Prince William: Downton Abbey is ‘one of Catherine’s and my favourite programmes’

The final episode of ITV’s Downton Abbey will be broadcast on Christmas Day.

However, the BBC did score a big win earlier in the evening with the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special, which was the second most popular show on the day with 6.5 million viewers.

Downton Abbey beat an hour-long EastEnders episode which went head to head with the ITV drama.

Downton Abbey was scheduled against the BBC One soap a year ago, but t he Walford-set show triumphed with an overnight average of 7.5 million viewers. The madcap comedy has topped the overall Christmas Day TV ratings for the last two years, pulling in 9.7 million viewers in 2014. As the family and servants prepare to welcome 1926, they celebrate an unforgettable New Year’s Eve together at the great house.In the last episode, we will get to see Mary endeavours to build bridges with Edith, Edith’s secret continues to pose a threat.

Downton Abbey, in contrast, was seen by a total of 7.7 million.

The celebratory tweets continued: “Finally, Lady Edith’s HAPPINESS”.

Michelle Dockery also spoke of the difficulty of saying goodbye to her character during an interview with Standard UK.

Lord Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville, declared his enduring love for his wife Lady Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), when he accepted her working at a hospital.

Storylines are, for the most part, carefully concluded and where they’re not neatly tied up we can at least imagine what future might lie ahead.

But he has also said from the very start that the show simply could not be allowed to continue if a certain member of the cast were to leave – Dame Maggie Smith.

“When I first heard that Downton Abbey was to receive the BAFTA special award, I was absolutely thrilled”, the Duke of Cambridge said.