Excitement at Downton Abbey: The King and Queen pay their respects to the House of Grantham. A royal lunch, a parade and a dinner have to be organized. But we are in the year 1927 and the Earl of Grantham ponders whether they are still up to a royal visit after all the changes of the last few years... As if this task wasn't difficult enough, the staff has to deal with the fearsome royal household, and soon a small revolt germinates in the lower part of the house. Meanwhile, Lady Mary is tormented by the question of whether the preservation of Downton is still appropriate at all. Should the family estate perhaps make way for a bourgeois institution after all? The Dowager Countess of Grantham also looks forward to the royal visit with mixed feelings, as her cousin Lady Bagshaw is part of the royal entourage, and with the encounter, old wounds are also opening up again.