Clarissa Churchill Eden

Anthony Andrews as Eden in "Marvelous Year for Plums

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Many readers know that I'm taking a break from this blog to work on a novel. Among those who are inspirations for my story are King George V and Queen Mary's only daughter, Princess Mary and Clarissa Churchill Eden. Very different women, of different generations, but with something important in common: the married men from a different generation.

I discussed Princess Mary and her husband Viscount Lascelles (later Earl of Harewood) here, but Clarissa Churchill Eden, is a harder woman to put into words.


Part Katherine Hepburn, part spoiled brat, Clarissa has intrigued me for years. And, I admit, I still don't hav have a true read of her. She famously disdained the rites of passage of her class by refusing to be presented at court in spite of being the Great-Granddaughter of the Duke of Marlborough. She hung out with a cerebral crowd that included Cecil Beaton. When she decided to finally marry she chose as her husband not only a man old enough be her father, but one in horribly bad health  and on the brink of serving as Prime Minster at a time when the nation was approaching on of it's top of national crisis of the 20th Century. To say she liked attention would be an understatement.

In my opinion she was about as full of her self as only a 20-something can be. Life would gradually give her just the tiniest taste of humility though. And, let's face it, in England, all her life there was a gal 6 years younger who is still dominating the world stage, so maybe it took more for women to get noticed--even a Churchill. Maybe she was just another boring, "I'm better than you" pseudo-intellectual who wore trousers and smoked in public and hung out with men and women we know today (and likely she knew then) were homosexuals. Maybe she was stuck surrounded by boring, "I'm better than you" pseudo-intellectuals who were a little too safe in taxis and she was desperately banging on the bars of her upper-class prison of a life? Maybe she envied her cousin Sarah (Winston's daughter) and wanted a life on the stage. Maybe she thought she should have been Katherine Hepburn. No, I didn't think so. She was stuck up as a young woman.

source

Or, more likely she was insecure. It would be hard not to be insecure in that family. Clarissa was a Churchill, but she was not a "Winston" Churchill. Her father was the great man's little known younger brother Jack--a successful businessman in the city. Clarissa herself was born well after her brothers in a home shared by the Jack's family and Winston's at a point when Winston's over-the-top-lifestyle left him in reduced circumstances. By her mid twenties Clarissa was an orphan.

source: Getty

Her autobiography, which I found boring, is tough truly sledding. She was literate--VERY literate , and intelligent-- VERY intelligent, but does not communicate well thru the written word. True, most  of the book consists of snippets from diary entries, but there are very erudite diarists out there and she, sadly, is not among them. Like another celebrated younger woman who married an older man (Princess Diana) Clarissa left school with no qualifications, but in an era when that was pretty much expected of young women of her class and very much a badge of honor among the notoriously unbookish aristocracy--her mother, for example, had no idea what "matriculation" meant with regard to education and was unconcerned that her daughter's boarding school stressed "horses." (As I said, this was a different generation and her mother's views were almost identical to that of a young mother known as the Duchess of York, who didn't even believe her daughters she be forced to go to an actual school.) But here she differs wildly from that norm--her friends were, almost to a one, either intellectuals or highly creative individuals.

Wedding day with Uncle Winston and Aunt Clementine. An adoring Eden looks at his young bride. Source

As for Anthony Eden, at first glance he is a conventional man of his class--Eton, Oxford, officer in WWI, but he, too, differed a bit from that norm. He had a passion for art and was fluent in, among other languages, Persian. The word consistently used to describe him as a young man was "sensitive." An understatement. He made a conventional first marriage that fizzled and faltered and finally collapsed. He lost brothers in the First World War and his beloved oldest son, Simon, in the Second World War--a death he characterized as the worst pain of his life. He was a shining star of the Conservative party for many years, but for all of them his light was all but blocked by the eclipse that was Winston Churchill. His years as Churchill's heir were nearly as long as those of Prince Charles to Queen Elizabeth.

So, while Clarissa Chuchill skulked around Vogue, the workroom of Cecil Beaton and the drawing rooms of the upper class intelligentsia leading a Katherine Hepburnish, trousered, existence and Anthony steered the ship of foreign affairs and weekended with the Mountbattens and Noel Coward, both were missing something in their lives. Each Other. They "met," in terms of romantic interest at least, at a dinner party. Eden shyly asked her to have dinner with him and she accepted. And who wouldn't? A woman would have had to be deaf, blind, dumb AND stupid to turn down one of history's great crushes. Eden, so suave and so well dressed that he had a hat named after him, was one the best catches in England. He and Clarissa married in a civil ceremony and had their reception, appropriately enough, at 10 Downing with Uncle Winston and Aunt Clementine.


