Victoria and Ville de Lyon are pruning group 3's (heavy prune types).
Ernest Markham is a pruning group 2, (light or no prune).
If I were you I'd stick to the same pruning groups to make your life easy at pruning time. Trying to separate vines as they mature and get tangled can be very difficult, so I would stick to Ville de Lyon and Victoria. Here are their pictures:
Ville de Lyon
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Victoria pictured with Huldine (white):
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Thanks. It's a bonus to see what they'll look like in this part of the country.

A search of this forum led me to this picture (I don't know how to incorporate the pic in the message as you did---sorry) of Ville de Lyon and the President.

http://www.cactuz.org/inger/albums/summer-2001/picture_012_600.jpg

It was exactly the color combination I had been looking for but I thought it best to keep the plants the same season of bloom and overall size. Do you think Victoria will give the same effect as The President does in the link? If not, any alternates?

Thanks again.

Suzy, I have an Ernest Markham that was labelled a Group 2 and I know that's what COTW says and I treated it as such for the first few years and had very few blooms. Two years ago I
experimented and pruned half of it hard and for the first time I had a significant number of flowers. In doing some research,I found that most other sites refer to it as either Group 3 or Group 2/3.In an article, Brewster Rogerson says :
"It has its main bloom in mid- to late summer and hence is ordinarily listed as a Group C (or III) clematis and pruned accordingly. But it also has enough of a Spring heritage to mount an earlier bloom on wood that has been left long. So there is a choice. The early bloom can be erratic, doing very little in some years and in others putting on a good displayÂmaybe even with a few of the flowers semidouble. A deep pruning is more likely to satisfy gardeners who prefer a reliable later bloom. Of course with a mature plant it should be possible to have it both ways, leaving a few stems long and deep-pruning all the rest."

Patsy, I had a feeling that this discussion would pop up ! I have to say that I have tried Ernest as a group 2 and also as a group 3. I wasn't impressed with the group 3 treatment when compared to actual straight group 3 types. I've been disappointed in Ernest here using both treatments. I even bought another plant to see if I was wrong in my assessment, but both performed the same...a disappointment in blooms, treating it as both a group 2 and also as a group 3. Needless to say, I prefer straight group 3's for performance. It seems my group 3's out-perform Ernest in just about every way. They are much hardier and much more vigorous, with a flower production that is far superior to Ernest's. I wish I were a bigger fan of Ernest, sorry ! Perhaps in other zones he performs better, but certainly not in my garden- and I've tried. I do believe that zone and soil type play a big role in performance.

Plympton Ma., Victoria is a very free flowering plant that should flower in conjunction with Ville de Lyon. The two together will actually knock your socks off with their colors! Both are covered in blooms at maturity. Victoria's color is slightly lighter than the Presidents, but it is truly a beautiful medium purple color with violet tints in the tepals. I see that you live not too far away from me. You are welcomed to visit my garden to see the late June/July clematis display if you wish. Just e-mail me.
Suzy

Pat and Sue: Thank you both for taking the time to post.

Sue, you have been an enormous help to me. I had been agonizing over this decision for a while. I know when I see something whether I like it but to have envisioned the pairing in the first place is not what I'm good at. Your information was exactly what I had been seeking and the pictures of the flowers as grown here in my neck of the woods were the icing on the cake. Many thanks!

Suzy,I don't really disagree with your assessment of Ernest. He is certainly not the most prolific bloomer around but until I started to prune harder, the flower output was very minimal.The first 3 years I had no flowers at all. To add insult to injury, I purchased this clematis as Nelly Moser! But I do like the flowers (the ones I get).I have this growing amongst various honeysuckle.
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Patsy, you MUST try some group 3's and you will be completely sold on their performance vs. Ernest's. Thank you for your honest assessment !
Suzy

I don't like what I've seen from my Ernest Markham, either. I'm sure that it's not because of youth, either. I have it with Perle d'Azure, but it doesn't bother me that it doesn't put out the blooms until after Perle is finished, because that one is beautiful on its own. It is sort of an extra bonus at the end of the season. It also blooms wayyyy up on my arbor (which is because I treat it like a 2).That's also okay, because I view it from my deck that is higher up.
Maybe this year I'll chop it to the ground. It may not bloom at all that way.

