Isobel Crawley and Lord Merton on the local streets
Robert: It might be rather fun for her to reinvent herself as the great lady of the county and put us all in our proper place.
Violet: Yes... I suppose it would be fun...
Why must Violet unmake the matchmaking work she had so diligently been working on at the end of Season 4? At the start of Season 5, the Dowager Countess realizes she has made quite a blunder; if Lord Merton, recently widowed, proposed marriage to Isobel Crawley,suddenly her sparing partner would not be a part of the middle class. She would be above Violet in rank. As Cora points out to her husband, if Isobel were to become Lady Merton, she would take up her place in a grand house, would have a living husband, and her rank or position in the county's society would alter greatly. Isobel and Violet have always been equals in terms of temperament and spitfire, but to have her as an equal or possibly a superior in rank (as the title has passed onto Violet's son and therefore would be less potent than Isobel's potential position), would be beyond the pale.
