S05.E03: Episode Three

[pbutler111]

Anna should throw the device away and say she was afraid Bates would find it. I wouldn't keep it at all.

If she does that, then she'll just have to go through the ordeal of buying another one should Mary decide to resume auditions.

Would Marjorie like Cora?

My guess would be no, because Cora is both American and nouveau riche.

[Kohola3]

Cora strives to see the best in people.

 

She also strives maintain the decorum of the lady of the manor. But she's not stupid and she's come up with a couple of good pops at Donk when she was pushed to the limit.

[moonb]

Cora strives to see the best in people.

She also strives maintain the decorum of the lady of the manor. But she's not stupid and she's come up with a couple of good pops at Donk when she was pushed to the limit.

 

She was pretty vicious to Robert after Sybil's death - understandably. It was a shame that didn't last more than an episode or two, because it really altered Cora's pretty and vacant-seeming exterior.

[SusanSunflower]

When Sybil was alive it was possible to imagine that she, as the baby, was the most Cora like, the one who got the most and most loving mothering. Certainly Edith appears to have been a Wednesday's or Thursday's child, the overlooked middle child, no one's favorite. As the not-a-male-heir firstborn, Mary was daddy's girl.  YES these are all cliches, but that's the paint on Julian Fellowes' paintbrush. With lovely and loving Sybil gone, we're left to try to "see" Cora in Mary and Edith. What do you see? I don't see much.  Mary will quickly grow to BE Violet, I think, Daddy's Mommy. Edith is still odd man's out and gets caring and sympathy from her Aunt Rosamund -- but love? I don't remember seeing Edith getting love from anyone. True, she's not terribly lovable, but as with all of us, she probably didn't start out that way.  (not good with names IRL either).

 

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day
Is fair and wise and good in every way.

- Wiki

Edited January 21, 2015 by SusanSunflower

[LeGrandElephant]

I thought a diaphragm had to be fitted to you somehow? Don't they come in different sizes?

[Andorra]

It's not a diaphragm. It was said somewhere that the item described in Mary Stope's book is a "cervical cap".

[Stella MD]

I find it hard to believe that a woman who can't dress herself and needs half an hour to remove a hat could ever manage the proper insertion of either a diaphragm or a cervical cap without assistance.  

[Zahdii]

Maybe she can manage to dress and undress herself just fine, but the constraints of high society preclude her doing so unless pressed.  I'm wondering how she managed to fix her hair, some of those styles pretty much require a trained assistant to do the job right. 

[Andorra]

I find it hard to believe that a woman who can't dress herself and needs half an hour to remove a hat could ever manage the proper insertion of either a diaphragm or a cervical cap without assistance.  

 

You should try to rebuild her hairstyle yourself or to put on her dresses with zillions of little buttons on the back where you can't reach them without being a yoga guru. It's not possible and it has nothing to do with being too dump to do it.

[SusanSunflower]

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/sex_relationships/facts/diaphragms.htm

 

Requires more "skill" than a tampon, but not much with a bit of practice. If your cervix is easy to reach with your finger, putting in a cervical cap would probably be no harder than a diaphram; if not, I suspect it could be more difficult or easier to do it wrong. People who find the whole idea of inserting anything might find placement issues both beyond comfort level and anxiety producing wrt it being effective as a contraceptive to the point of "ruining sex." To successfully insert either without it being shown and/or demonstrated could be quite awkward and not necessarily successful. The diaphragm has the ease benefit of being palm sized, the cap the ease of being (as the reference says) egg-cup like. No mention of spermicide in the show.

[ShadowFacts]

You should try to rebuild her hairstyle yourself or to put on her dresses with zillions of little buttons on the back where you can't reach them without being a yoga guru. It's not possible and it has nothing to do with being too dump to do it.

Both of my grannies used hat pins way back when, and they most assuredly did not have help putting in or taking off. I think Cora and Isobel seem to have sort of intricate styles, but Mary, not as much, just pretty smooth and wavy, such that pins would go in and out easily.   As for many tiny buttons in back, of course someone needs to do that, but not all clothing had that and of course the peasantry managed without daily dressing assistance.  I think that a woman who is so accustomed to having every little thing done for her would indeed have trouble with intricacies of birth control.  I just don't see Mary doing it with ease.  We know it's just a plot device for Anna to get in trouble.  I would have liked it if Mary had told Anna she never needed it anyway. 

