--- title: Downton Abbey Season 6 Ep. 5: Neville Chamberlain's Pranks description: There's real history behind how the episode's big-name guest got to Downton canonical: https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-01T12:00:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:25:08.564Z article:section: History og:title: 'Downton' Was Right Neville Chamberlain's Family Prankster og:description: There's real history behind how the episode's big-name guest got to Downton og:url: https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82606226f17078bf/69887a7cab6d774bda6a8191/chamberlain.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Neville Chamberlain og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Downton' Was Right Neville Chamberlain's Family Prankster twitter:description: There's real history behind how the episode's big-name guest got to Downton twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82606226f17078bf/69887a7cab6d774bda6a8191/chamberlain.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Downton_ Was Right About the Prankster in Neville Chamberlain's Family  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 1, 2016 12:00 PM UTC  Arthur Neville Chamberlain in September of 1923 Arthur Neville Chamberlain in September of 1923Topical Press Agency / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 1, 2016 12:00 PM UTC **_Contains minor spoilers for the_** **Downton Abbey,** **_Season 6 Episode 5_** Though Neville Chamberlain ended up playing a relatively minor role on Sunday night’s episode of _Downton Abbey_, the storytelling somersaults necessary to loop in a future Prime Minister were actually based on truth. The fictional Chamberlain’s story–that the Dowager Countess threatened to spill the beans that he had participated in his brother-in-laws pranks–draws on the real story of Chamberlain’s wife’s brother, William Horace de Vere Cole. The inveterate prankster was so well known for his mischief that TIME singled out the pranks in his 1936 [obituary](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-03-09/page/49/): --- > “” --- And, though it wasn’t mentioned in his remembrance, the prank in which _Downton_ claims Chamberlain participated was [real ](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/opinion/01davis.html?pagewanted=2&ref=april%5Ffools%5Fday)too—though [some accounts](https://books.google.com/books?id=k06jMQCh2AUC&pg=PA73&dq=william+de+vere+cole+trench&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkktHU58XKAhUBTj4KHSBmC0cQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=william%20de%20vere%20cole%20trench&f=false) say that Cole and his friends didn’t dig their own trench across one of London’s busiest intersections, but rather directed a crew of workers to do so. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/"},"headline":"Downton Was Right About the Prankster in Neville Chamberlain's Family","datePublished":"2016-02-01T12:00:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:25:08.564Z","description":"There's real history behind how the episode's big-name guest got to Downton","url":"https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/","keywords":["Television","Prime Minister","United Kingdom","Great Britain"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82606226f17078bf/69887a7cab6d774bda6a8191/chamberlain.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82606226f17078bf/69887a7cab6d774bda6a8191/chamberlain.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Neville Chamberlain","caption":"Neville Chamberlain","creditText":"Topical Press Agency / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4192729/neville-chamberlain-downton-pranks/","name":"Downton Was Right About the Prankster in Neville Chamberlain's Family"}}]}] ```