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Marigold-and-edith-play

Marigold (Eva Karina Samms) with her loving mother, Lady Edith.

Marigold Crawley Gregson is a child character on the series, Downton Abbey. She was played by twins Eva and Karina Samms.

Edith's beloved daughter[]

Marigold was the daughter of Lady Edith Crawley and her publisher/paramour, Michael Gregson. Prior to her birth, Michael had disappeared in Munich, Germany (later it was revealed that he had been killed by the Brown Shirts, Nazi supporters, during the infamous Bier Hall Putsch).

Edith and her aunt, Lady Rosamund Painswick went to Geneva, Switzerland, where Marigold was born. After weaning her, she gave her to a family named Schroeder in Geneva. However, she couldn't bear her daughter remaining in Switzerland.

After bringing her back to England, she sat down with a Timothy Drewe, one of her father's tenant farmers, and they contrived a plan to have her brought up in England. He and his wife, Margie, took Marigold in as their own.

However, Edith's bond with her daughter was too strong to be broken so easily. This annoyed Margie, and then she eventually found out that Edith was Marigold's real mother. Edith produced a birth certificate from Switzerland which proved it. (This came about after Edith found out about Michael's death)

After that, Edith and her daughter moved to London. Cora Crawley, Edith's mother, would get extremely furious with both Rosamund and Violet Crawley because they knew about Marigold, and failed to let her know about it. (Cora would eventually forgive Rosamund far easier than Violet, however)

Rosamund and Cora went down to London to try to convince Edith to bring her back. At first, she was resistant because she didn't want to be reviled as the village failure, and she still wanted to work with the magazine. Cora arranged with Tim Drewe to be there to help with Marigold, which he did.

When Cora and Edith saw Mary and her lady's maid, Anna at the Downton station, they had to avoid Mary finding out. Edith arranged for Tim to go with Marigold to the next station, and she would pay for the extra fare. 

As time wore on, everyone would figure out Marigold's relationship to Edith.  First it was Rosamund who knew, then Violet, then Cora, then Robert, Edith's father; and then Edith's brother in-law, Tom Branson (he had been married to Edith's late sister, Sybil); and finally Mary would be the last to know. 

Eventually, Marigold would get used to being around her cousins, George and Sybbie, whom she bonded with. However, unlike Sybbie (the eldest of the cousins; the daughter of Tom and the late Sybil) and George, (the future earl of Grantham, whose mother was Edith's older sister, Lady Mary Crawley), who were quite gregarious, Marigold was very shy, (possibly because she was a couple years younger than Sybbie and George) and she would be more at peace with her mother.

Edith truly adored Marigold and thought the sun rose and set on her.

Marigold's upbringing would be quite confusing. She would always be called Miss Marigold, although Edith was a Marchioness. If Edith were to have more daughters, they WOULD be called Lady So-and-so, as their father was titled. Since Michael Gregson was not titled, Marigold would still be a commoner. Even if she had been born in marriage, which would have happened, had Michael not died, she would still not be titled.

Margie Drewe would later kidnap Marigold while the family was at the Malton (a town nearby Downton) Market Fair. Edith was petrified that Margie would hurt her. Tim talked her into giving Marigold back to Edith, and soon after, the Drewes left Downton for good.

Mary would nearly sink Edith's engagement to Herbert "Bertie" Pelham, when she spitefully blabbed her niece's parentage to him.

Bertie left, thought never to be seen again, and the initially smug Mary, who felt that she was at the top of the pecking order again, and Edith relegated to the failure heap, would later be forced to pay the consequences for her spitefulness when Tom, Rosamund and Edith herself would confront her on her actions. 

Much later though, Downton's assistant cook, Daisy Mason's father in-law, Albert Mason, would take over the tenancy of Yew Tree Farm, the farm where the Drewe family had lived.

After Edith and Bertie were married, Marigold would later move to Brancaster Castle in Northumberland, which was the ancestral seat of the Marquess of Hexham, where she would grow up (along with a nanny).  It was presumed that she would make frequent visits to Downton, to be with her mother's family. 

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