[Zahdii]

You should try to rebuild her hairstyle yourself or to put on her dresses with zillions of little buttons on the back where you can't reach them without being a yoga guru. It's not possible and it has nothing to do with being too dump to do it.

 

Not quite as many tiny buttons at the time as in the past, but still a lot of buttons in the back.  I imagine what's-his-name could help with that, or Mary could call for a maid for that.  I'm not sure if she would, though.  I view her as being almost as snobbish as her father or Carson, but she can overcome that at times.

 

The hair is another story.  I've no idea what goes into the perfect 1922 hairdo, but for a very high fashioned lady like Mary I'm sure it requires someone skilled in the latest fashions.  I've heard that high-end hotels in the 1800's would often employ maids that had hairdressing skills, but I don't know if it was still happening in the 1920's. 

 

There's no mention of Mary hiring a temporary maid.  I can't imagine her doing it, as she would be worried that the maid would want to use her as a reference or even show up at Downton Abbey to seek a job.  Maybe she's one of those wizards who can do fancy things to their hair, even without multiple mirrors.  I had a roommate once who could double French braid her hair without mirrors while cradling her phone to her ear and carrying on a conversation with her friends.  (Yes, this was many years ago when we all talked on house phones.)

 

Anyway, the fashions and hairstyles of the current Downton Abbey timeline can be referenced here.

[Driad]

 

A friend gave a party to which guests brought gag gifts, including some homemade Downton Abbey items.  If I had thought of it in time, I could have used a brown paper bag to make a Downton Abbey diaphragm case.

[Gentian root]

Several posters have asked where the other Drewe children were:  It was "the youngest boy" Mrs. D. took to the dentist, so they very likely were at school.  Getting their heads filled with Miss Bunting's socialism.

If the Grand Hotel Liverpool was as Grand as it seems, they probably had a salon on-site where Mary could get her hair pinned, or even have a stylist sent to her room.

Violet's little stop of herself when asking Mary about consequences when she was about to say "Well, that's a...(change)" or words to that effect.  She nearly blew Edith's secret!  And google pics of Maggie Smith from 50 years ago:  I'd definitely offer her a fan! 

[Mrsjumbo]

My musings:

The Drewe/Mrs Drewe storyline is frustrating, but so was the Anna/Bates storyline where she wouldn't just tell him what was going on & he thought he did something wrong. One honest conversation would have cleared it up, but we had weeks of hurt feelings from Bates. JF doesn't write honest conversations between husbands & wives. Perhaps to keep the silly storylines going, but obviously everyone is getting tired of Drewe not telling his wife the truth.

My LOL moment was when Robert says (after Bunting pissed off the Russian): "Now do you see why I don't like her?" or something to that effect. Collectively, we the audience have been telling JF the same thing!

I still think it was odd that Tony went up to Isobel & thanked her for being kind to him. She looked surprised & I honestly don't remember them even conversing before. I still haven't written him off as turning nasty when he finds out Mary doesn't want him. Remember he had her sign her real name on the hotel register? He's got some blackmail material.

I thought that Anna taking home the "thing" was a setup for a future Bates/Anna disagreement, but then they showed Bates seeing her put it in her pocket & her saying it was Mary's, it was private & Mary wanted her to keep it for her. So it is already explained away if Bates finds it in the home.

The story that most confused me was Thomas. I thought he was calling to apply for another job. Then thought maybe he was hooking up with someone or at least meeting with Jimmy as a friend. Then Carson ominously said that Thomas' dad was not particularly nice to him. Then in next week's preview Thomas is crying & there is a gun next to him! So now I think the "fix the homosexual" theory might be correct. That was the reason he went to "cure" himself, it's the reason his dad is nasty to him, it's the reason he wants to commit suicide, if I'm correct. I love Thomas & don't want to see his character go. But tired of this story if I'm correct- they already addressed this with the "fondling Jimmy" story.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Mrsjumbo

[Mrsjumbo]

Oh, & on the subject of Cora being a dim bulb- I'm not convinced she isn't.

I agreed with Robert when he said "so the world renowned Art critic is fascinated by your opinions?" (Paraphrasing)

Just because Art Guy said she had such wonderful insights doesn't mean he wasn't just flattering her to get in her pants.

Although I agree Robert acted like an ass.

