The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (2 page)

For a large household, organisation was vitally important, and this was certainly
true at Downton Abbey. Lady Grantham would be responsible for the working
out of the daily round, in consultation with Carson, as butler, and Mrs Hughes,
as housekeeper. Once agreed, the schedule for the week would then be
written up and displayed in the servants’ hall.

Robert
It’s not so good for you.

Cora
Don’t worry about me. I’m an
American. Have gun, will travel.

Robert
Thank God for you, anyway.

L
ord Grantham – Robert – has many good qualities: he is kind, loyal to his family, loving to his wife, adoring of his daughters, a fair employer and generous to those around him. But, for him, all these things are peripheral in the face of his most important role in life – as the 7th Earl of Grantham. As he sees it, he has been put on this earth with one prime objective: to keep Downton Abbey in its proper state and hand it over in this condition to his heir. Yet the gods appear to be against him in this enterprise: the American heiress he married to safeguard the future of the estate failed to produce the required son and heir; the next in line (a first cousin) was lost on the
Titanic
, leaving a distant, unknown, middle-class relative – Matthew Crawley – as heir. A brutal war undermined Robert’s certainties and prosperity, and now, in the post-war years, he has lost the family fortune in an unwise business venture and faces an uncertain financial future.

Shattered by this recent sequence of events, the mere mention of hiring a new footman is enough to rattle him. Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham, explains: ‘His purpose is to preserve the estate and hand it on to the next generation. So whenever anything occurs that threatens him and this idea, it sets him off kilter.’ For someone as well-meaning as Robert, this situation seems terribly unjust.

It’s not all bad. The American heiress he married was, of course, Cora – a woman of resilience and unfailing supportiveness. Where Robert is emotionally insecure, she is sure of herself and undaunted by the difficulties they could face. His daughters may not be able to inherit Downton, but his eldest has done the next best thing and become engaged – at last – to the man who will. And that man, Matthew, is someone who Robert has grown to love as a son.

If anything gives Robert an advantage in these shifting times, it is probably his marriage to Cora. Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Cora, the Countess of Grantham, says of her character: ‘She finds it much easier to assimilate change than Robert, although whether that is because she is an American or because of her character is debatable. But it is this readiness that places her in the middle between her children and the older generation.’

Cora draws Robert into his role as a parent and reminds him that he should mind less about tradition and reputation and more about the happiness of his children. ‘Cora is much more able to see Branson as a young man, rather than as a chauffeur,’ says McGovern. As a mother, she has a role in life, no matter what else is going on, but being Robert’s wife is also very important to her. Cora recognises both her position as countess and the responsibilities that it entails, but also her husband’s need for her emotional support. That said, her determination to get stuck into the war effort did mean that she withdrew from her marriage for a time, leaving Robert feeling isolated.

Robert
Sometimes I feel like a creature
in the wilds, whose natural habitat is
gradually being destroyed.

Furthermore, much of what Robert sees around him, and particularly what he reads about in the newspapers, can only serve to underline his fears that he is becoming an outmoded, defunct element of society. As Britain began to recover its senses after the war, it became clear there was no hope of returning to the way things had been in 1914. In 1920 Devonshire House, one of the most famed palaces on Piccadilly (the venue for a party for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897), was sold by the Duke of Devonshire to a financier. The Duke had been crippled by the debts of his predecessor and the first death duties his family had had to pay, which amounted to around half a million pounds. (The house was later demolished and only the wine cellar and gates remain – the latter form the entrance to Green Park.) The sale of the house marked the end of an era. For Robert it would have been a vivid sign that even the grandest, richest families were not immune to the stringent financial pressures of the post-war world.

Robert
You make it sound very serious.

Murray
I am expressing myself badly
if you think it is not serious.

One duchess wrote, ‘There was a good deal in the Press at the time about the New Poor and the New Rich (the former being admirable and the latter despicable) and the ladies who came to lunch with my mother deplored Modern Times. They said how crippling the taxes were, how dreadful the housing shortage, how expensive the shops, how high the wages, how spoilt the children … ’ There was, in short, an atmosphere of difficulty and change. Many were prone to a sort of depression, a lingering dissatisfaction, referred to as
‘le cafard’.
There was a feeling amongst the landed classes that despite having fought and won a war, and sacrificed so many of their sons, they had no place in their country anymore.

Robert
How’s the wedding going?
I suppose it’s costing the earth.

Cora
Mary was never going to
marry on the cheap.

Robert
Oh, no. Nothing must be
done on the cheap.

Robert’s own small kingdom had been turned upside down by Sybil running off with the chauffeur. He is almost unable to reconcile himself to the fact and has to be reminded by Mary to be nicer to Branson, or the village would dine out on the story for evermore. She herself has caused much worry for her parents, but she seems to have found contentment at last in her engagement to the man she loves, although the matter of the cost of her wedding and where she and Matthew will live is weighing heavily upon Robert. Then there’s Edith, who seems destined either to be a spinster or to marry a man for whom she must be more nurse than wife. But Robert admires each of his daughters for their individual merits. ‘Despite everything, he does have quite liberal tendencies,’ says Bonneville. ‘He always makes a token gesture of disapproving of his daughters’ decisions. Much as he disapproves of Sybil’s methods, he admires her spark. And he secretly approves of them ploughing their own furrows – in Edith’s case during the war, literally.’

While all these things would unsettle Robert, they are not the main cause for his concern. More pressingly, Robert is facing the fact that he no longer knows quite how to fulfil his role in life, the one thing of which he had always been so certain. During the war, Robert had learnt for the first time how it felt to be useless – and he didn’t bear it well. His uniform, worn proudly during the Boer War, had become little more than a costume, each military honour only serving to mock his old age and inadequacy. While his wife and daughters seemed to be busier than ever, genuinely contributing to the war effort, he had nothing to do. And any hope that he could resume his seat of power once the battles were over was soon dashed.