Tigress or Trophy Wife? Protector or Pandora?


When Winston Churchill finally had dinner at 10 Downing with the Queen and Prince Philip and agreed to retire, Anthony was left holding living in a 10 Downing with, as his young wife famously put it, "the Suez canal flowing thru [the]drawing room." As a warm up to the canal, Britain's first divorced Prime Minister was saddled with the Princess Margaret wanting to marry her late father's divorced equerry--a mess that would have killed many a lesser man on its own. But Suez, and not the Princess, was the last straw. The canal and the bickering over it brought down one of the longest running careers in foreign relations.Here is where the Eden fans begin to disagree over Clarissa and her influence. While first wives can be a huge influence, second, younger, beautiful wives (trophy wives in today's icky parlance) can be Machiavellian. Some unkind souls view Clarissa as an usurper, a devious power behind, if not a throne, than a Prime Minister. Suez was such a phenomenal mess that the leader of the British Military of the time, Eden's old buddy, Lord Mountbatten, tried unsuccessfully to resign and came perilously close to treason in his opposition to Eden's plans.

Never mind that the whole thing was a disaster it must be that Anthony was besotted with his wife--right? Sure, why not! How much stuff was Eleanor Roosevelt blamed for? Hilary Clinton? Denis Thatcher? Clarissa though, saw the whole thing threw a different lense--the lense of Anthony's deteriorating health. She was from the earliest days of her marriage, to use a well-known Downton Abbey quote, "an old man's drudge." Eden, though not yet sixty had the health of a corpse and very nearly died from a botched gal bladder opperation. It was left to Clarissa to try to keep his job, restore his health, and maintain their marriage. All with the world's press watching, of course! Did I mention she was only 36 at this time? Her take on things, with the hindsight of many years as a widow, sounds like this:

"My concern throughout was to support Anthony, and I felt that I could only help by bolstering him up without trying to lessen his load or demand that he rested." (P. 235)

"By now we had been living in a a perpetual state of tension for over three months...Yet when Anthony came up each evening he always seemed calm in voice and manner...I didn't feel I knew enough to interfere in any way. I listened sympathetically, and was interested in the details and behavior of his colleagues. I always assumed Anthony was right because he has so much more experience in foreign affairs." (p. 254-255)

"[Doctor came and said] Anthony's heart and blood pressure were fine but his nervous system was burnt out...finally decided on a month's holiday." (p.256)

A wife young enough to give him children (she miscarried) was asked to deal with the fallout from a totally necessary rest during a world crisis! Could I have done that at 36? I doubt it. After all, when Churchill suffered a heart attack during the war, it was kept a secret even from his wife. His stroke, left his son-in-law, the future Lord Soames, running the country in secret. But, the Eden's were forced to take a holiday, so doctors said, to save Anthony's life, Suez or no Suez. So she's taking care of an uber-high maintainence, older husband, whose job necessitates him trotting blithely across the world stage in full glare of the press! And we thought Jackie Kennedy originated this role? Ok, she did get the trophy children that Clarissa lacked. Can you blame her for being glad when he threw in the political towel?


"I was pleased to leave politics, and htat we could have a marriage without all the tensions, plottings and shenanigans of political life." (p267).

Their "retirement" life featured annual trips to Paris for, among other things, book and art buying,retreats to warmer climates in the winter (including to Colin Tenant's bizarre empire, Mustique), life in an idealy  asthetically pleasing country home where Anthony toiled away writting his less-than-memorable memoirs while looking deboinaire in sweaters with silk cravats tucked in at the neck.

source: LIFE

While her memoirs give only the briefest glimpse in words of her marriage, I think the photos tell another story.First there are countless pictures around of Eden gazing lovingly at his wife. And, in her book, Clarissa published not one, but two photos of Eden in swim trunks, another of him lounging and looking too adorable for words at their home and countless others of him as his suave ever-elegant political self.  Possibly most telling of all (or possibly a totally tongue-in-cheek joke on her readers) a very elderly Clarissa is shown on the back jacket of the book in a tweed jacket and silk scarf in clear emulation of  her late husband's sartorial style.  Not of today's "tell all" generation, I think the pictures Clarissa chose for the book speak louder than words.

