<p>Loved Wolf Hall!
According to some threads on Ancestry.com I may or may not be a direct descendant of Mary Boleyn. I take it all with a huge grain of salt, but find it fun.
With the Edith / George line I keep thinking of the duke and duchess of Windsor visiting Germany after abdication…</p>
<p>I remember reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine and her situation was similar to Henry VIII’s. She had her first marriage to the French king Louis annulled because of “consanguination” (being too closely related) and then married Henry Plantagenet who she was more closely related to! She and Louis had 2 children too. I consider her the first successfully divorced woman in Christian history. She was at least 10 years older than Henry and outlived him by many years.</p>
<p>
Of course he is! He’s editor of The Sketch isn’t he?</p>
<p>So Edith’s beau is the editor of a magazine, but can just take off to go live in Germany for an indeterminate amount of time, and he’s leaving Edith, who’s just a columnist, power of attorney over his affairs–which affairs? business? personal?–while he’s gone, and no one will blink at an unrelated single woman having that kind of authority. I know that thinking too much about any DA plot is a bad idea, but this is particularly wacky. </p>
<p>I too think that the fact that a valet is called by his employer’s name while visiting wasn’t put in the script for no reason. Just waiting for Bates to hear that Anna was raped by “Gillingham”.</p>
<p>
Yes, I thought that, too, at the time they said it. I wondered why it was important to mention. Now I know. I think you’re right, MommaJ.</p>
<p>Oh geez – so Bates will go after Lord Gillingham. That would be a tad untidy.</p>
<p>
Oh, I won’t!</p>
<p>Ahem. I believe someone said in message #1964:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about the Gillingham name mix-up. Fellowes had nearly the exact same conversation/explanation about why visiting servants are called by their employers’ names in Gosford Park. He might have simply been going for realism.</p>
<p>Nah. Chekhov’s Gun applies here. If you show a gun in the first act, that gun has to go off in the second act.</p>
<p>Why, Cardinal Fang, that was you in Post #1964. How clever!!</p>
<p>
No, he won’t. He is familiar and comfortable with the convention; in fact, he was called " Mr. Grantham" when they were in Scotland, and Anna was “Mrs. Grantham.”</p>
<p>Besides, he would have noticed Lord Gillingham leave the concert, and he didn’t.</p>
<p>According to the gun analogy, Patrick should reappear. :)</p>
<p>Did anyone find it curious that Edith should sign the mysterious document and then sleep with Michael?</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, I did indeed mean to give you credit for the name mix-up idea when I wrote “I TOO think…” But I don’t believe actual harm will come to Lord Gillingham. Bates will head to London in a rage to find him, but someone (Thomas?) will head him off just in the nick of time and the valet will be brought to justice. At least that’s how I see the suds frothing.</p>
<p>Having made the prediction that Bates will kill Gillingham, I have to stick with it. But really, Chekhov’s Gun* only requires that Bates mistakenly go after Gillingham, not that he succeed in killing him.</p>
<ul>
<li>I knew the rule, but I didn’t know it was called Chekhov’s Gun. Great name.</li>
</ul>
<p>Bates is not going to go after Lord Gillingham. That’s just silly.</p>
<p>I think Bates will get the right man in the end. Remember, Mrs. Hughes giving Green the evil eye when he was leaving Downton? I think she’s about 99.9 percent sure he did it and will communicate this to Bates somehow, since she doesn’t hold with the fact that Anna is keeping it secret from him.</p>
<p>Poor Mrs. Hughes. She has an awful lot of secrets to keep.</p>
<p>And she has that hopeless crush on Carson, who is completely oblivious.</p>