I've been watching the entire run of Downton Abbey with my wife for the first time, and I'm fascinated by the historical questions it raises, in the setting and in the writing of the different characters. So I have quite a few questions I am hoping I can get answered here.

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There's a funny quote from Season 2, Episode 8 that is somewhat confusing. For those who haven't seen the show, an older dowager compares the marriage of one of her grand-daughters to that of marrying a Hapsburg. It's odd, because it implies that such a marriage is marrying down, when I had thought that marrying into the Hapsburgs would have been a step up for almost anyoune throughout the existence of the Hapsburg empire. So I am confused. Here's the quote:

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Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham :

"I used to think Mary's beau was a mésalliance, but compared to this he's positively a Hapsburg."

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In this case, her grand-daughter Sybil is marrying a chauffeur, a definite step down... Why would a member of the English aristocracy in the early 1900's look down upon the Hapsburgs in such a way that comparing a marriage into that family would have been viewed as a step down? More accurately, why might a show-writer on a show that purports to be somewhat historically accurate write a line such as that?

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In short, what was the view of the Hapsburgs by the English aristocracy from a social mobility standpoint...in the 1920's and even before?