Source: Getty Clarissa with step-son Nicholas Eden, 2nd Earl of Avon at Anthony's memorial service

While I still find it hard to warm up to her, and I'm sure many of his colleagues were right to worry about her "hold" over her husband (these were men who, after all, had lost a King to such a woman), I have to come down on the side of Tigress Protector. It was her tenacity that solved his medical crisis, her tenacity that protected his legacy and her tenacity that kept him in the public eye long enough to see the polish put back on his tarnished image. I also wonder--did Jackie Kennedy look at her and see a role model?

All quotes are from Clarissa Eden: A Memoir From Churchill to Eden edited by Cate Haste.

Hacked??

I may have been hacked so will likely be moving this blog to a new address. I will post the details at that time.

What's on Your Nightstand: April Showers Edition

 

Anne Hood is a favorite contemporary author of mine. I met her in her debut novel, Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, and have enjoyed her ever since. The Obituary Writer tells the alternating story of Claire and Vivien, two women from different generations united by motherhood, by grief and by love. While there were some glaring editorial errors in this book, the story was amazing. I struggled only to put this down. Like Mr. Emerson's Wife last month, Ms. Hood was able to make the physical act of love into something profound and beautiful that I gasped reading this line: "when he entered her, it was as if something she had lost was returned to her...." (p. 177).[Note: this is not a sexually graphic novel, but I felt this line was really beautiful.] Beauty, love, loss, triumph--this book has it all. The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood

I'm sure my Facebook friends must have grown weary of hearing me swoon over this book! Honor Harris and Richard Grenville, the King's General in the West, are caught up in the English Civil war. Richard, a rapscallion of the highest order, is the love of Honor's life. A man's man to the core, Richard bears his own version of true allegiance to his lady. The rough times of the war, the rough and ready personality of Richard, the unconditional love Honor holds for him, all create one of the most memorable love stories ever. Daphne Du Maurier, author of Rebecca, and wife of World War II General "Boy" Browning, weaves a web of almost fatal love and attraction that is not to be missed. I seldom buy fiction, but I ordered bought this one and will be re-reading it for years to come. The King's General by Daphne Du Maurier.

Like many romantics, I first read F. Scott Fitzgerald in high school. I soon read every title of his I could locate. In college I took a course on the history of Paris and Berlin in the 1920s, where I encountered Hemmingway's Moveable Feast, and it's highly unflattering story of the two comparing their "manhood." Until then I don't think I'd connected great writers to each other as friends. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, explores both that friendship and the tempestuous marriage of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Like Loving Frank did for Frank Lloyd Wright, "Z," brings the couple fully alive before the readers eyes. The prose is captivating, the characters so believeable, even as their life becomes nearly surreal. Early on, we are shown Scott, who "looked like the man he said he was going to be." And tragically we come to the time when the Fitzgeralds found themselves with "too much everything, not enough anything,? and their beautiful world fell to pieces. Zelda's decent into mental illness is tragically and hauntingly told in the first person narrative of this marvelous book. This is, however, first and foremost a story of love, secondly of everything else. This is simply not to be missed. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler.

What's not to like about a small Southern town with a "Miss Delta Floozy" contest? Or, for that matter, what's not to love about a 50-something widow finding love for the second time with a handsome man who used to own a ballroom dance studio? Second Creek, Mississippi, is a town you'd want to call your own. Full of loveable wackos--most of whom are faithful friends and helpful neighbors. Laurie Lapanto and her "Nit Wits"--a group of widows who support and care for each other have a large presence in this small town. And, when their beloved Mr. Choppy's IGA store is threatened with closure they come up with a fabulous plan to save the story. An old rumor adds spice to the mix. I am eagerly awaiting the second installment of this series to arrive for me at the library. Waltzing at the Piggly-Wiggly by Robert Dalby.

 I'm not much for Christian fiction--usually written at a 2nd grade level, chopped up into 15 volumes and over-priced. Lynn Austin is an exception. An exceptional writer who weaves Christian thought and values into fascinating stories. Here's a lovely example from her newest book,  a tale of forgiveness with a side dish of love, set in Reconstruction Era Virginia:

"Because there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is external and can change when your circumstances change...But joy is deep inside us and isn't dependent on circumstances." ALL THINGS NEW by Lynn Austin 





I  threw back Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung and Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. Both were audio books and I just couldn't get into them. Both may get a second try sometime in the print version.

Need ideas on what to read next? Head over to 5 Minutes for Books and see all of this month's "What's on Your Nightstand" posts.

What's on Your Nightstand: March like a lion edition

As well as continuing to write my novel, I've also done a lot more reading (and audio book listening) this month.

