Does Edith ever tell her family about the baby?

No not the news that poor Isis, the Earl’s ancient Labrador, was diagnosed with cancer and was given one night to live - which was short notice to say the least. After five series, that had to come eventually. The pay demands of the dog that played her were exorbitant apparently. Fame had gone to her head and she had become a total diva - literally a real bitch. No doubt she will go the way of most stars to leave popular shows like this, and end up in the next series of Holby City.

I don’t mean the Countess of Grantham’s perilous ploy to pretend Edith had adopted her own daughter either. Cora’s ‘cunning plan’ was so hopeless it was on a par with one of Baldrick’s and was rumbled by Anna before it had even started.

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Single again: Lady Mary Crawley, the self-absorbed, sex-crazed, man-eater finally escaped Lord ‘Swiss’ Tony Gillingham’s clutches - meaning that no man with an inheritance, or a heartbeat, was safe

Isis, the Earl's unfortunately-named Labrador, hints heavily that she needs to be taken to the vet

More concerning than both of these was the news that Lady Mary was single again, meaning that no male with an inheritance, or a heartbeat, was safe.

Yes, the self-absorbed, sex-crazed, man-eater finally escaped Lord ‘Swiss’ Tony Gillingham’s clutches.

She had concluded their dirty weekend/week holed up in Liverpool by telling him she was breaking off their engagement. Several episodes later, Tony was still not having it (literally). He refused to accept her position that they were not together, even claiming this attitude was to his credit.

‘I won’t explain it,’ he told his rival for her affections, Charles Blake. ‘But suffice to say, it wouldn’t be honourable.’

Short of boasting ‘I’ve shagged her!’ the true meaning of what he was saying couldn’t have been any clearer.

‘Isn’t it up to Mary?’ Blake asked – a crazy notion.

Hair Hitler: Lady Mary became irked that her sister Edith's plan to adopt Marigold was distracting attention from her new haircut which made her look like a pretty version of Adolf Hitler

‘It’s not what she wants,’ Gillingham declared. ‘Not really.’

Blake argued that Tony was ‘muddling Mary’s wish to break up with her instinct to hold every man enthralled'.

In other words to behave like a shameless floozy.

‘I’m not convinced,’ concluded Tone.

Gillingham was obviously dying to let everyone know that he had taken what was left of her virtue and so, by protecting her reputation, could lay claim to Mary’s hand (and not just her hand).

‘I can’t tell you why I can’t leave Mary,’ he told his former fiancée Mabel Lane Fox, who still wanted him back. ‘But you’d understand if I did.’

Lord Gillingham (left) told Charles Blake (right) and Mabel Lane Fox (Lady Mary wannabe) he wouldn't give Mary up. This raised the question: can a man decide not to leave someone who says she isn't with him?

It was hard to see how, even in the good old days of the 1920s, his attitude would work. It raised the question if a man could really decide whether to leave, or stay with, someone who maintained she wasn’t with you.

His position was like me saying: ‘I can’t leave Kate Moss. I can’t tell you why. But you’d understand if I could.’ Then, when Mossy insisted we were not actually together, just dismissing her objections on the grounds ‘she doesn’t want me to leave her. Not really'.

Most bizarrely of all, even Mary seemed to go along with Gillingham’s reasoning. She disagreed with Blake’s view that Tony should get back together with Mabel, insisting: ‘He won’t let me go!’

This was like Ms Moss lamenting 'Jim won't let me go !'

That sinking feeling: Lady Edith realises her shameful secret is going to be the talk of polite society. No, not that she has an illegitimate daughter but that she is working in the media

Charles quickly formulated a cunning plan of his own. Unsurprisingly this involved him and Lady Mary snogging, or the posh equivalent of a snog.

‘Kiss me! Now!’ he ordered her, as Tony and Mabel approached.

Mary being Mary, she, unhesitatingly, obliged. (Any excuse). Rather than being shocked, Gillingham saw through the ruse.

‘I’d have gone without these silly games,’ he postured.

‘But I did tell you. Often. And you didn’t go,’ Lady Mary replied, so icily she practically sneered.

‘Well I’m going now. Goodbye Mary.’

‘It’s funny. I feel quite sad in a way,’ Mary reflected to Blake afterwards, before evidently overcoming her sadness and cheerfully asking: ‘So, what now?’

‘I’ve been posted on a trade delegation to Poland – for six months,’ he announced. The good news was that he wasn’t leaving until Monday - just enough time for her to satisfy her insatiable appetite.

The frosty mare didn’t show much more sympathy for her sister than old Tony.

‘I’m worried about Edith,’ her grandmother sighed, after Edith had run away, taking Marigold, the lovechild fathered by Michael Gregson, with her.

‘I can’t think why!’ Mary sniffed, irked that her new Hitler haircut was no longer the centre of the family’s attention.

‘My dear,’ the Dowager advised. ‘A lack of compassion can be as vulgar as an excess of tears.’

That was her told.

It fell to Lady Rose’s new beau, Atticus Aldridge, to demonstrate how thick the Crawleys really were, working out where Edith had gone, even though he didn't know her.

‘Lord Grantham was saying Gregson left Lady Edith his publishing company,’ he posited. ‘Shouldn’t someone telephone the office? Won’t she go there?’

‘Of course!’ Rose gushed, overcome with awe. ‘How clever you are!’

Even Atticus considered ‘it seems rather obvious to me.’ He had probably read the solution in my piece last week.

And so, gradually, Lady Edith’s sordid, shameful, secret came out. Yes, she was working in the media, as the new publisher of The Sketch, or as its handful of working-class subscribers called it t’Sketch.