[Kohola3]

I thought that Anna taking home the "thing" was a setup for a future Bates/Anna disagreement, but then they showed Bates seeing her put it in her pocket & her saying it was Mary's, it was private & Mary wanted her to keep it for her. So it is already explained away if Bates finds it in the home.

 

Provided he believes her.  Which, in the JF world, he won't because for some reason we simply cannot have the Bates family happy for more than two minutes.

[jschoolgirl]

It's not a diaphragm. It was said somewhere that the item described in Mary Stope's book is a "cervical cap".

It was a "check pessary," used to support the uterus, bladder, or rectum. Someone along the line figured they'd serve also as a barrier-method contraceptive.

[pbutler111]

Unless they have some kind of fertility isues, Anna can't be too much of a stranger to birth control of one kind or another. How long have they been married now?

[pbutler111]

From this episode, I doubt it. Cora was clueless about Simon's true feelings/intentions.

It's funny how people saw this so differently. It's seemed to me that Cora's been quite aware of Richard E. Grant's (sorry, can't think of him any other way!) flirtation from the time Lord G. mistook its object as his dog rather than his wife. I don't see Cora as a dim bulb -- far from it. Just because she's quiet and adhere's to the conventions of her day doesn't mean she doesn't know what's going on around her and that she doesn't have an opinion on it. I think she enjoys the fact that someone's finally treating her like she has a brain. But, unlike Upstairs, Downstairs' Lady Marjorie, I don't think Cora would ever risk her entire world just for a bit of attention.

[Stella MD]

You should try to rebuild her hairstyle yourself or to put on her dresses with zillions of little buttons on the back where you can't reach them without being a yoga guru. It's not possible and it has nothing to do with being too dump to do it.

Perhaps I chose bad examples. To clarify: I don't think the issue is that Mary is too dumb, but rather that she lacks the constitution to handle the task. Even today, there are women who can't deal with manually inserting something 'down there' - witness the widespread popularity of tampons with applicators, the latter of which serves absolutely no purpose other than to bypass any perceived ickiness of the 'manual' portion of the task. Flash back 90 years, pre-sexual revolution, pre 'our bodies, ourselves', and the odds of any Edwardian woman feeling at ease with the whole inserting process already diminish greatly. *Then* add on the fact that we're talking about Lady Mary - the prissiest and snootiest of Edwardian women, who's used to dealing with any and all unpleasantries by ringing a bell for someone else to deal with it, who just forced her maid to dispose of the used device to make it go away, for heaven's sake - and I maintain that this is a woman who simply lacks the mental faculties to personally get down and dirty with the task at hand. No way, no how.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Stella MD

[majormama]

But on the other hand, this is the same Mary who spent hours slugging through mud to get water to her dying pigs and carried a dead body through the house. I don't think she's too dainty to do icky things. On the contrary, she's strong-willed enough to do about anything to get what she wants. She just does it only when she has to and passes it off when she can.

Edited January 23, 2015 by majormama

[MaryHedwig]

It was a "check pessary," used to support the uterus, bladder, or rectum. Someone along the line figured they'd serve also as a barrier-method contraceptive.

Without spermicide, right?  How effective could this birth control method have been?  Isn't there an entire generation of "check pessary" babies out there?

Edited January 23, 2015 by MaryHedwig

[helenamonster]

Unless they have some kind of fertility isues, Anna can't be too much of a stranger to birth control of one kind or another. How long have they been married now?

 

Seeing as how Anna was absolutely mortified at even Mary's veiled allusions to contraception, I doubt she's ever used anything. My money's on either her, Bates, or both having fertility problems. Between the two of them, I think Bates would be more likely, seeing as how he's been married twice with neither woman getting pregnant.

[txhorns79]

It's funny how people saw this so differently. It's seemed to me that Cora's been quite aware of Richard E. Grant's (sorry, can't think of him any other way!) flirtation from the time Lord G. mistook its object as his dog rather than his wife.

 

I'm pretty sure the guy came on to her pretty strongly when they were walking back from dinner to Rosamund's house.  She seemed to realize that, and responded to his request about seeing her again by saying she doubted that would happen. 

[jschoolgirl]

Without spermicide, right?  How effective could this birth control method have been?  Isn't there an entire generation of "check pessary" babies?

Yes, without spermicide. I suppose it would be more effective than nothing and less effective than when used with spermicide.

