Cora, Countess of Grantham is the beautiful daughter of Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multi millionaire from Cincinnati. She is the wife of Robert Crawley and mother of Mary, Edith and Sybil. She was pressured into marriage by her father, who longed for his daughter to wed a member of the British aristocracy. She was compelled by her father-in-law to sign an agreement tying her dowry to the estate -- meaning her money would go to whomever inherited the estate --