Part Three: But What of “Poor Edith”?

In another tragic case of mistaken identity, Michael Gregson was not, in fact, murdered in Germany.  His remains were misidentified, as we learn when he, too, makes his way back to Downton in the penultimate episode.  Looking much the worse for the wear after four years in a German prison for inciting a riot, Gregson returns just in time to become a complication to Edith and Bertie’s wedding plans. 

In the final episode, Edith makes her choice – in favor of the father of her child, Gregson.  But we learn something that Edith does not yet know:  that Gregson’s time in prison has had an effect of his mental stability, that he is subject to bouts of madness that come and go.   

In the Downton Abbey spinoff, “Haxby” (see yesterday’s post, The Surprising Triumph of Molesley), we watch as the truth of Gregson’s condition slowly becomes apparent to the pregnant Edith (that woman is a veritable fertility machine, can’t have sex a single time without conceiving).   Gregson’s madness progresses and he must be confined to an asylum.  Bertie and Edith commence a passionate illicit affair, and Edith ironically finds herself in the situation that started the whole mess:  she is married to a lunatic whom she cannot, under British law, divorce.  So she heads for Germany…..