It occured to me that, in handing over "The Thing" to Anna, Mary possibly has indicated that she will not really need it for further sexy times with Tony. Otherwise, sure, she'd hide it away in her room as others have suggested she should've done in the first place.

Maybe handing it off was to suggest the delicate distaste a lady should exhibit over such matters.

[blackwing]

Then the rich woman offers to be a godmother and Margie has a problem with it? That's just as irrational as everything else in this storyline. A normal farmer's wife would be thrilled for her daughter, because she can offer the child so much more than the farmers ever could. Why refuse that in return for weekly visiting? What is so bad about giving Edith the opportunity to see the girl once a week?

Once a week?  It's more like every day.  I realise that we the viewers only get to see a snippet of these people's lives, but from the frequency that Edith talks about visiting it seems like she is going by on a daily basis.   I think part of Mrs. Drewe's issues, in addition to the perception that there is something going on between Edith and her husband, is that Edith seems to be trying to displace her as the mother.  Mrs. Drewe was kind enough to agree to adopt this child, has grown to love her and treat her as one of her own.  Now suddenly from out of the blue here comes this rich young woman who continually lavishes attention on this child and seems to act like a mother to her.

 

What I don't understand is why they couldn't just pass the baby off as a child of Edith's friend that died.  Not Drewe's friend that died.  That would make it a lot more understandable, Edith feels obligated to her dead friend to watch out for this child and then perhaps the child could even be raised with Sybbie and George in the big house instead of in this pig farmer tenant's house.

[CleoCaesar]

What I don't understand is why they couldn't just pass the baby off as a child of Edith's friend that died.

 

Because that would actually make sense and then we couldn't have this tortured melodramatic bullshit. This show is really a daytime soap opera but with better costumes.

[taanja]

 

ITA.  I feel way more sympathy for Mrs Drewe than Edith.  I do not get Edith at this point.  She is basically a spinster and she has nothing going for herself.  Just claim the child and raise her in the house.  Lie and say she eloped with the father or something.  I get it would be a scandal, but I really do not see what Edith has to lose at this point

 

Actually it is the child who has the most to lose. It is hard to imagine today -- but the stigma of "bastard" was a taint that followed a person through their whole life. it would effect her relationships with other children and her chances of a good marriage. Little Marigold would basically be screwed. Edith knows this. Everyone in that day and age knows this. That is why Edith went to so much trouble to conceal her pregnancy and bastard offspring.

 

[pbutler111]

What I don't understand is why they couldn't just pass the baby off as a child of Edith's friend that died.

Because no one would believe that, especially when Edith had just come back from an extended trip abroad.

[DHDancer]

Actually it is the child who has the most to lose. It is hard to imagine today -- but the stigma of "bastard" was a taint that followed a person through their whole life. it would effect her relationships with other children and her chances of a good marriage. Little Marigold would basically be screwed. Edith knows this. Everyone in that day and age knows this. That is why Edith went to so much trouble to conceal her pregnancy and bastard offspring.

 

Another tie in is Louisa and Charlie's daughter, in Duchess of Duke Street: this is exactly the situation as described/shown.

[helenamonster]

What I don't understand is why they couldn't just pass the baby off as a child of Edith's friend that died.  Not Drewe's friend that died.  That would make it a lot more understandable, Edith feels obligated to her dead friend to watch out for this child and then perhaps the child could even be raised with Sybbie and George in the big house instead of in this pig farmer tenant's house.

 

Actually, this was the original plan. She told Mr. Drewe that Marigold was the child of a friend's but she couldn't keep her at the abbey (I guess adoption was not a thing the nobility did?) but wanted to keep her close by. Mr. Drewe didn't buy that for a goddamn second (he didn't say so during the CS but it was pretty obvious) and said that he'd just tell his wife that Marigold was his friend's daughter, presumably to remove Edith a little bit from the situation and avoid suspicion.

[LeGrandElephant]

Edith's family knows she doesn't have any friends.

[MaryHedwig]

Edith's family knows she doesn't have any friends.

They must know that Mary doesn't have any either.  They therefore should have been suspicious when Mary said she was going on a sketching trip with a friend, what girlfriend could have stood to spend that much time with her?

[Too Late Kev]

If this were real life, Mary's sketching trip with a friend would be figured out at some point when someone from the family sees the friend or her parents. It doesn't seem like she put any effort into making the story realistic.

