Let’s be honest.  There is not a lot going on this week at the Abbey.  I’m sure there are viewers who could spend hours watching Anna purchase from a judgmental druggist the birth control device that will be a key element in her employer’s upcoming holiday with Lord Gillingham.  I am not one of them.  As a result, my mind wandered.  A few topics grabbed my interest, more for the digressions that they inspired than for their inherent interest.

At dinner, Tom engages in a disagreeable bit of moral equivalence, in my opinion.  Eating at Lord Grantham’s table night after night and listening to him dispense the wisdom that he has acquired from the stone tablets that he keeps in his study would not bring out the best in any of us.  Still, a political commentator once made the point that if one man pushes an old lady into the path of an oncoming bus, and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of an oncoming bus, it is not reasonable to say that they are both the same because, after all, they both push old ladies.  Tom’s equating the English execution of Charles I (1649) to the Soviet liquidation of the Romanov family is a similar equivalence.

One of the charges against Charles, read out at his trial in January 1649, was that he ”hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government . . . .”:  Among many other faults, Charles had failed to honor the commitments he had made in the Petition of Right in 1628.  The response of Parliament was a revolution in the form of a trial.  If we are comparing regicides, the means by which the indictment was wrung from Parliament would have won the full approval of Vladimir Lenin.  Cromwell could not get the House of Lords to approve the measure, so they were excluded.  Then, a majority of the Commons would not approve, so doubtful members were purged until his supporters formed a majority of the reduced number.  The methods might have been similar to those of the Bolsheviks, but the objective, the purpose behind the act (the reason for pushing the old lady), was to preserve and protect ancient rights and to avoid a tyranny.

The liquidation of the Czar and his family followed a very different pattern.  First of all, Nicholas abdicated in March 1917.  A “Provisional Government” had taken power in February 1917 and when it became clear that Nicholas no longer commanded the confidence of the nation, he abdicated.  The terms of his abdication also applied to his son.  He transferred the throne to his younger brother Michael, who effectively declined, stating that he would accept whatever position the government assigned to him.  The Bolsheviks took power through a violent overthrow of the Provisional Government in November 1917.  Michael died in prison in June 1918 and Nicholas and his family were shot in a basement in Ekaterinburg in July 1918.  In Doctor Zhivago when this news is reported, Zhivago’s father-in-law (a man similar to Robert Crawley in social standing and outlook, but with a more kindly disposition and a less mercurial temperament) asks “What’s it for?”  Zhivago answers that it’s to show that “there is no going back.”  But there was no going back at that point, not to Nicholas anyway.  And it could hardly be said that the Bolshevik’s purpose in eliminating a rival “family” was to preserve the “ancient and fundamental liberties” of the nation.

So, Tom, I realize that it is difficult to sit there while the old fellow rambles on about the latest outrage, but it doesn’t justify moral equivalence.  Not to this viewer, at least.

Now, what about these Russian refugees?  The Czar’s mother remained in Russia throughout the revolution and even after the execution of her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.  She did not want to leave.  In 1919 she was living in the Crimea, in an area not controlled by the Bolsheviks, but under heavy pressure from advancing Red forces.  She was the sister of George V’s wife and the British royals were strongly interested in getting her out.  A British naval vessel evacuated her, numerous relations, and members of her household from Yalta in April 1919.  Many of these people made their way to Malta, as did numerous other destitute members of the Russian nobility, from where they eventually trans-shipped to Britain.  The British made some efforts to keep anyone out who had no financial support, but this was a difficult proposition to maintain to the face of a wartime ally.  During the years immediately after World War One, there would have been a steady flow of well-bred Russians into England.

I haven’t found anything to say, one way or the other, whether any of these people ended up in York so as to be there in time for the lovely Rose to minister to their needs, but there would have been significant numbers of them here and there.  By 1924 what resources they had would have been running out.  So, the presence of Russian refugees in the story is not a complete invention, which I confess was my first thought when hearing about them.

Two of the staff in Downton have seen the inside of a prison (well, three if you count Anna, but she was there visiting Bates).  Both experiences continue to figure in the story.  The Baxter story is being released in droplets, which is the way information is dispensed to family, staff, and audience on this show, but the pace of disclosure is becoming annoying.  There has to be more to Baxter’s tale than she is letting on and my plea to the writers is that they do one of two things.  Either let us, Mr. Molesley, Lady Cora, and the York Daily News know the whole story, or if they prefer, drop it and move on to something else.  Let’s wrap this one up as we all count the spoons.

The police have reopened the investigation into Mr. Green’s run-in with a bus.  An eyewitness has turned up, after some two years!  Whoever it is certainly took his or her time thinking it over before coming forward.  And the method chosen by the York police to advance their inquiry is to call down to the station at Downton Parma or Downton Halt or whatever the local village is called and have the constable talk to the butler at Downton Abbey!  I suppose the writers’ idea is to start small, let the story spread a bit each week.  Just, you know, for a change.  This one will be out in the open about the same time that Baxter’s tale is told in full.  I don’t see Mr. Bates going back to prison, although he and Anna may have to sweat it out for a few episodes.  Of course, if the actor who plays Mr. Bates has been annoying the writers, all bets are off.

Is it possible that Robert has engaged in a subtlety?  He tells Cora to tell Mr. Bricker to stop flirting with Isis!  Surely, Robert knows that Mr. Bricker has been flirting with Cora herself?  And did Mr. Bricker inveigle Mr. Blake into bringing him to the Abbey ostensibly to view the famous painting, when his real objective was Lady Cora?  Or did he come for the painting and stay for the lady?  Or, wheels within wheels, did Mr. Blake talk Mr. Bricker into visiting the Abbey to view the painting so that he, Blake, could see Mary and make his case to her again?  Intricate.

I noticed another small discrepancy involving Miss Bunting.  She is a friend and supporter of working people and hopes that the great experiment then unfolding in Soviet Russia will be a success.  Yet, when she is asked to provide math lessons to Daisy for the fee of half a crown, equal to one-eighth of a pound sterling, Bunting says she’ll do it for five shillings, one-quarter of a pound, twice what Mrs. Patmore was offering!  I truly hope I misheard, but I don’t think I did.  The cost of those lessons is going to take a bite out of the modest wages of a domestic servant.

At the end of Season Four, Mrs. Hughes took Mr. Carson by the hand and led him to the edge of the sea.  With that act, she ended Mr. Carson’s reign as the independent autocrat below Downton’s stairs.  He himself has been slow to realize this fact, but the decision about the war memorial has brought things into focus for him.  He will find it very easy to get along with Mrs. Hughes if he just learns to compromise and to be sure that she has her way in all things.

In the meantime, nothing terribly urgent is going on with Lord Gillingham and Mary, Mary and Mr. Blake, Lord Merton and Isobel, Isobel and Violet, Mr. and Mrs. Drew, Edith and Marigold (I called her Lucy last time, sorry) and the rest of the crew.  When something dramatic happens, there will be time to pick up the various threads that continue to trail behind all of these worthy characters.

The preview suggests that Violet has a Russian episode in her past.  I know we all look forward to hearing more about that!