The TV serial Downton Abbey has made a world star of Highclere Castle; but let’s claim a little credit for Crux Easton, too, for contributing to the script.

A few examples:

That long-running family feud in Downton, with Lady Mary and Lady Edith scuppering each other’s lives, comes straight from the lives of the real-life sisters Diana and Nancy Mitford. For this the writer has turned to people from Crux Easton: Sir Oswald Mosley, his wife Diana and their son Max, and to Diana’s sisters, the Mitford girls. They all provide such good ‘copy’ – such colourful lives … who could blame him?

He admits it; and in one episode he has fun confirming what he’s done in full view. When someone says, ‘it’s blood on the carpet,’ Lady Mary replies “it’s Wigs on the Green.” He couldn’t make it clearer than that. Wigs on the Green is the novel where Nancy Mitford lampooned Diana’s husband Oswald, his politics and his Black Shirts, mocking him as ‘Captain Jack and the Jack Shirts.’

Another example: Max Mosley was president of the FIA, the world governing body of motor racing. He once invited his parents, Oswald and Diana, to watch a race. Unfortunately, on that occasion a driver died in a blaze in front of them. Unsurprisingly, they never went motor racing again. In Downton the story is a straight copy: the Crawleys are invited to a motor race, the driver crashes and dies in the blaze, and the Crawleys never go motor racing again.

Even we can’t resist the third example: everyone knows the story of Debo Mitford, Diana’s youngest sister, the nice conventional one, the one who used to visit Diana in prison and at Crux Easton, the one who had all the luck. She married Andrew, an obscure relation of the Duke of Devonshire. When the Duke died, Debo, out of the blue, and through some ramification of inheritance, became the Duchess of Devonshire and mistress of Chatsworth, one of the grandest stately homes in England.

For Downton, Debo Mitford’s real-life story is irresistible. The show has Lady Edith engaged to an obscure land agent, Bertie Pelham, employed by the immensely rich ‘Marquis of Hexham.’ When the Marquis dies unexpectedly, Lady Mary takes great pleasure in pointing out to her sister that her beloved Bertie will be out of a job, now there’s a new Marquis. “But Bertie is the new Marquis” replies Edith. Game, set, and match to Edith.

 

Agricola, May 2025