Downton Abbey is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. It first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States on PBS, which supported its production as part of its Masterpiece Classic anthology, on 9 January 2011. The show ran for fifty-two episodes across six series, including five Christmas specials.
Set on the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey between 16 April 1912 and New Year's Eve 1925, the series depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era, navigating their lives amidst the British social hierarchy. Plot events include news of the sinking of the Titanic (first series); the outbreak of the First World War, the Spanish influenza pandemic and the Marconi scandal (second series); the Irish War of Independence leading to the formation of the Irish Free State (third series); the Teapot Dome scandal (fourth series); the British general election of 1923 and the Beer Hall Putsch (fifth series). The sixth and final series introduces the rise of the working class during the interwar period and hints at the eventual decline of the British aristocracy.
Downton Abbey has been praised by television critics and received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. It was recognised by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television series of 2011. It earned 27 Primetime Emmy Award nominations after its first two series, the most for any international television series in the awards' history. It was the most watched television series on both ITV and PBS, and became the most successful British costume drama since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead Revisited.
After Carnival Films and ITV announced the television series end in 2015, the historical drama continued in a trilogy of films: an eponymous film in 2019, followed by A New Era in 2022, and The Grand Finale in 2025.
Plot overview
Series 1 (2010)
The first series, comprising seven episodes, explores the lives of the fictional Crawley family, the hereditary Earl of Grantham, and their domestic servants at the family estate in Yorkshire region. The storyline centres on the fee tail, or "entail", governing the titled elite, which endows title and estate exclusively to male heirs. Common recovery had been developed in the fifteenth century as a means of ending an entail. This did not stop the practice and in the seventeenth century lawyers developed strict settlement as a means of enforcing entail. The Settled Land Acts 1882 to 1890 finally allowed strict settlements to be broken by agreement with the next heir, except where he was a minor.
As part of the backstory, the main character, Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, had resolved his father's past financial difficulties by marrying Cora Levinson, an American heiress. Her considerable dowry is now contractually incorporated into the committal entail in perpetuity; however, Robert and Cora have three daughters and no son.
As the eldest daughter, Lady Mary Crawley had agreed to marry her second cousin Patrick, the son of the then-heir presumptive James Crawley. The series begins the day after the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912. The first episode starts as news reaches Downton Abbey that both James and Patrick have perished in the sinking of the ocean liner. The family then learns that a more distant and unknown male cousin, solicitor Matthew Crawley, the son of an upper-middle-class doctor, has become the next heir presumptive. The story initially centres on the relationship between Lady Mary and Matthew, who resists embracing an aristocratic lifestyle, while Lady Mary resists her own attraction to the new heir presumptive.
Of several subplots, one involves John Bates, Lord Grantham's new valet and former Boer War batman, and Thomas Barrow, an ambitious young footman, who resents the former for taking a position he had desired for himself. Bates and Thomas remain at odds as Barrow works to sabotage Bates's every move. After learning Bates had recently been released from prison, Thomas and Miss O'Brien (Lady Grantham's lady's maid) begin a relentless pursuit that nearly ruins the Crawley family in scandal. Barrow – a closeted homosexual man – and O'Brien create havoc for most of the staff and family. When Barrow is caught stealing, he hands in his notice to join the Royal Army Medical Corps. Matthew eventually does propose to Lady Mary, but she puts him off when Lady Grantham becomes pregnant, understanding that Matthew would no longer be heir if the baby is a boy. Cora loses the baby after O'Brien, believing she is soon to be fired, retaliates by leaving a bar of soap on the floor next to the bathtub, causing Cora to slip while getting out of the tub, and the fall resulting in a miscarriage. It is later revealed that the miscarried foetus was a male. Although Lady Mary intends to accept Matthew, Matthew believes her reluctance is due to the earlier uncertainty of his heirship and emotionally rescinds his proposal, leaving Lady Mary devastated. The series ends just after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.
Series 2 (2011)
The second series comprises eight episodes and runs from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. During the war, Downton Abbey is temporarily converted into an officers' convalescent hospital.
Matthew, having left Downton, is now a British Army officer and has become engaged. His fiancée is Lavinia Swire, the niece of a Liberal minister. William Mason, the second footman, is drafted, even after attempts by the Dowager Countess of Grantham to save him from conscription. William is taken under Matthew's protection as his personal orderly. Enduring trench warfare and charging against machine guns and artillery, both are injured by an exploding shell. William dies from his wounds, but only after a deathbed marriage to Daisy, the scullery maid. While Daisy does not believe she loves William, she marries him in his last hours as his dying wish and is widowed within half an hour of her marriage. It is not until a brief encounter with the Dowager Countess that she begins to realise that her love was real, but she could not admit it to herself.
