anna suspects Bates of being involved in Vera’s death. I think she wants to have the legal right to act on his behalf on the outside. It will be much easier for Bates to locate legal representation if he has an agent [i.e., his wife] who is free to come and go (well, on those days when Anna gets her half-day off). Also, Anna can carry non-censored and private oral messages between Bates and the outside world. Were Bates restricted to communicating by letter, his messages may be subject to censorship or spying by the jail’s staff.
Is it possible that they were/are planning to marry in the Catholic Church, which still does the whole banns thing? Just because Branson is a radical doesn’t automatically mean he’s gone atheist. He clearly doesn’t give a fig for royalty, but I don’t recall him saying anything anti-religious. Plus he mentioned his mother (IIRC) so even if he is a doctrinaire Marxist he may not want to include his mother in le bourgeoisie he wants to epater. 
It has to do with wanting a Church wedding. Both the Catholic Church and the Church of England had this requirement. I am ignorant of the details on the practice and the Wikipedia entry “has issues”, so I shan’t quote/link to it.
@John Bredin: simulpost!
But now that you mention it…Is Sybil converting to RCC in order to marry Branson? Is Branson agreeing to a CoE service in order to please Sybil? Where in Ireland of 1920 would they go to have a CoE wedding?
Yup, in the Church of England you gotta call the banns for three consecutive Sundays in your parish of residence, or else you get the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue you a special license (sorry, “licence”) and waive the waiting period. I believe this requirement still holds if you want to be married in the Anglican church.
Excellent question. My guess is the latter, as Sybil’s family would likely be more pissed off if she married RCC than Branson’s would be if he married CoE. That in turn is based on my presumption that his mother will [del]get on her knees and thank her lucky stars[/del] be satisfied that radical Branson’s (1) getting married (2) in a church of any kind. 
As to the last question, there were – and are – Anglican-communion churches in Ireland to serve the Anglo-Irish. (Indeed, we’re both presuming that Branson was raised Catholic; many Irish nationalists were Protestant.)
I poked around on other D.A.-themed boards and the question about Branson’s religious affiliation is being asked, with no definitive answers, yet. Someone mentioned that Branson is from Dublin, so that would seem to weight the answer towards, “Catholic” (in the poster’s opinion).
I found this article on the Independent Catholic News website: Downton Abbey creator takes leading role, dated 19 December, 2011.
An excerpt: *Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes has become Vice President of the Catholic Association of Performing Arts. The announcement was made during a special centenary dinner at Alan Hall in Chelsea.
During the evening, Lord Fellowes said that Catholicism would be entering the storyline of his popular ITV series Downton Abbey at some point in the near future. When questioned about this, he would not say whether the development would be in the two hour Christmas Day special next week, or the new series in 2012.*
Which is why you run off to Gretna Green, where you can be married outside the Anglican Church (gasp) with no notice…by the blacksmith.
A special license was - at least in Jane Austen’s time - I don’t know about 1918 or currently - a pain to acquire and fairly expensive. It needed to be signed by a bishop - which means you had to know a bishop or be able to get access to one (I don’t think it had to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, just a bishop, but I could be misinformed). This is why Mrs. Bennett gets so excited about a “special license” in Pride and Prejudice.
Dagnabbit!! Why can’t you people get it through your thick skulls that “no spoilers” means “no spoilers”?!?!?
j/k!!!
Excerpted from: Wikipedia - Marriage license - History - United Kingdom - England & Wales
*A requirement for banns of marriage was introduced to England and Wales by the Church in 1215. This required a public announcement of a forthcoming marriage, in the couple’s parish church, for three Sundays prior to the wedding and gave an opportunity for any objections to the marriage to be voiced (for example, that one of the parties was already married), but a failure to call banns did not affect the validity of the marriage.
Marriage licenses were introduced in the 14th century, to allow the usual notice period under banns to be waived, on payment of a fee and accompanied by a sworn declaration, that there was no canonical impediment to the marriage. Licenses were usually granted by an archbishop, bishop or archdeacon. There could be a number of reasons for a couple to obtain a license: they might wish to marry quickly (and avoid the three weeks’ delay by the calling of banns); they might wish to marry in a parish away from their home parish; or, because a license required payment, they might choose to obtain one as a status symbol.
There were two kinds of marriage licenses that could be issued: the usual was known as a common license and named one or two parishes where the wedding could take place, within the jurisdiction of the person who issued the license. The other was the special license, which could only be granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury or his officials and allowed the marriage to take place in any church.*
(Emphases are mine.)
That said, I don’t know why Bates & Anna needed a “special licence” in order to get married, as they were not marrying outside their parish. They just needed a common licence in order to bypass the delay that a reading of the banns would cause.
Why the rolleyes? I don’t see what’s snark-worthy there.
My apologies for not being clearer. The “rolleyes” was directed at the filmmakers’ decision to make Matthew pasty-faced as indicator of the depth of his grief. My comment was meant as an extension of, and not a rebuttal to/criticism of, other folks’ poking fun at Matthew’s excessive pallor after Lavinia’s demise.
Ah, thanks.