- "Mr Lloyd George is more concerned with feeding the population than rescuing the aristocracy. It doesn't seem mean-spirited to me."
- —Charles Blake[src]
Charles Blake is working for the government studying how large estates such as Downton Abbey are enduring the changes of society post-war. He is Evelyn Napier's boss. He and Napier are invited to stay at Downton in 1922.
Biography
1922
Mary Crawley assumes that Blake and Napier are there primarily to advise and ensure that the estates endure and succeed through these troubling times. Blake however revealed that was not the case, that they are more concerned with their effect on the overall economy.
Blake and Mary immediately begin making rude remarks against one another, such as when Mary and her brother-in-law decide to branch out to pig farming. He calls her a sentimentalist, who cannot face the truth. Mary remarks to Napier that Blake is a "traitor" and then an "enemy" because she felt he was not on their side. Blake himself told Napier that he did not like Mary because she felt entitled to her wealth as an aristocrat, and that she would never work for it. He feels that sort of person does not deserve to survive. Napier tells Blake Mary feels precisely that way about him.
Blake begins to respect Mary more when she willingly dirties herself alongside him in order to help some new pigs when they are in need. That night they share a private meal in the servants' hall, when Mary cooks them both some scrambled eggs.
Mary's former suitor Anthony Gillingham returns to Downton, and is revealed to be an old friend of Blake's from the war. They served together aboard the Iron Duke with Jellicoe, and were at Jutland.
By the time of the bazaar, Blake returns to see Mary, as he is now very attracted to her and been thinking about her a good deal. She seeks his council regarding hers and Anna's suscipions that the death of Gillingham's valet Green may have been no accident, without telling him who or what. He makes plain his feelings for her, but she gives him no answer, citing she's disappointed other men already (Gillingham and Napier specifically).
1923
Blake appears at Grantham House in the hopes of taking Mary out to lunch. He and she later attend an art exhibition where they run into Rose, Lord Gillingham, and Rose's newest acquaintance, Freda Dudley Ward, a married woman and mistress of the Prince of Wales. Mrs Ward appears to know Blake well, as she later talks to him a couple times.
Mary comes to Blake for help when a letter from the prince to Mrs Ward is stolen by Terence Sampson. He thanks her for this. He continues to profess his love for Mary, telling her he believes in the future, and thinks she can too. He is clearly jealous when she dances with Lord Gillingham at a ball at Grantham House, though she later dances with him too.
Mary feels that a relationship with Blake might not work, that they could not pull together as a team because her duty is to preserve Downton, for her son, while Blake is an outsider on the opposite side. However, much to her surprise she learns from Gillingham himself that Blake is actually not an outsider. In fact, he is heir to a baronetcy and one of the largest estates in Ulster through a distant cousin of his father's, Sir Severus Blake, something which according to Gillingham Blake has always played down. Gillingham even remarks that Blake is going to be a more elligbile bachelor than himself (suggesting the estate, fortune, and title Blake stands to inheirt are all greater than his own).
Blake later explains to Mary that he never mentioned these facts about his past first because he did not want her to think he shared similar prejudices just because he came from a similar background, and later when he fell in love with her, wanted to win her on his own, without his inheritance.
Appearances
| Appearances and Mentions | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series 4 | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 Mentioned |
Episode 6 Appears |
Episode 7 Appears |
Episode 8 Appears |
Christmas Special Appears |
| Series 5 | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Christmas Special |
| Series 6 | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Christmas Special |