It's 1925, with Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister leading a Tory Government. Times are changing, though and there is mutiny in the air. Robert, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) is desperately trying to hold onto the reins of his estate. As the family take to their horses for the hunt, a bystander yells, ‘Your lot's had it'. Lady Mary takes a tumble, and an indiscretion from her past comes back to haunt her. Meanwhile, the servants are getting jittery with talk of Downton down-sizing. And romance blossoms behind the green baize door — but is someone getting cold feet? Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, the drama centers on the Crawley family and their servants. "The sun is rising behind Downton Abbey, a great and splendid house in a great and splendid park. So secure does it appear, that it seems as if the way of life it represents will last for another thousand years. It won't". In season 2, the lives of the Crawley family and the servants who work for them has been changed forever, since the Great War was declared at the end of the last season.