DOWNTON ABBEY, a British period-drama series, has amassed a large international fan base since premiering in the United Kingdom in 2010. Part of PBS’s Masterpiece Classic anthology, each Downton Abbey season depicts a distinct period in English history and in the personal lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their live-in servants. In the second season, the Earl of Grantham, and head of the Crawley family estate, creates a makeshift hospital in his home to treat soldiers wounded in World War I, an act of charity that initially disrupts day-to-day life at the family’s sprawling country house.