[Kohola3]

In Downtonland one must suspend any thoughts of continuity, sensibility, or follow through.  JF's mind doesn't work that way.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Kohola3

[craziness]

Mary did tell Anna that the friend would cover for her (not sure what story she told the friend, but probably not the Sex Week story). I'm hoping that at some point, Sprat will mention seeing Mary in Liverpool to Robert or Cora or Edith, then the story will come out. Also, after everyone asked to see her sketches, I think they showed Mary looking at sketches of fashioable dresses. I thought she was supposed to be driving around and stopping to sketch landscapes. She should have at lease done a couple quick line drawings to back up the lie.

[LeGrandElephant]

Yeah. Well Tom figured it out immediately. Mary's parents probably ARE suspicious but don't really want to know.

[lucindabelle]

Millburnstone,

As a. Jew, I can say that your assertions about patrilineal descent are wrong. The only people who accept patrilineal decent are reform Jews (and reconstructionist).. I'm conservative,not orthodox or ultra by a long shot, and if you want to be bar mitzvah end in our synagogue mom has to have converted (or born Jewish of course). No we don't ostracize anybody. It matrilineal descent is the law, and still required for Aliyah to. Israel.

Please don't mischaracterize all of Judaism by your own position. It simply is not true that "most jews” are equally accepting of both for.a long time now. Not only that it has been a huge deal recently that the conservative youth group changed its position on even tolerating inter-dating. It discourages it, where it used to forbid it, in consequence some people have resigned. You simply misrepresent masorti Judaism.

Edited January 24, 2015 by lucindabelle

[RealityTVSmack]

Did I get this wrong, or did Violet recount her time in Russia as having been with her husband?  Did she really have a dalliance while married?  Or was she there previously?  I thought I heard her say, or maybe Robert, that she was only there once.  I cannot re-watch it right now.  If I am not mischaracterizing it, then what she did was a bit more scandalous than widowed Mary and her test run.

I got the same take as you from that scene. Violet may have committed adultery, but we don't know if it was just first & second base. :D :D Till we get the juicy details we just have to give Violet the benefit of the doubt.

[CeeBeeGee]

Edith's family knows she doesn't have any friends.

 

[statsgirl]

I find it so heartbreaking that these men were executed because they had PTSD from the war they fought for their country.

 

Mary's problem:  how to hide a diaphram.  Edith's problem:  she forbidden to see her daughter.  Tom's problem:  he doesn't fit in.

Given what's happening to Edith and Tom, I still don't see why I should care at all about Mary.

 

 

 If Edith had a brain in her head all she would have had to do is tell the family that she HAD married Gregson before his trip, they had just decided to keep it a secret.  The family would have covered for her and they'd have another grand child.   It's not any more unbelievable than half the crap that happens on the show. 

 

Here's an interesting idea for Julian Fellowes - how about a story line where Edith and Mary put aside their differences for the greater good, some cause that they both get behind and forces them to realize that blood is thicker than water.   

I thought they knew that Gregson was already married.  But it doesn't matter because the point of Edith's story is to torture Edith and thus prove how superior Mary is.

 

The police looking into Greene's death now seems like a WTH? plot to mess with Bates again.  I care even less this time.

 

 The Bolshevicks were assholes, but that doesn't make the Czar and the nobles any less assholes, and these guys acting like they would have pissed on a peasant on fire just makes me giggle uncontrollably.

The Czarist regime wasn't a pleasant one to live under but it's nowhere near what the Communist regime did.  7 million people in the Ukraine alone were starved by Stalin (some reports say up to 12 million) just to bring them under control.  And that's not counting what they did to their own people and to the countries around them.  They made the French revolution look like an afternoon picnic.

 

I find Bunting rude and self-absorbed, with no consideration for how Tom might feel as she antagonizes Sibby's family, (I can't imagine what he sees in her) but that's minor compared to her willful ignorance about what was really going on in Russia as she waves the Communist flag.  In the face of those who lost their homes and their families.  Even if she disagrees with their regime, that's no excuse for a complete lack of any desire to understand what they are going through. Maybe some of those guest Russians had tried to treat the people on their estates well.

[JudyObscure]

I've never watched an episode of "The Brady Bunch," but if Marcia was as obnoxious as she seems from all the mentions she's had on the DA forums then I just don't get it. Of course I don't "get," Mary either so maybe that's the point.

