Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
In the months after Matthew’s death, Mary withdraws from family life until Matthew’s letter names her his heir and gives her a stake in Downton’s future. She gradually returns to the estate’s work, helping oversee its finances and farming alongside Tom and the family. Charles Blake arrives to assess landed estates, while Lord Gillingham renews his courtship. Their rivalry gives Mary reasons to reconsider her future, but she remains unsure whether she wants to marry either man.
Edith’s relationship with magazine editor Michael Gregson deepens, and she travels to Switzerland to give birth to their daughter, Marigold, before placing the child with a foster family. Gregson goes to Germany to seek a divorce from his wife and then disappears; Edith has no confirmed account of his fate and later arranges for the Drewes, Downton’s tenant farmers, to raise Marigold nearby. Downstairs, Anna is assaulted by Gillingham’s valet, Mr Green. Mrs Hughes confronts Green and makes clear that Anna was not to blame, while Anna keeps his identity from Bates.
In the Christmas special, Rose appears before the king at Court, and the theft of a letter from the Prince of Wales threatens a public scandal. Gillingham and Blake are both in London, and Mary learns that Blake is heir to a baronetcy with an estate. She still makes no choice between her suitors. Green has been killed in a London street. Finding a York-to-London ticket in Bates’s coat, Mary suspects he was involved; she burns it rather than expose him, leaving the truth about his movements uncertain.