My only question about Amy Belding Brown's Mr. Emerson's Wife is WHY did I leave it on my to read list so long! This was superb! It's one of those book I wish I had written--it's that "real" and that moving. These are not cardboard cutouts of famous men and women. These are REAL people and they come alive on Ms. Brown's pages. The passion, grief, longing, heartache, joy, lust, ennui, fickleness, commitment and endurance of a deeply-felt marriage is all right here in one book. These are not mere "pages" of a story but a canvas right in emotional detail--another of those "inner" books I've been speaking of in my recent "Nightstand" posts.

Ms. Brown writes possibly the most amazing line ever penned to describe an act of physical love:

"And how, when he was finished, he displayed such astounding gratitude, as if what I had given him was not my body, but a miracle." (p. 69)

Another line that lept off the page and straight into my heart was this, written about a passionate friendship that may or may not have become physical:

"...she'd given him his most profound experience of the divine..." (p. 304)

This book is so amazing! Three words: Just Read It!

Mr. Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown.

I used to enjoy the late Meave Binchy's books. Then she hit a spell of what I considered "flat" writing that didn't hold my interest. Ms. Binchy died in 2012 and it's a shame in so many ways. Happily, A Week in Winter, restored her writing to my affectionate embrace. This story struck painfully close to home in parts, inspired envy in others, and left me wishing dearly that such a place really existed. I will say the beginning did try my patience, but once the book found it's stride I didn't want to stop listening to it. If you are looking for a nice, comforting book to curl up with during these lion-influenced final days of March, then grab A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy just as soon as you finish Mr. Emerson's Wife.

Chick lit? Yes--but GOOD chic lit! One of the best debute novels in a long time. Characters, while somewhat predictable, (come on it is chic lit!), most of them anyway, felt "real." Loved the back story of the other main character--the house and Barrie. Couldn't go all the way to 4 stars, but 3 imho is darned good and well worth the read. The J.M. Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society by Barbara J. Zitwer.

The Tavern on Maple Street by Sharon Ownes presents the type marriage we all wish to have! A decent, hard-working, devoted man living with his beloved wife in a home made to suit them, doing work together that they love. Apparently he never lays around watching football and she never nags about leaving the seat up so life is great. Joking aside, Jack and Lily, who run the tavern, are a wonderful couple--the kind you'd want next door on your cul de sac.But when their lovely life (not just their lovely home) is threatened both from without and, it seems, from within, they must face hard truths. This makes for an engaging tale that all lovers of chic lit will enjoy. I have previously enjoyed Ms. Owens  Tea House on Mulberry Street, which I reviewed here.

A book can rightly be called a classic when it takes your breath away regardless of it's age, right? After the "Mr. Rochester" story in the last episodes of "Downton Abbey" this season I knew I had to re-read Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte.  I first read it in junior high school (it helped spark my infatuation with "older" men!!), but at 51 my memory of it was a bit dim. (Mr. Rochester being not a life-long passion like Mr. Rhett Butler was to become!). For several nights, my Kindle was not long out of my hands. I was mesmerized anew by this story. I do admit that my interest in her life after fleeing Rochester and finding shelter dragged a lot and I skimmed it, I was thrilled again when Rochester re-entered the story. I try to read, or re-read, at least a few "classics" every year (as well as a book or two out of my "comfort zone") to expand my mind a bit. Jane Eyre made me then want to re-read Wuthering Heights, so it is now in progress on my Kindle.

Need ideas on what to read next (after you read Mr. Emerson's Wife, of course!)? Then check out all of this month's Nightstand posts at 5 Minutes for Books.  And, because I was late with February's post, here is the link to my February nightstand post.

What's on Your Nightstand for Febrary

Once again my reading is not up to my normal "competitive reading" levels, but oh! do I have two gems to share!!! Well worth QUALITY over QUANTITY any day!

David Parks must have been sitting in Belfast brewing this marvelous "inner" story for years! It is so well crafted I didn't want to put it down. Exactly my sort of book--lots of inner workings to characters--hopes, dreams, thoughts and fears. Add to that a character just written for actor Robert Bathurst to play in movie version, and you have a winner all around. Nice too that no one is a lithe 20-something hopping in and out of beds with other lithe 20-somethings. A father (Bathurst-ready character) experiencing, on the surface, a Dylan concert, a mother and daughter doing a boozy British pre-wedding "Hen Party," a long-married couple on a getaway--all have their world's rocked without bombs being thrown or war breaking out. This is a book not to be missed. I will certainly be buying a copy and re-reading this one for years to come. The Light of Amsterdam: A Novel by David Park

Greer Garson's World War II classic movie, Mrs. Miniver, has long been a favorite of mine, so when author Melissa Wiley posted that she was reading the book I was surprised. I'd always assumed it was merely a screenplay. Was I ever happily wrong! Forget the movie (which, after the book, seems terminally silly to me) and the Downton Abbey-esque flower show and dive into this delicious slice-of-life novel the thoughts and life of Mrs. Clement (Caroline--of course she's a Caroline) Miniver, upper-class, but not truly aristocratic wife and mother on the eve of World War II. Coincidentally, this is another marvelous "inner" novel. Enthralling reading--even when it's about the first glimpse of Spring or something as mundane as choosing the year's engagement book. Do your self a favor--grab a cup of tea and just lose yourself in this delightful story. Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther.

