Downton writer attacks law as baron’s daughter loses estate

THE creator of Downton Abbey has criticised inheritance laws after a baron’s daughter lost her father’s title and land.

Lord Fellowes of West Stafford said that Amanda Murray, 55, daughter of Baron Braybrooke, had been unfairly penalised by laws in the peerage which prioritise male heirs.

Robin Neville, the 10th Baron Braybrooke, died last week, leaving seven daughters, but none of them will inherit his title or the 6,000-acre Audley End estate in Essex.

Instead, the title goes to a distant cousin, Richard Neville, 40, director of Bring a Bottle, a price comparison site for alcohol, and the estate to Louise Newman, 56, an art historian.

Ms Newman inherits the estate under the terms of the 7th Baron’s will. It stated that if any Lord Braybrooke failed to produce a male heir, the estate should revert to his line. She is his granddaughter.

“It seems rather hard on Amanda. She’s lived and worked there all her adult life,” Lord Fellowes told The Sunday Times. Mrs Murray has previously said the law is “discriminatory” and that she is “doing a man’s job” in running the estate. “If I was a boy, I would be sitting pretty,” she said.

“My poor father had no son; just lots of daughters. In this day and age, with supposed equality, why am I not allowed to inherit my father’s estate?”

The situation has been called the “real-life Downton” because of its similarities to a storyline in the television series in which a distant male cousin becomes the heir to an earl who has three daughters but no sons.

Royal laws of succession were changed in 2013 before the birth of Prince George, and are gender-neutral.

Lord Fellowes said changing the peerage rules in a similar way was not as easy. “Making the peerage the equivalent of the Royal family would create a great chaos for many families... whose sons have for 30, 40, 50 years made the assumption of inheriting. One can’t just brush them aside,” he said.

Lord Fellowes has previously said it is “outrageous” that his wife, Emma, a descendant of Earl Kitchener, the First World War field marshal, had no right to inherit the title when the third Earl, who was childless, died in 2011.