Suzy, I have plenty of Group 3s - in fact I rarely bother anymore with Group 2s. The ones I do have are ones I got in the early days of my clematis-buying, when I didn't know any better,or rather, didn't consider pruning groups.One Group 3 that I'm having trouble with, though, is Polish Spirit. Very few blooms after 3 years in the ground. It may be in too much shade, though, and if things don't improve this year, I guess I'll have to move it.

My Ernest's do better than my Ville De Lyon's. I always though Ernest was a group 3 and always pruned it as such. If Ernest is a group 2, it's a very vigorous grower for that group. I'll easily get 10' of growth every year.

Hi- I am not sure I could take part in that Group 2 'bashing' :) My favourite clematis by far is Group 2 Guernsey Cream. I own 18 different ones including lots of group 3, one group 1, sweet autumn, ground clematis, integrifolia, tungutica and native clematis. I looked into this thread, because I would like to get Ernest Markham for a very sunny wall. I hope it is a good location for it. I think that a lot depends on the siting, and the preferred aspect of the plant.

Patsy..I have always considered clematis "Ernest Markham" slow to get established..I was treating my Ernest Markham as a 2 and didn't have many blooms and not many vines..but since I started pruning it like a 3 it is much more vigorous and puts on alot more buds and has shot up more vines..what a difference...So, I will continue this method for I think it does better as a pruning group 3...Jeanne

Ernest Markham is group 3 according to the nursery in the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Clematis nursery

I sure didn't mean to sound like I was "bashing" Group 2's.It's been my experience that I find them to be somewhat tempermental as to blooming. These were the first clematis I started out with and some of the results were rather discouraging to me. Group 3 clematis have definitely been "easier" if you know what I mean.
Having said that, though, I have some Gr.2 clematis that I wouldn't be without : Gillian Blades, Miss Bateman and Josephine, which has been absolutely floriferous after only 1 year in the ground.
I always considered Ernest as Group 2 because that's how it was labelled when I bought it (although labels are notoriously inaccurate sometimes) and because Clematis on the Web lists it as such. However, if you look at my earlier post, quoting a Brewster Rogerson article, I now believe it to be Group2/3. I pruned the whole plant hard this year and we shall see what happens.

Patsy- tell us later here how your pruning has worked.
Thanks.

I have to chime in and say Ernest is one of my best bloomers. I planted this one in 2001 from a 3-inch pot. I can't decide how to prune, so I usually cut about 2-3 feet from the ground.

He is growing on a 6-foot arbor, photo taken mid-June in 2005 when we had a very dry summer.
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This one is from 2003.
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Marcia..HOW GORGEOUS IS THAT!!!..I hope mine will be that beautiful one day..you are hard pruning and in a colder zone..that gives me hope that if you can make him look that beautiful in your zone...mine just might get up to snuff..thanks..just breathtakingly beautiful...Jeanne

Marcia- is the site very sunny? How many hours of sunshine does your Ernest get?

Magda, yes the site is sunny--morning and afternoon sun, with some late afternoon shade--I'd say from 9 am to 5 pm. The flowers do fade from the sun but are not unattractive. The vine is facing southeast and is in a slightly raised bed. The base is clay soil with soil in the bed improved slightly.
Marcia

What a gorgeous Ernest, Marcia ! You must have the perfect plant, soil and zone for such a remarkable plant. Clematis actually love clay soil that's been ammended, from what the experts say. The clay holds moisture very well and it is full of organic nutrients. I'd plant a ton of clematis in that
soil of yours ! It's golden.
Suzy

I love Clematis, but the only one I know of planting up north is the "Jackmanii". Perhaps some of you know what to plant, hot summers, but winters can get -25 Celcius.
My Jackmanii is on the east side and it gets morning sun.
What zone is Ernest Markham and/or Nelly Moser etc.??
Thank you.

Marcia- Ernest I am going to get will have almost exactly the same conditions as yours. Hopefully it will be as beautiful:)

Magda, I wish you good luck with your Ernest!

Thanks Marcia. I got my Ernest today. It's already planted. The tag says: pruning group 3, by the way.