Bertie’s cousin was delicate and Bertie was very devoted to him, have we considered that Bertie may be gay, too?
What inheritance did Matthew have? He hadn’t inherited from the Earl yet and didn’t seem to have a lot of money before he became the heir.
The title is still inherited by the nearest male heir - or it dies out (with a few exceptions). This is still true and will be the case for Julian Fellows’ wife’s potential title (although women could have their own title by being related to the male titled one).
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/274080/Downton-Abbey-Misogyny-and-the-aristocracy
Another article about primogeniture. For the monarchy now, title will pass to the eldest child whether it’s a boy or girl…
Re Matthew’s inheritance: there was that crazy plot about Lavinia who died right before Matthew cld break off the engagement. Apparently she was rich and left her money to Matthew who promptly invested it in Downton Abbey (after first thinking about turning down the dough).
Oh Geez, a lot of Matthew’s plot lines were ludicrous. The convenient death of Lavinia, his miraculous leap out of the wheelchair - no wonder he wanted to leave the show!
Matthew inherited Lavinia’s father’s money not Lavinia’s. He invested in Downton with it - but I am not thinking it became anything of Mary’s on his death, just George’s.
http://pintsofhistory.com/2014/01/09/downton-abbey-revisited-what-mary-owns-and-baby-george-crawley/
That’s very interesting ^^. So in a case where little George were to (dare I say) die, Mary would be half owner of Downton with her father until his death. At that point, whoever was Robert’s next-in-line male heir would show up and take the title and the property. Since Matthew had been unknown to the family until he arrived after Patrick’s death, are there any even more distant cousins in the wind?
If I am remembering my property law class correctly – which was taught by an Anglophile professor with a strong interest in the development of the law – that analysis is not correct. The current owner does NOT have only a life estate, which is a very specific property interest. Robert could sell the whole property off or gamble it away.
Because I became interested in the whole discussion, I’ve looked up a lot about entails but have no idea if what I am reading is correct. What I am reading is that it would be impossible for someone to sell an entailed property. If it were possible to sell it, wouldn’t it be possible to sell it to your daughter for $1 and get around the entail? The entail becomes meaningless, right?
And yet, it definitely seems to me I’ve read examples such as you mention of gambling away an entailed property. And people take out loans using the property as collateral and could lose it that way.
Does anyone know? It really doesn’t matter, but I’m just pretty curious to understand it at this point.
^^^Sell the property for $1? Shouldn’t that be for £1? 
@bookworm …Good for you! What an awesome Mother you are. I applaud and admire you so much!
Mary needs to go to Bertie to help her sister. That is the only way I will forgive her. I have a jealous older sister and finally estranged myself from her toxic behavior towards me. Edith forgiveness is definitely fiction. I don’t see that ever happening that way or that fast.
^^^What a great idea. She can tell Bertie that Edith was working up to tell him herself, and it was due to Mary’s pettiness and jealousy that it came out the way it did. That would be awesome – Edith gets to be happy, and Mary gets to grow.
When is Edith going to apologize for her horrific, vindictive act? What Mary did was awful but she didn’t plan and scheme to to do it; she blurted it out in a moment of stress and anger. Further, she felt terrible afterward and apologized multiple times (as she should have). Contrast that with the scheming, jealous Edith who went to the trouble of composing a letter to the Turkish ambassador which risked ruining not just Mary but Sybil and the rest of the family. When Mary confronted her about it she proudly admitted it and called Mary (victim of sexual assault in the incident) a “slut”. IMO, that’s when she laid the groundwork for Mary’s outburst. The particularly stupid part of that is that she never even realized she’d be ruining her own prospects if that nasty story had come out. If I were Mary, I’d never forgive her for that but apparently she never even told her parents what Edith had done. I wonder what they’d have though about it.
I can never understand how the Edith fans just overlook all that.
@alh – among the more than 5000 books I had to get rid of when I moved was my more-than-20-year-old property law textbook, which I could have consulted to easily and definitively answer your question since it contained a section on the development of Anglo-Saxon law on that question. (I remember reading it specifically with Jane Austen in mind.) That was one of the easy books for me to depart with, because I figured I would never again need it. But now I do! :((
Edith did this in the first season. What was that in Downton Abbey time - 14 years ago? I really think that through the seasons Edith did “grow up”. She helped the soldiers during World War 1, wrote for a magazine (later running it) and had a child out of wedlock which takes a lot of strength. I see tremendous change in Edith throughout the seasons… not as much change in Mary. I don’t think today’s Edith would ever do what she did as a young woman. Mary, definitely!
I never interpreted the incident with the Turk as being sexual assault. It’s been a long time, but I thought Mary was surprised that he showed up in her room, but she was seduced by him. Am I wrong?
well he didnt exactly ask permission and forced himself into her bedrm
Although I’d like to see her try, I’m not sure that Mary can smooth things over with Bertie. He did confront Edith and asked if she would have ever told him her secret and her reply was, “I guess we’ll never know.”