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"Julian Fellowes has defended his decision to have Lady Mary courted by various male suitors in series four of Downton Abbey, arguing that it wouldn&amp;#039;t be believable for her to stay single forever. The ITV period drama returns later this month and the show will have moved on six months from the death of Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), Lady Mary&amp;#039;s (Michelle Dockery) husband.   &amp;quot;The only reason she wouldn&amp;#039;t be eventually courted successfully would be if she was determined to remain alone and I just don&amp;#039;t think that&amp;#039;s who she is,&amp;quot; said the show&amp;#039;s creator.  &amp;quot;I think she&amp;#039;s one of those people who find it quite difficult to be generally genial and those people need a partner, because otherwise there&amp;#039;s no-one they&amp;#039;re ever completely relaxed with.&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think in Mary&amp;#039;s case it is believable that no man would have been interested: She&amp;#039;s very good-looking, she&amp;#039;s clever, she&amp;#039;s very well-placed, she has a big estate; these women are pursued.&amp;quot; &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Downton Abbey&amp;#039;: Meet the dashing new make characters - First Pictures Fellowes hinted that Tom Cullen (Anthony Gillingham) and Julian Ovenden&amp;#039;s (Charles Blake) new characters would be the most likely to succeed in wooing Mary and help her move on from Matthew. &amp;quot;Anthony Gillingham is very much someone from the Crawley world, he&amp;#039;s dealing with very similar problems,&amp;quot; said the writer.  &amp;quot;Charles Blake is a different kettle of fish; he is very much a modern thinker. He thinks the landed class or indeed anyone else, are going to have to shape up if they want to get through. They&amp;#039;re both nice good men, but they have a very different kind of modus operandi.&amp;quot;  &amp;gt; Absolutely everything we know about &amp;#039;Downton Abbey&amp;#039; series 4 Downton Abbey series four launches on Sunday, September 22 at 9pm on ITV. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/downton-abbey/news/a514637/downton-abbey-julian-fellowes-lady-mary-couldnt-remain-single/>