Did Anyone Else Notice The Dowager Countess Taking On Big Government On ‘Downton Abbey’ This Week?

I admit it – I love Downton Abbey. I’m a sucker for historical fiction, even if it is soapy and overly-dramatic (and the Crawleys are so much more kind and respectful toward their servants than I’m sure most upper-class families were at the time). One of my favorite characters is the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lady Violet Crawley – played by one of my absolute favorite actresses, the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith.

If you’ve never seen the show (side note: your life is the poorer for it), Lady Violet is a salty-yet-very-classy old lady that is going to say what’s on her mind and nobody is going to tell her any different. She’s lived a full life and she has wisdom to impart, no matter how unwanted or even inappropriate it is. She’s your lovable crazy grandma, but with class and style. And I ADORE her. If I can in any way emulate Lady Violet in my old age, I will have succeeded at life.

Lady Violet’s main character trait is that she wants to hold on to tradition, even in the face of change and opposition. But the way the show deals with someone of her generation isn’t to dismiss her as an outdated and old fashioned old geezer. Her character is treated with respect and admiration, even when other characters (whom we are also meant to relate to) disagree with her. That’s one thing I enjoy about the show – it clearly takes the side that change and progress (and, yes, progressivism) is a good thing. But it also doesn’t dump on the traditions and values of the past, either. It’s somehow managed to keep a good balance in the modern commentary of the historical time period, while also giving the people that lived at the time the benefit of the doubt. And there’s also that little thing about telling a good story with great characters.

This season (the final season *sad tear*) features a plotline where the government wants to come in and take over the operations of the village hospital, which has been a beloved mainstay in the town (and the show) for years. Some in the Crawley family want the government to take over and bring in state-of-the-art (for the late-1920s) medical techniques and more money. Lady Violet, however, is against the move because that means the locals won’t be dealing with doctors they’ve known and who know them. It turns over the running of a local operation to the government. And it goes against tradition, which is what Lady Violet always strives to maintain. During a conversation about the future of the hospital, Lady Violet launched into this monologue –

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(Yes, it’s amusing that this aired on government-funded PBS. To be fair, it originally aired in the UK on ITV, which is one of the private television broadcast stations over there. Ask me sometime about the on-going feud between the BBC and ITV. It’s kind of funny.)

The Blaze notes that Lady Violet sounds less like nobility from 1920s England and more like a conservative radio show host in 2016 – which… yeah, I don’t know how many nobles from that time period would have said something like that. Even if their way of life was fading away. But that’s the way the show is demonstrating just how alike we are throughout history. The names and places change, but the principles that make society and government work the best stay exactly the same and people can understand that, if they have the chance to experience it. There’s even one scene in the episode where the Crawleys’ socialist son-in-law, Tom Branson, returns from America and he is very complimentary about the American capitalist system where anyone can start from the bottom and become wealthy in a lifetime – something that was unheard of in Europe. Probably still is, to an extent.

Too bad the rest of the UK and Europe didn’t listen to the likes of Lady Violet. Hopefully we in the United States will take heed.