After Robert dies,Cora would remain the Countess of Grantham until George marries. Violet would remain Dowager Countess of Grantham until her death (or remarriage). If Violet were alive when George married, Cora’s first name would somehow be worked into the dowager title (not sure exactly how). So Violet would be Dowager Countess of Grantham, George’s wife would be Countess of Grantham and Cora would be Cora, Dowager Countess of Grantham (or something similar). Of course, if Cora or Violet remarried, they’d lose the title. Mary would never get the title since Matthew was never Earl.
Using the first name to distinguish is true no matter what the title, which is why Jane Bennet was referred to as Miss Bennet (without the first name, since she was eldest unmarried daughter) and Elizabeth as Miss Elizabeth Bennet since there was already a Miss Bennet.
ETA: what i don’t know is how they would line up for dinner if Robert were to die. Now, Cora and Robert go into dinner before Violet because Cora currently outranks Violet. Not sure what happens when Robert dies. Such a ridiculous system! If you ever see the royal family on tv, you’ll note they are always lined up in rank order.
Lining up for dinner was a big deal last episode. Violet was seating herself in “junior position” according to Robert.
Who could have guessed it would be “out of spews way?” Pretty sure Violet knew as the actor and said “no way am I going to be involved!”.
Yes. Cora was very upset that Violet knew about Marigold before she (Cora) did. After dinner, when Robert – ummm, you know – Cora told Chamberlain exactly how she felt about the hospital business, then turned to her MIL and said, “Well, it’s the truth. No more secrets!” And Violet felt that Cora was [rightly] attacking her and sending a dig about the Marigold business, and so mentioned Marigold’s name.
It occurs to me, however, that Mary knows there’s something more to Marigold’s story than meets the eye, but she doesn’t yet know what that is.
However, after Mary and Edith got back from the hospital, Mary said she was going to bed and Edith said she was going to look in at the children. And Mary said, “Of course you are.”
The Dowager Countess rattled off something in French in last night’s episode. I tried to write it down and look it up, but no luck finding it. Did anyone better at French than I am catch that?
Found it! The NY Times has a good recap feature of Downton episodes with lots of comments. This was a comment in answer to the recap writer also wondering about the French saying. This comment was when Violet made Carson change the seating chart for the big dinner. Robert said that the new seating would leave Violet in a very junior position. She replied, “Il faut reculer pour mieux sauter.” (“You have to take a step back to jump further.”}
Robert guessed the truth. He said something like, “Does Marigold look like Gregson?” to Cora, but I thought that was just his way of saying he’d put the pieces together.
