While love is proving to be a headache for Matthew and Lady Mary upstairs, there are huge challenges downstairs too.
Carson the butler, for instance, is fighting to maintain the status quo. Jim Carter, who plays him, says, ‘I don’t think Carson is the sort of man who changes much.
He’s like the house, a constant. The world is changing around him, but he tries to resist it, probably foolishly.
‘He wants to go back to the days of full staffing levels, all the pomp and magnificence of large dinners with two footmen, but the world’s moved on.
Women are emancipated and the middle classes are making inroads. He’s probably fighting a losing battle. Even Mrs Hughes isn’t completely sympathetic!
‘He had to accept middle-class Matthew – a solicitor, who works for a living, for heaven’s sake – as a member of the family. Tom Branson, the former chauffeur who is now married to Lady Sybil, has moved upstairs at Downton, and the staff have to call him Sir.
He’s also constantly on the alert, wondering what evil O’Brien, the lady’s maid, is plotting with Thomas, the ruthless valet. Everything within the household is now trickier for Carson.’
As the family gathers for Lady Mary’s forthcoming nuptials, Lord Grantham’s valet, Bates, is languishing in prison, convicted of the murder of his first wife.
His new wife, Anna, is doing all she can to try and free him. One notable omission from the new series, however, is Bates’s stick. Brendan Coyle, who plays him, says, ‘It would have been taken off him in prison, but it was like a prompt to get into the limp.
So we decided his injury was the kind of thing that flares up every now and again. That’s how a war wound would have been.’
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