Rate Mary's Suitors

To be complete honest, i found all of them boring, after Matthew all of them seemed to be a male version of Mary, and the worst thing is that any of them seems to have any respect of themselves. Any man in that period, woudnt take that a woman could talk or sometimes directly insult them like Mary did; we are talking about a country who lost a lot of men in the war, and in the upper classes the lost was worse; so, any man of the upper middle classes or even a broken aristocrat would have been catch, in fact they could have easily pick any woman, more younger, beautiful and rich than Mary.

Even if JF tried to sell us Mary as the ultimate woman, at least Matthew Crawley had some respect for himself and didnt allow to be played. The rest: Napier, Gillingham, Blake and Talbot were too bland, any of them didnt challenge Mary or plain tell her that her behaviour was enough. The break up with Talbot was a dissaster, the man simply leaves her then with a mere telegram came back, at least, the poor dull Bertie Pelham exposed his reasons to Edith when he broke with her and showed integrity.

But anyway, maybe, but i think that the most decent among those men was Evelyn Napier, he was down to earth and not so arrogant like the rest of them. If they had allowed the character of Mary evolve from a spoiled brat of season 1 to a mature woman with a child it could have been a serious relation betwen Mary and Napier, but when they decided that Mary would behave like a teenager in her 30´s, Napier would no longer be "the one", because she needed a teenage boyfriend.

It's been discussed far below, but Evelyn Napier, Charles Blake, Anthony Gillingham all had a fatal flaw--all three were titled or heirs to a title, who expected a wife who would devote herself to their estates and their dynasty. Mary would have been expected to move to their estate and start producing heirs, which then meant trying for at least one boy and preferably two. Mary was in her mid-thirties--did she really want to pregnant for the next few years, or longer? Did she want to leave Downton, or put George's future to one side?

Talbot had no such expectations, and he could easily support Mary's dynastic ambitions. His children would inherit no titles or estates, other than the one he could hope to leave them himself. (In season 5 his aunt says of him that his funds are adequate but not overwhelming.) As we've seen, he's not afraid of work.

I'm not sure I ever saw any of the other three interacting with George, whereas Henry had the great scene in the office with George in his lap (I'm WOOOKING) and then sat him easily on his shoulders. A good stepfather is a special kind of hero; ironic that both sisters seem to lucked into one.

The only reason I was disappointed with Mary's choice of Henry Talbot was because he didn't have too much money. I always thought that Mary is the kind who would ensure that she marries someone with plenty of money (and preferably a title) because she knows that it's the only kind of lifestyle that suits her. Marrying Henry made her a little less "practical", which was one of her most appealing characteristics in my eyes.

That said, perhaps the fact that Mary now has a real "job" and her own independent wealth means that she is less interested in marrying money than she used to be in Series 1 and 2. As I have said elsewhere, marrying either Gillingham or Blake would have taken her away from the estate and probably led to Downton's sale in the future. Talbot was the only one she could keep on the estate.

Otherwise, in terms of personality, intelligence and looks, I think Talbot was perfect for Mary.