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Not even I could make up SCANDALS like these
The shocking tales he dug up researching his new series on Britain’s great houses make his Downton plots seem positively tame, Julian Fellowes tells Jenny Johnston
Julian Fellowes looks aghast. Horrified. Incredulous. The sense of injustice he feels is writ large all over his face. Were someone organising a protest march about the situation we’re discussing he would be likely to sign up. Now, the creator of Downton Abbey isn’t normally a man you can imagine marching on Parliament to express his fury. But some things are beyond the pale.
‘You know I’m not a revolutionary,’ he admits. ‘But sometimes you do see their point.’ We shouldn’t worry that Lord Fellowes – actor, writer and a Conservative life peer – is about to go too radical, though. The ‘appalling, brutal, dreadful’ incident he’s talking about happened in 1567, although he’s only just found out about it.
He’s on the set of his latest TV project, Great Houses With Julian Fellowes, in which he sets off around Britain visiting some of our grandest stately homes, Burghley House in Cambridgeshire and Goodwood House in West Sussex included. His brief isn’t just to gawp at the art collections and waft through the vast corridors, however. The emphasis is more on the people who inhabited these places, both above and below stairs, and the real-life dramas that befell them.
Obviously the clash between classes – his specialist subject, one might say – is a constant theme. But one episode is more jaw-dropping than most. It involves the then 17-year- old Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was practising his fencing one July day in the yard of Cecil House, the home of his tutor and mentor Sir William Cecil. One Thomas Brincknell, an under-cook in the Cecil household, ventured into the yard – and ended up dead, stabbed by the young Earl.
Was it murder or misadventure? Neither, according to the official reports, which Fellowes read with increasing disbelief. ‘The coroner’s inquest was told that this poor Brincknell had been drunk and had run into the blade, which is quite ridiculous. Everything was covered up to preserve reputations – at the sacrifice of poor Brincknell. But what happened next was even more appalling. Because he was deemed to have killed himself, he was not allowed a proper burial and his wife, who was pregnant at the time, lost her home and everything she had. The truth had been covered up by Cecil, who could not allow his protégé to be involved in any scandal. Now, I understand the need for the ruling classes to sometimes rule with an iron hand. But this was something else, it was savage.’
Lord Fellowes, of course, has penned no end of scandals himself. Downton Abbey has had its fair share of imprisoned valets and dead lovers. Yet he thinks the real-life shockers he unearths in this series are somehow more horrifying than anything fiction writers can create. ‘Let’s face it, if I’d written something like that I’d have been accused of being far too outlandish. That’s the amazing thing about this series. You simply couldn’t make up some of the stories.’
Or be failed to be moved by them, it seems. He gets a bit weepy remembering reading of one unfortunate dairy maid who hid a dead baby – and paid a terrible price for it. ‘The account of what happened came from a court reporter, not a lyrical novelist, but the true sense of her anguish was laid bare.’
It’s a fascinating series, and one can imagine some of the tales eventually finding their way into Downton. The fourth series has been confirmed and Fellowes is mid-way through writing it. There is just the mildest hint of panic in his voice as we discuss where he’s up to. ‘No, no, nowhere near finished yet. What can I say? We have the first readthrough in February so the hounds are snapping. I’ve been at it quite furiously, but my wife did insist that I take Christmas Day off.’ Of course, what happened on screen on Christmas Day in the Downton festive special left us all reeling. The handsome Matthew Crawley, husband of Lady Mary, dead in a car crash? No one saw that one coming. It had been known the actor Dan Stevens wouldn’t return for another series, but few considered Fellowes would go as far as actually killing him off. ITV was
‘The killing was covered up to protect reputations’
inundated with complaints that the story line was ‘a travesty’, ‘a tragedy’ and ‘an outrage’, with some saying the ending had ‘ruined their Christmas’.
Fellowes sighs. ‘What did they want us to do? In the UK we can only get actors to commit to three series. In the States they might sign up for seven, but that’s not how it works here. And to engineer an exit is quite difficult. Problems in the marriage would just not have been feasible – not when I’d spent so long setting it up as a happy marriage!’
He chats away about the perils of being the writer of a series that becomes so successful the leading characters are in demand elsewhere. ‘It’s actually lovely to see the youngsters blossom and go on to take up other challenges, but it does present problems. It was probably right for Dan. Less right for us, but that’s what happens in this business.’
He admits that one of the ‘family’ leaving dealt the show a serious blow. ‘It’s always a big deal if a family member wants to leave. If it’s a servant it’s no problem, they can go and get other jobs so there’s an obvious exit. I didn’t want him to go, but he couldn’t be persuaded to stay. Dan did nothing wrong, he gave proper notice and everything, but I kept hoping he’d change his mind.’ Then, Fellowes admits, the Downton bosses tried to convince him to stay for just long enough to film a feasible ending that didn’t involve sudden death. ‘My thinking was if we had him for another three episodes he could have a foreign posting, but he wasn’t prepared to do that.’
So what shocks and scandals will the next series of Downton present us with? One assumes there will be much weeping and wailing from Lady Mary, suddenly our favourite TV widow? ‘Absolutely. There will be a lot of grief to be worked through.’ And where will the hand of happiness fall (given that there has to be a balance in these things)? Perhaps another wedding – one that actually goes ahead – for Lady Edith? He smiles. ‘I’m not sure about that. It strikes me that there are certain people who seem to attract misfortune, and Lady Edith is one of them. Besides, it’s much easier to write about upset and tragedy. It’s actually very hard to write about happiness.’
The risk is the other cast members will also get itchy feet when they see Dan Stevens head to Hollywood. There are already rumours Lady Edith may be the next to leave. Could we see a mass exodus? ‘I hope not!’ he says, horrified. Fans will join him on that one. Great Houses With Julian Fellowes begins on Tuesday at 9pm on ITV1.