[Kohola3]

I find Bunting rude and self-absorbed, with no consideration for how Tom might feel as she antagonizes Sibby's family, (I can't imagine what he sees in her) but that's minor compared to her willful ignorance about what was really going on in Russia as she waves the Communist flag.

 

Except didn't those atrocities occur much later? I believe the Ukrainian genocide was in the 30's so Bunting was only seeing the promises of a better life for the Russians in the 20's.  Perhaps revisiting her 10 years later (God forbid) she may have changed her tune.  

 

Not that any of her actions are excusable and I want her gone as much as everyone else but I do think she has opinion based on whatever news is available in a small village at that time plus her own disdain for the aristocracy in England.

[Zahdii]

I've never watched an episode of "The Brady Bunch," but if Marcia was as obnoxious as she seems from all the mentions she's had on the DA forums then I just don't get it. Of course I don't "get," Mary either so maybe that's the point.

 

I watched the TV show when I was a kid, and I don't remember Marcia being obnoxious.  In the show, Marcia was the eldest daughter, the prettiest, a very good student, lots of friends, and although they only mentioned her dating a few times there was no doubt that Marcia had no trouble finding dates.  Jan was the middle daughter and occasionally developed 'middle child syndrome', but it wasn't a constant theme and treated pretty lightly for the most part.  Jan wasn't as pretty, although probably just as smart, she probably had lots of friends, but I don't recall if there was any mention of her dating.  And youngest sister Cindy was cute as a button and had that 'youngest child' thing going for her.  In the show the kids were all good kids and any brattiness was mild and infrequent.

 

The thing that the other poster put up (I can't remember what you call it - a gif?) was from one of the Brady Movies, which I didn't see.  The movies were a blatant caricature of the series.  Marcia was incredibly perfect, and Jan was almost psychotic in her jealousy.  I don't know if JF ever watched anything Brady, but he has recreated the three sisters on Downton Abbey with an English twist, and his characters are somewhere in between the Brady show and the Brady movies.

[JudyObscure]

Thanks for the storyline breakdown, Zahdi! If some of the clips I've seen are from the movie, and meant to be a parody, then it makes much more sense.

[Constantinople]

Cora only said her father was Jewish and did not say anything about her mom. Was there any intermarriage back then? If Cora's mom is not Jewish then neither is Cora.

How outsiders and insiders to a group define group membership can differ (though the words outsiders and insiders would seem to presuppose some kind of standard to which they agree). Thus mainstream Judaism and British society may differ about whether they consider Cora Jewish.

I say mainstream because Karaite Judaism follows the rule of patrilineal descent for deciding who is Jewish.

However, the chances that Cora's father, Isidore Levinson, was a Karaite, is about zero.

[lucindabelle]

Yes for purposes of antisemitism or exclusion nobody cares at all which side you're descended from.

Frankly, I cal bs on Fellowes for not revealing that a little sooner though most of us deduced to ages ago.

[SusanSunflower]

It appears that many, probably most, of  the "cowards shot at dawn" were exactly the self-same "conscientious objectors" shot at dawn. 

Conscientious objectors:  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27404266

Bernard Lawson was one of some 16,000 conscientious objectors who refused to fight as conscription laws enlisted two-and-a-half million extra British troops from 1916 onwards.

Cowards:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1526437/Pardoned-the-306-soldiers-shot-at-dawn-for-cowardice.html

"I have always argued that my father's refusal to rejoin the front line, described in the court martial as resulting from cowardice, was in fact the result of shell-shock. And I believe that many other soldiers suffered from this too, not just my father.

but also 

Pte Farr was one of 18 men shot for cowardice during the Great War. Almost all the others were executed under the military code against desertion.

Other C.O.'s were tried and imprisoned, these apparently were transported to the battlefield, ordered to fight and shot when they refused.  Only 18 were shot for cowardice. 

Edited January 25, 2015 by SusanSunflower

[helenamonster]

Yes for purposes of antisemitism or exclusion nobody cares at all which side you're descended from.

Frankly, I cal bs on Fellowes for not revealing that a little sooner though most of us deduced to ages ago.

 

I just think he missed a huge opportunity. I think he should have explicitly made Cora fully Jewish from the start and explored the implications that that would have within the family.