I'm also not doing well with audio books right now. Generally I'm glued to one during my 1 hour and 15 minute commute (each way), but I've trouble picking one lately and hanging in with it.

Iain Glen is an actor I discovered thru Downton Abbey and when I requested this book I thought it was a normal audio version of the book. Imagine my delight when I got it and it was a dramatization! Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun as dramatized by BBC Radio kept me entranced thru my commute. The book is typical Hercule Poirot--a murder, a bunch of suspects, an unlikely outcome, but wonderful. I will be looking for more of these dramatizations next time I'm in  an audio book wasteland. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (BBC Radio).

The Beach Trees could have gone either way--keep or toss. At first it was borderline, but I kept with it and was reasonably happy with that choice. The story has it's far-fetched moments (no spoilers here) but I decided to live with them. It's a fairly standard romance with two missing persons and some other interesting elements worked in. Add the alure of New Orleans, the story of two hurricanes and you have a perfectly decent novel. Far more than the novel, the author's own story piqued my interest: She knew she wanted to write after skipping school to read Gone With the Wind in seventh grade. A soulmate! I will be reading more of Karen White's work. The Beach Trees by Karen White.


I threw back, after many tedious hours invested, Louisa May Alcott's Jack and Jill. Some books from by gone days are "classics," others fail to weather the test of time. Jack and Jill did not pass the test. I also threw back in disgust the new mystery series that begins with Mr. Churchill's Secretary. So not good. Sorry, but when things have gotten so politically correct that Churchill's signature phrase "keep buggering on" must be sanitized then it's definitely a harbringer of a bad, bad book. This one had cardboard characters to the max and failed to capture any sense of the spirit of Churchill or his staff. Read Jock Colville's war time diaries, Fringes of Power,  or Lord Moran's memoirs, Churchill at War (and the sequel) instead. Far more interesting.

What's on Your Nightstand this month? Head over to 5 Minutes for Books and see what's on all the nightstands this month.

Missing Downton?

For those of you in Downton Withdrawl head over to my tumblr page for Downton MyWay.

Coming soon: My thoughts for Season 4.

What's on Your Nightstand: After the holidays catch-up edition!

For the first time in YEARS I did not complete reading or listening to a single book in the past month!!! Readers here know that my Downton Abby obsession is in full swing. I've posted about it and I've spent my reading time enjoying writing Downton Abbey fan fiction that is currently into the 1940s. This has been a tremendous vehicle to get myself back into writing after several years "off." Since I did not post here in December I will give the list from that month instead.

In the same vein as An Uncommon Reader, Mrs. Queen Takes the Train is an imagined look into the daily life of Britian's Queen Elizabeth II. If you enjoy Royal watching, this one is not to be missed. Light and fun.

I hate it when I fall in love with a series that's still being written!! The wait for the next installment is so long and nerve-racking! What's not to love in Patrick Taylor's Ulster community of Ballybucklebo? A Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly is finally extinquishing the torch he's long carried for his long-lost wife and is marrying the sweetheart of his youth--Kitty.  Love, love, love this series. An Irish Country Wedding.  Also from this series I read and enjoyed the story of Fingal's medical school years titled A Dublin Student Doctor.

Sadly, I had to throw back another volume of the series backstory, An Irish Country Girl. This book was just awful. It read like a "Ghosts of Old...." pamphlet found in a tourist trap. I felt embarrassed for poor Mrs. Kincaid to be demeaned in this way. Finally, I also loved An Irish Country Christmas. Such a great series apart from the one unfortunate volume.

