A History of Judgment

Americans may have won independence 250 years ago, but they have never stopped caring what the Brits think of them.

- TIM TEEMAN

If you ever puzzle over Britain and America's long and complicated relationship, consider (as one always should) Violet Crawley. The Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, as played by Dame Maggie Smith, has many condescending things to say about Americans— mostly aimed at her daughter-in-law's mother, played by Shirley MacLaine.

"You Americans never understand the importance of tradition," Violet tells MacLaine's Martha Levinson.

"Yes, we do. We just don't give it power over us," Martha replies.

Two silent, dueling impulses are present in the scene: the snobbery encased in history of the British versus the newer country's thenproud freedom from both. The added layer of irony is that it was the dowry Martha's daughter brought to the marriage that kept Downton alive. As gold-standard as Violet's put-downs are, she also knows that the very American Levinsons saved the Crawleys' posh British behinds. It was a trend at the time: The so-called "dollar princesses" brought billions in cold hard cash across the pond. They got titles, while British aristocrats got the capital to save their crumbling stately homes.

The arrangement also brought along with it an amplification of a deep-seated mutual resentment around identity and superiority.

In recent times that resentment has bloomed into a full-blown, toxic diplomatic crisis, with the so-called "special relationship" in seemingly dire freefall-with President Donald Trump fiercely criticizing Britain and Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not, in Trump's eyes, adequately supporting America's war with Iran, and the British vigorously rolling their eyes in return.