Matthew is now paralysed from the waist down by his battle injury, and seemingly unable to father children. Lavinia remains true to him despite his attempts to set her free, and he finally accepts her devotion. Mary, while acknowledging her feelings for Matthew, becomes engaged to Sir Richard Carlisle, a powerful and overbearing newspaper mogul who was instrumental in uncovering the Marconi scandal, but their relationship is rocky. Bates's estranged wife, Vera, repeatedly causes trouble for John and Anna, who are now engaged. Vera threatens to expose Mary's past scandalous indiscretion, but Carlisle agrees to purchase and kill her story. Embittered, Mrs Bates mysteriously commits suicide with an arsenic pie after a visit by Bates, and he is arrested on suspicion of her murder. Matthew regains the use of his legs, and he and Mary realise they are still in love, but Matthew remains honourably committed to Lavinia after she stood by him during his misfortune. Unknown to them both, Lavinia, ill with Spanish flu, sees and overhears Matthew and Mary admit their love for one another while dancing to a song playing on the phonograph given as a wedding present to Matthew and Lavinia.
The Spanish influenza epidemic hits Downton Abbey further with Cora taken seriously ill, as well as Carson, the butler. During the outbreak, Thomas attempts to make up for his inability to find other employment after the war by making himself as useful as possible and is made Lord Grantham's valet after Bates is arrested. Lavinia dies abruptly, which causes great guilt to both Matthew and Mary. Bates is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death but the sentence is commuted to life in prison due to Lord Grantham's influence. After a talk with Robert, Mary realises that she must break off her engagement to Carlisle; he and Matthew fight in the drawing room, but in the end Carlisle goes quietly and is never heard from again. The annual Servants' Ball is held at Downton, and Mary and Matthew finally find their way to a marriage proposal on a snowy evening outside the Abbey.
Lady Sybil, the youngest Crawley daughter, beginning to find her aristocratic life stifling, falls in love with Tom Branson, the new chauffeur of Irish descent with strong socialist leanings. She is talked out of elopement by her sisters, but her wayward marriage eventually receives Lord Grantham's reluctant blessing.
Ethel Parks, a new housemaid, is seduced by a wounded officer, Major Bryant. Mrs Hughes, the housekeeper, finds them together in bed and dismisses Ethel, but takes pity on her and helps her when Ethel tells her she is pregnant. She has a baby boy and names him Charlie after his father, but Major Bryant refuses to acknowledge his paternity.
The filming location, Highclere Castle, in reality served as a convalescent home during World War I.
Series 3 (2012)
In episode one of the third series, covering 1920 to 1921, preparations are underway for Mary and Matthew's wedding. Tom and Sybil Branson arrive from Ireland, where they now live, to attend the wedding. Also arriving to attend the wedding of her granddaughter is Cora's mother, Martha Levinson, from America. Robert learns that the bulk of the family's fortune (including Cora's dowry) has been lost due to his impetuous investment in the Grand Trunk Railway. Meanwhile Edith has fallen for Sir Anthony Strallan, whom Robert discourages from marrying Edith due to his age and crippled arm. At Edith's insistence, Robert gives in and welcomes Sir Anthony, but even though he loves her, Strallan cannot accept that the Grantham family approves of the match, and at the altar announces that he cannot go through with the wedding, devastating Edith. Strallan flees the church and is never heard from again.
Meanwhile, Bates's cellmate plants a small surgical knife in his bedding, but Bates is informed by a fellow prisoner allowing him time to find and hide it (this same small knife is later used by Bates to threaten his cellmate when he had been using his connections through corrupt prison guards to keep a witness from testifying to Bates's innocence of the crime for which he is incarcerated). At Downton, Mrs Hughes finds out she may have breast cancer, which only some of the household hear about, causing deep concern, but the tumour turns out to be benign. Tom Branson and Lady Sybil, now pregnant, return to Downton after Tom is implicated in the burning of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat's house during the Irish War of Independence. After Matthew's reluctance to accept an inheritance from Lavinia's recently deceased father and then Robert's reluctance to accept that inheritance as a gift, Matthew and Robert reach a compromise in which Matthew accepts that the inheritance will be used as an investment in the estate, giving Matthew an equal say in how it is run. However, as time goes on Robert repeatedly resists Matthew and Tom's efforts to modernise the running of the estate to make it profitable.