After my total disappointment with The Lacuna, I was reluctant to return to the world of Barbara Kingsolver. In the end I caved and tried Flight Behavior. While there are many, many excellent phrases and one marvelous little bit of local dialog (interview with a green-life pledge taker) this book failed more than it succeeded. It DID show how empowering work, earning and income and education can actually be for someone whose life has been defined by crushing poverty and lack of opportunities as well as by bad choices made at a young age, but then it segues into Kingsolver's becoming-habitual preaching (see "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It IS much, much better than Lucana which I found stupefyingly dull, but Kingsolver seems to have let success go to her head. She preaches and delivers stereotypical characters now instead of the brilliance of Poisonwood Bible (one of the best novels ever written) and Bean Trees or even not-up-to-brilliant-but-still-memorable Prodigal Summer.

Finally, I read another installment of the "Miss Read" series--Village Dieary. These are pleasant and I'm enjoying them slowly, but I'm not desperate to hear more of the story.

Once again I've hit two books alike! Not "alike" really, but with some coincidence bringing them together in my mind. Betty Smith's Maggie Now begins in Ireland. While it took me a while to get into this one, eventually I coudln't put it down--I had to know the rest of the story. We are the people are choices make us would be a sort of theme here. Maggie's love for Claude gives her a non-traditional marriage that leaves her with long times alone, yet she stands by her choice. It's not a heart-warming story, but nor is it a depressing story. This is one of a number of excellent books recommended to me by the writer Elizabeth Virdon.

What's on Your Nightstand this month? Check out all the great books at 5 Minutes for Books.

Picking up the pieces

source

Good-bye

Too sad to write more.

Back to normal as soon as possible.

If Downton Abbey was a law firm.........

No violation of copyright intended, this is just for fun. All characters created by Julian Fellows.
 

Welcome to Downton Abbey LLP a Midwestern full service law firm of 300 attorneys with offices in eight cities.

 

  
Richard Carlisle, Managing Partner. Poor boy made good with a chip on his shoulder the size of Wyoming. Ruthless, ballsy, visionary. Has one goal: to make money and make the firm known. Earned a scholarship to a local liberal arts college where he was blackballed by every fraternity,  spent a few years in venture capital after a deal he put together for himself went viral in the business press. On to Wharton for his M.B.A.  then a J.D. a Columbia all while building his own net worth  on the side. Not having time to make it in a white shoe New York firm he surveyed the landscape and went home to the Midwest where he blackmailed a college acquaintance into getting him into Downton & Abbey LLP. Five years later he’d all but taken over the navigation of the firm through his ability to spot potential take-overs. When tightrope walk over a merger canyon sent the managing partner to his grave with a massive heart attack he seized the reigns and never looked back. His desk has four screens,  a bat-phone conferencing call unit and several smart phones on it. His office is tastefully done in expensive modern art and fine Italian leather and a huge plasma flatscreen. His suits are custom tailored as are his shirts. His shoes are Italian or bespoke classics from London.  Continues to annually bill in excess of 1,000 hours per year even while steering the firm. Eats young associates for breakfast. 

  

 

Robert Downton, grandson of the founding partner and Senior name partner. Will inherit his father’s 51% stake in the firm upon his mother’s death. Meanwhile must put up with comments like “How will Mommy vote?” in the men’s room. Utterly polite, has devoted staff who have been with him for years but does occasionally take himself too seriously and wear a bow tie. Has put on a bit of weight and worries about it and tries manfully to go to the gym at lunch each day. Like Matthew, whom he recruited, he is a Wabash man.

Anthony Strallan Those eyes to-die-for and his apparent vulnerability have kept him a devoted workaholic staff for years. Loathes Richard, but often agrees with his business choices. He’s so low key you have to know he owns 29% of the firm to see his value.  He is the late Mr. Abbey’s grandson. Bills unbelievable hours for his age even though Richard continually gives him the sacrificial lambs of the Associates class each year. Had a brief moment of fame when an international client recommended him to Bono for a foreign aid trip.  Tri-athlete in his so-called spare time, but finding it hard to fit that in now that he’s remarried (he was a widowers for years) to a much younger wife. Bakes artisian bread and makes his own wine that he shares with his staff.

Mary Crawley up-and-coming Senior associate and Richard’s new wife [He forced thru the rules change to marry her by blackmailing several senior partners]. She loves the smell of napalm in the morning and has allowed herself to be taken by Carlisle on his very desk in a swoon to the power the man wields. He is grooming her to be his successor. President of her college sorority Mary was a 4.0 finance major with a minor in Chinese. She wants to go places. Not wanting to waste time on being pregnant like Richard wants (must have someone to leave it all to) she persuades him to do rent-a-womb in India. Their first child, a son, will arrive soon. She’s also persuaded him to add a real English Norland nanny to the household staff of carefully chosen illegal aliens. 