Scene-stealer: after two episodes of lying rigidly on the same spot, Isis was finally taken to the vet by the Earl. The vet diagnosed cancer and offered to put Isis down more effectively than President Obama has

Within seconds of Aunt Rosamund and Cora arriving at The Sketch’s London HQ having travelled down from Downton to look for her, Edith haplessly wandered into reception.

Cora was furious when she learned that they had known all about Edith having a baby in Switzerland, talking Mr Drewe into lying to his wife that Marigold was a friend’s, and her decision to take her back.

‘And you never thought to involve me?! Her own mother ! You looked at that little girl and your never thought it was my business too – my own grandchild!’

In hindsight, it didn’t sound good.

‘Are you going to say anything to Robert?’ the Dowager fretted.

‘No,’ Cora said straight away. Clearly, the rights she had just cited didn’t apply to fathers too.

The identity of Mr Green's killer is expected to be revealed next week. With Anna and Mr Bates in the clear, the smart money is on someone utterly improbable, like Mr Carson, or the Dowager

Edith revealed she was thinking of emigrating to America. (Edith that is, not Marigold.)

‘I thought I’d drop my title and invent a dead husband. Then I’d be Mrs Thing in Detroit.’

Every girl’s fantasy! Cora implored her to come home and live with Marigold there. Downton or Detroit: an invidious choice.

‘No. I won’t be the county failure. Poor demented Lady Edith who lost her virtue and her reason!’ stated Edith, looking on the bright side.

Instead, Cora suggested persuading the Drewes to tell everyone in t’village the story that they could no longer afford an extra child, allowing Edith to adopt her.

‘Papa must never learn the truth,’ Edith insisted. ‘Nor Mary. I couldn’t have Mary queening it over me.’

To be honest Mary did that already.

When Cora, Rosamund, and Edith duly returned to Downton with Marigold in tow, proposing Edith take her in, the Earl greeted them with characteristic warmth.

‘It seems idiotic to me!’ he harrumphed.

Bow-wow-ing out: It was a brilliant performance by the canine concerned – the best bit of acting in the show

‘And me!’ echoed Lady Mary. ‘Can’t you just give the Drewes some money so they can keep her?’ she droned, instantly exposing the flaw in Cora’s brilliant plan.

‘I’ll leave it to your mother,’ he adjudged.

‘Well I think we should offer her a home here,’ Cora cooed.

‘Do you really darling?’ the Earl queried, not leaving it to her after all.

'Kiss me !' Charles Blake ordered Lady Mary as Tony Gillingham and Mabel Lane Fox approached. Needless to say, she obliged. Any excuse...

He clearly had more important matters on his mind than the fate of a homeless orphan, namely his pet Labrador, the religious fanatic Isis.

‘You’re not really yourself are you old girl?’ the Earl considered, finally noticing that his loyal companion was still lying exactly where she was last week.

‘She’s not looking too clever,’ he mused to Mary as she was splayed out so stiffly she looked as if rigamortis was already setting in. (Isis that is, not Mary.)

It was a brilliant performance by the canine concerned – the best bit of acting in the show. After the poor mutt had lain there for one and a half episodes, eventually the Earl took Isis to the vet.

‘Is she carrying puppies?’ cooed Cora, brainlessly, when he returned, as if Mother Nature worked differently with dogs. ‘Because I don’t see how that could have happened.’

That’s because it couldn’t.

‘She’s got cancer,’ the Earl announced.

‘Oh no!’ cried Cora. ‘I hate that word.’

It wasn’t really about her but still… The vet had offered to put Isis down - a lot more effectively than President Obama had – but the Earl said ‘I couldn’t quite let him'.

In the end he carried her around the house, announcing mawkishly, ‘I’m going to sleep in the dressing room tonight. I just want to have her with me. I’m pretty sure she won’t last until morning.’

Cora insisted Isis slept between them instead.

As if she hadn’t suffered enough.

Anna confidently looks forward to a brighter future now that they have the word of a convicted thief - Miss Baxter - to support Mr Bates' claim that he did not murder Mr Green

In other news, ‘Shrimpy still hadn’t found the Princess’, Spratt couldn’t cope with Sheila Grant, and Atticus proposed to Rose after a turbulent dinner that made you wish we had seen more of the vile Larry Grey and less of 'Richard E.Can't.'

Tom ‘Bring Out The’ Branson revealed he was moving to America.

Plus of course Julian Fellowes slipped in his weekly history lesson (with a crow-bar).

‘Mr MacDonald seems to limp from crisis to crisis,’ Daisy moaned to Mrs Bridges. ‘The first Labour government ! And now I doubt whether they’ll last the year. When I think about it, it seems that we’re trapped in a system that gives us no value and no freedom!’

It was basically like 12 Years As T’Slave.

Daisy was so upset about the Labour party, she couldn’t bring herself to discuss Vanity Fair with Mr Molesley - a feeling Ed Miliband probably knows all too well.

Finally, there were lots of sub-plots about shifts in the class system, with Mr Carson, Mrs Hughes, Anna and Mr Bates all considering joining Mrs Bridges in the bourgeoning post-war property boom.

Anna had set her husband’s mind at rest, convincing Bates that the ‘cunning’ contraceptive device he had found was actually Lady Mary’s.

‘I hate to say his name,’ Anna ventured. ‘But do you feel the whole business of Mr. Green might be over – for us I mean? So we can dare to plan our future again?’

Does Cora find out about Edith's baby?

Does Edith tell Mary that Marigold is her daughter?

Who raises Edith's baby?