What you are saying is quite valid, except that Elizabeth does not threaten to "sack" rose if she does not join her, but if she says anything. Rose tries to prevent Elizabeth from taking part, and accidentally gets arrested. Elizabeth does try to intervene for rose and get her out of jail by dressing and playing the part of a damsel in distress by going to Julius Karakan, a social climbing ner do well, who only bails elizabeth out, because of who her family is. Rose says, "It weren't right! whatever it was for, it wern't right!" Elizabeth a suffragist, actually behaves the much of the aristocracy did at that time. elizabth actually shows the changes made in pre WWI England in the area of women's rights, and rights for the poor, by the younger female aristocrats. Elizabeth is caught between two worlds, one in which she lives, and one in which she is trying to create. Her mother's world of Aristocracy, and her fathers world of a rising middle class (Richard Bellmay was the son of a prominent country minister, Mr Bellamy did well academically, got a scholarship to Oxford college, followed by a job in the foriegn service) As someone who lived in england, a bit of an anglophile, journalist, and genealogist, I can tell you that the character elizabeth Bellamy although now always likeable, is more historically correct and realistic than the character of Lady Mary on downton Abby. What you refer to as behaving badly is simply a portrayal of accepted attitudes during a particular era. Elizabeth becomes so disgusted with these attitudes that she moves to America, where this is less of a class structure. This is what many Well to do British women with progressive views did within the first 20 years of the 20th century. Likewise, many American female heiresses married struggling titled male aristocrats, so that these men could have funds to keep their country estates, and in exchange some American millionaire married his daughter, so she could gain a title and her father could move from business to politics. Lady Cora Grantham on downton Abby is an American heiress who married Lord Grantham (Lady mary's father) as he was about to lose his estate. in real life, this happened within the Kennedy family. President Kennedy's favorite sister Kathleen (Kit) married a British lord. Ethel Kennedy actually disowned her daughter for marrying man who was not only protestant but British. Kathleen Kennedy died iforn a plane crash during the 1920s. Elizabeth does appreciate rose, which is why in "For love of love," when rose visits her, she insists that rose not call her miss Elizabeth, but elizabeth, because that is what friends do. Rose replies, "I am not your friend, i am you parents head house parlour maid." elizabeth was trying to break out of the mold of rich girl, and move into the role of a woman who fought for equal rights. "Rose you do want the world change. you want it to change from a world that says it is against the law to be poor. she is not that different from the spoiled rich girls of the 1970, like patty hearst, who referred to her parents as rich facist pigs. Again your observations are valid, but historically incorrect.
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