Matthew Crawley, Senior Associate. No relation to Mary—Crawley is a common local name. Horrified at Mary’s marriage to Richard he let his work slip and nearly got fired by Richard. Redeemed himself by accidentally bringng in a major new client met in an airport concourse while snowed it at JFK.  Has legions of worshiping paralegals, secretaries and mailroom girls. Trotted out by Richard to influence wives who insist on tagging along to social events meant to be client signings.  Grows award-winning orchards and bikes to work. A Wabash man.

 

Cora Downton—Robert’s wife. Very big in local charity work. Owns a small internet company selling vintage clothing. Adores her husband, loathes firm events and avoids any contact what-so-ever with Richard, who finds her attractive and lets her know it. Was glad when Richard took Mary out of Robert’s orbit.

Isabelle Crawley—Matthew’s mother and head of the State Department of Health and Family Services.  Of counsel. Useful for political fundraisers and liberal lobbying—which Richard supports only when it generates revenue. Annoys most of the men and some of the women with her puking earnestness. 

Edith Strallan—Anthony’s insecure much younger wife. Forever popping in to make him take her to lunch and calling him to ask what he’d like for dinner. 

Thomas Barrow Associate. Useless. Wants to be Richard’s henchman but Richard is too smart for that. Uses Thomas as a lure for gay businessmen and older women who love his good looks and attention.

Daisy Mason—runner, perpetually out-of-breath and lugging messenger bag and or wheelie bag. Had a tremendous crush on Barrow till Mrs. Patmore in catering told her he was gay. In night school to become a paralegal under the delusion she will be promoted from within. Knows where to score coke and heroin for various attorneys when necessary. 

Alfie Nugent—new copy center manager. An unknown but he’s already got O'Brien on his side and Barrows against him. Time will tell. 

Anna Bates—Secretary to Mr. Downton  and Mr. Strallan  She prays nightly they can keep her job for her if word gets out that Downton & Abbbey LLP employs the wife of a convicted murder. She adores her bosses as well as Mrs. Downton and does endless personal favors for them such as keeping their dogs while they go on vacation. Also can handle Old Lady Downton when she wants attention and has tried to explain the facts of a lawyers life to the over-eager young Mrs. Strallan. Fearful of being poached by Richard who has trouble keeping a secretary.

Charles Carson C.F.O. and in charge of the accounting staff. Adores Mary Crawley and Cora Downton. Tried to protect Mary from getting to close to Richard and lives daily with his failure.  His attention to detail endears him (very much against his liking) to Richard, but his standards are often a clashing point for the two of them.

Sarah O’Brien Head of Human Resources (hourly staff).  Ruthless in hiring and firing of secretaries. Loves to spy on internet useage and report it to Richard. Knows who is sleeping with whom or trying to and uses it against them as effectively as Richard. 

Elsie Hughes—venerable receptionist and mother of the firm. Knows all tells nothing. Loathes Richard Can’t stand Mary, adores Matthew and Robert, but has the occasional lunchtime tryst with Charles Carson.

Jane Moorsom, formerly a floater who often was assigned to Mr. Downton. Quit after he began kissing her. .  A single Mom she couldn’t have O’Brien find out and ruin her. (Which coincided with an unusually long fill-in for Richard while O’Brien tried to locate a competent secretary who could stand him.) Moved to a smaller firm in the building and occasionally holds her breath when sharing an elevator with Robert.

See all my Downton Abbey-inspired posts!

Did a Royal Love Story inspire Downton Abbey's Lady Edith & Sir Anthony?

My first Downton Abbey Fan Fiction: Lady Edith's Story

Did a Royal Love Story inspire Downton Abbey's Lady Edith-Sir Anthony Romance?

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American viewers of Julian Fellows' Downton Abbey are waiting to see the wedding of Lady Edith Crawley to the much older Sir Anthony Strallan (played brilliantly by Robert Bathurst). But what many viewers may not imagine is that Fellows inspiration for the couple could very well have been the marriage in February 1922 of King George V's only daughter, Princess Mary, to the then Viscount Lascelles (he became Earl of Harewood a few years later). [Note: Royal Weddings were becoming a big show in this generation, but not so big that the Prince of Wales had to come home for the wedding--he was in India on tour when the wedding took place.]

Henry ("Harry") Lascelles was born in 1882 while his bride, Princess Mary, didn't come along until 1897. While not quite as large an age gap as the "quarter century" often thrown about on Downton, it was still a substantial age difference to overcome. Many royal books describe Lascelles as "unfeeling" or similar, but according to one who should know--the couple's eldest son, George--theirs really was a love match. Princess Mary had much in common with her famously reserved parents. King George and Queen Mary truly had a loving marriage, but had to express their love thru letters and notes (well, that and the birth of six childen in 11 years!).

