British Aristocracy Quotes

The Cliveden Set

My favourite TV show is... 'Downton Abbey.' The characters are wonderful, and the style is created so beautifully on screen. Everything from the table settings to the linen seem perfect to me. While I'm watching it, I'm in a totally different world.

I always have to get my U.K. fix, and 'Downton Abbey' is definitely that. I absolutely love period dramas, but this one is particularly appealing - following the ins and outs of aristocracy as well as the interaction between the rich and the poor.

I have only met Prince Charles once, when he was very charming and easy to chat to. I have always had a soft spot for him, and I admire our constitutional monarchy, but Charles often comes across as eccentric, and he has a mixed press.

I became one of the stately homos of England.

'Downton Abbey'. I love all things olden-days, and I'm very interested in somebody brushing my hair out at the end of the night.

I have an image of what a British gentleman looks like, and that image finds real expression in Prince Charles. He is beyond fashion - he is an archetype of style.

We have nobility in Sweden, and it comes from the old British aristocracy.

I grew up in a bit of a vacuum. And as a kid, you see 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and you're like, 'Oh, it's a cartoon.' There's mixed media. It's funny, and there's stop-motion. But as an adult, you figure it out, how the entire underpinnings of their comedy was poking fun at the rank and file of the British aristocracy and the monarchy.

I think poshness is very funny! But I think it's also delightful. There's something wonderful and very innocent about it, particularly with the Edwardians.

I love when people become obsessed with 'Downton.'

I was very privileged to enjoy The Queen Mother's company on many occasions. She was relaxed and informal - she would just sit down for a chat.

The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable.

Prince William looks good in uniform and Man-at-Hackett black and white tie (he has grown up wearing it constantly); less certain in his suits, which sometimes look borderline archaic; and variable in casual. But completely comfortable in the Sloane uniform of non-designer jeans and chocolate-brown suede loafers. He'll look fine in Boden.

Bringing anyone into royal circles is a pretty tough act. Especially in the British royal family, which is scrutinized by the press as no one's been.

I love being in scenes where I get to be part of a Maggie Smith put-down. A Dowager Countess put-down is always a special moment. Especially if you're working on set and she managed to do one off set at you.

The tradition has always been that in Roman films, the Romans are always British, and it's usually posh British: Laurence Olivier and his ilk. My take on all this was that it's a metaphor for empire and the end of empire.

'Downton Abbey' didn't have the impact it had just because it was a good story about people. It was something about that period and that world that was fascinating to people on a level that wasn't just as an entertainment.

At the beginning of my career, as a boy from Peru in London, suddenly discovering British culture and society, I looked so much at the work of the photographers Cecil Beaton and Norman Parkinson, which seemed to represent a wonderful vanished grandeur of my new country.

I wil not compare the education of an ancient Spartan with that of a British nobleman.

There are two words that send romance authors into spasms of rapture: 'Downton Abbey.'

There is nothing democratic about the Whig. He is essentially a cold and selfish aristocrat who believes that the British Empire was created by Providence and exists for no other purpose than to keep in power a few Whig families.

Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.

I still read the British papers, but I've never been a Royalist, ever. It's funny, there always seems to be much more of a fascination with the Royal Family over here then there does in England.

I am the last of Britain's stately homos.