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"My parents got on well together and had a lot of friends and interests in common. Someone years later said to my first wife...that she had always felt sorry for my mother 'married to that cold, hard man,' but, though she was doubtless out primarily out to make mischief, she had it all wrong. My mother was never so happy to our eyes as children as when she and my father were embarked on some scheme together, as they often were, and my father's advice was sought on every conceivable subject including those on which he could not possibly have expected to have a view. After he died, [25 years later] we could often see with maturer eyes that, without my father at her side, she often found it hard to cope. Until her death she travelled with photographs of him to put out whereever she stayed...." (The Tong and Bones: The Memoirs of Lord Harewood,, 27 )

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At not quite age 25 Princess Mary, who had done her "bit" in the First World War serving, ala Lady Sybil as a volunteer nurse, (A King's Story, p. 127) became not only the wife of the heir to one of Yorkshire's greatest families, fortunes and houses, but also C.E.O. of Lord Lascelles domestic life--managing the household, planning the parties, transferring to London for the Season to Scotland for that Season as well as coping with the demands of two sons born in rapid succession (the younger of whom, Gerald, would share a birthday (albeit different years) with Princess Margaret). The couple shared passions for gardening (a mania in her generation of the Royal Family), horses and Italian Art (source)  and music. Her brother, the former King Edward VIII remembers that "with easy grace she became the chatelaine of his country home in Yorkshire." (A King's Story, p.182).

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In a move that Fellows himself could have authored for Sir Anthony Strallan, Lord Lascelles fled during the birth of his son and heir leaving his hapless sister behind to entertain his Royal in-laws who arrived to await the birth of their first grandchild! (Tong and Bones, p. 2)! Lascelles also resisted the King's urge to elevate him to the rank of Marquess. He believed "Marquisates died out quicker than any other title and he was keen to provide himself and his ancestors with heirs! (Tong and Bones, p.2).

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Princess Mary and her family were often involved in Royal events. Her son recalls the pride he felt in seeing his father ride with the King and the Prince of Wales in Trooping the Colour,(Tong and Bones, p. 6) Both the couple's sons had roles in their Uncle, George VI's coronation--George as Page to the new King, while Gerald served their Grandmother, Queen Mary. The Lascelles family remained visibly in the Royal Family until the early 60s when George's marriage broke down and a son was born to his then girl friend. Following a very rare (in those days) Royal divorce the couple quietly married her in the USA. George became a leading figure in the world of Opera--prompting a famous quote from his uncle, the Duke of Windsor:

“It’s very odd about George and music. You know his parents were quite normal — liked horses and dogs and the country.”

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source: Getty

By the end of the 1970s the Lascelles were again occasionally mentioned in the Court Circular--the divorce of Princess Margaret made their exclusion a big ridiculous. By the end of George's life both the Queen and the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall had visited Harewood House to be welcomed by the Earl and his second wife. The Queen, who rarely attends funerals, was represented at George's funeral by their younger first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent. (source)

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 The current Earl of Harewood, Princess Mary's eldest grandchild, is David Lascelles, a godchild of the Queen (source). Unlike his Old Etonian father and forebearers, he was educated at Westminster where his father proudly related, he was on the First XI in cricket! He went on to become a name in the film industry and followed his father's lead in having a children out of marriage (he subsequently married their mother) so that, unusually, it is his second son, Alexander, who is Lord Lascelles today, and who like his father will have to pass the title down to an as-yet-unborn second or subsequent son--assuming he marries!

 So happiness and a lasting legacy CAN come from a marriage of different generations!

Want to read more? Here are links to my first Downton Abbey Fan Fiction: Lady Edith's Story  as well as my end of season 2 Downton Abbey Season 3 Suggestions  and What Have I Been Watching and my first Royal Family Fiction: What if Charles HAD Married Camilla in the 1970s? as well as to my  non-fiction Royal Family posts:  


An Officer and a Gentleman? Oh Harry!


Her Majesty's "Almost" Grandchildren: The Grandchildren of Princess Margaret 


 Beyond William and Harry: Who are the Queen's "Other" Grandchildren?

Congratulations Ma'am 

Princess Diana at 50 -- my thoughts on who she'd be 

Really? Oh Wow! Sarah   

William  & Catherine: Their Story by Andrew Morton    

Royals & Semi-Royals I Most Want to See Tomorrow  [Royal wedding]

A Very Modern Royal Wedding

Wills and Kate are Engaged!