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The Crown has now produced series three, which covers the years 1964 to 1977. Some will say that they can suspend judgment as to whether it is true or not and simply enjoy it as “good drama”. I understand this point of view, and I daresay there are viewers who are intelligent and perceptive enough not to be swayed into believing that the fictional episodes are in any sense true. But I fear that many viewers do believe what they see. In writing this book, I seek to explain what really did happen and thus show how some of the episodes are based on false premises. I used to think that the makers of The Crown were trying to get things right. As it turns out, they are happy to alter the facts in order to create conflict and drama.
In series two, the film-makers tended to take two events which more or less did happen and clash them against each other to make something that most certainly did not. This time they do less of that, but they hit on a theme they like and then cook up events to back up their thesis, regardless of whether they actually happened.
I lived through much of what is shown here, sometimes quite closely. I visited the Windsors’ house in Paris the day before the Queen in 1972, and I was present at the Duke’s funeral some days later. I knew quite a number of those portrayed here — for example, Robin Woods, Dean of Windsor from 1962 to 1970. I am also well documented, and so while watching the episodes, I have been freezing the frame and diving into a great number of books.
In writing these somewhat forensic notes on series three, I have concentrated mainly on the made-up and misleading areas in the plot of each episode. There are also some areas where minor errors occur, I point a few out.
Series three, episode one: Olding
There are several themes in this episode. The first is the arrival of Harold Wilson as Prime Minister, elected in October 1964. The implication is that the Queen preferred “Posh Alec” — the outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The reality is that she will always work — and has always worked — with the elected Prime Minister of the day.
There were all sorts of rumours about Wilson and his Russian connections, and this theme is explored — that he had been turned by the Russians and was known as “Olding”. The suggestion that Wilson’s predecessor, Hugh Gaitskell, was killed by being poisoned by the Russians — to clear the way for Wilson — is a new one to me. He died of lupus.
They missed a trick since it is well known that Wilson arrived at the Palace, with his wife, children and his personal secretary, Marcia Williams (later Baroness Falkender). In this film, he arrives alone.
We are introduced to [Olivia Colman as the Queen], as she examines a new head on the stamps submitted for her approval. In our first sight of her, she is wearing the George IV diadem at her desk, which I doubt ever happens, but fair enough. We meet the new Michael Adeane, her Private Secretary.
The next theme is the decline and death of Sir Winston Churchill, by then 90 years old. In this episode, the Queen is told that he has had another stroke; she visits him, alone in his room, and she listens to traditionally Churchillian pronouncements from him about Harold Wilson and his Russian connections at the time when he was at the Board of Trade. He tells her that Wilson was one of the first Western politicians to go behind the Iron Curtain. He drifts off to sleep. At this point the Queen tidies away his spectacles and kisses him: “God Bless you, Winston.” A touching scene, but pure schmaltz. She would never have kissed him. Nor of course did she visit him after his stroke.
The truth is that by then Churchill was senile and incapable of coherent conversation. He had not had his stroke at the time of the General Election on October 15, 1964 — in fact he was just able to attend the Other Club on December 10, though he scarcely knew where he was. It was a month later, on January 10, 1965, that he suffered a massive stroke, after which he neither spoke nor moved again. The Queen was kept informed of his state of health. He died at 8am on Sunday, January 24.
It is true that the Queen attended his state funeral (well done in this episode apart from the Queen being seated on the wrong side of the Cathedral, and a rolled-up belt masquerading as the Garter), but his death was not announced in the afternoon. We all heard about it on the radio, early on that Sunday morning, so there would have been no interrupting of a family birthday tea party.
Then there is Princess Margaret and [Lord Snowdon] and their failing marriage. I fear that Princess Margaret has been so traduced by tabloid biographers and TV documentaries that the [real Princess has been lost from view]. In this episode, there are scenes with an arrogant princess doing exactly as she pleases, staying in bed late into the morning, being humiliated by her husband at every turn, he not appearing at a lunch at the Mirabelle, stories of a maid having left due to exhaustion at her bad behaviour, Tony supercilious or racing about London on a scooter, and Princess Margaret drunk at a party, tipping her cigarette ash into a glass of whisky. This portrayal is inevitable given the tabloid view of her, now fixed in the public mind.
A more interesting theme is the unmasking of Sir Anthony Blunt. This was more elegantly handled by Alan Bennett in A Question of Attribution in 1988, and there are echoes of that in these scenes — the arrogant art historian, disparaging about what he perceived as the lack of artistic appreciation of the Queen and of Prince Philip — and a lecture he gives, replete with double entendre. In these scenes, we find him exposed by the Royal Household, but kept on as Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures for fear of a damaging effect on the British Secret Service, and relations with the Americans.
There is a scene in which the Prince Philip character warns Blunt that he is a treacherous snake and he is on his case, at which point Blunt threatens to blackmail the Prince. Blunt points out that some drawings of him by Dr Stephen Ward had been found in his apartment following his suicide. If these were to appear, they would link a senior member of the Royal Family to the Profumo affair, the implication being obvious. This was 1964 or so, and in truth a picture of Prince Philip, sketched at Buckingham Palace from life, had appeared as the frontispiece of Illustrated London News on June 24, 1961. So that scene, which never happened in real life, was somewhat absurd.
Stephen Ward had quite a run with his sketches in the Illustrated London News in 1961. Other sitters included the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, sketched at York House in June that year, as well as Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon, the Duke of Kent, Katharine Worsley (later Duchess of Kent), her father, Sir William Worsley, Archbishop Makarios, Selwyn Lloyd, Roy Thomson, Georg Solti, Lord Adrian, ALP Norrington (Vice-Chancellor of Oxford), Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Lord de L’Isle, VC, Keith Holyoake, John Diefenbaker and Henry Moore. Were they all involved in the Profumo affair?
The Blunt episode suggests that Blunt lived at Buckingham Palace, which he never did — we see a disapproving Queen watching him coming back to the Palace (through the ceremonial front gates) late at night.
More interesting is the real-life question as to whether or not the Queen knew about his treachery. She did and there is conclusive evidence for this. When Blunt retired in 1972 he was not advanced from KCVO to GCVO as would normally have been expected. This was of some concern to his successor, Sir Oliver Millar, who went to see Sir Martin Charteris, the new Private Secretary, to ask if his job status had been demoted. Charteris told him not to give it another thought and on his retirement in 1988, Millar duly received his GCVO. Regrettably the Lord Chamberlain retained Blunt in what is called the Green Book (listing members of the Royal Household), before they could stop this, so in theory Blunt continued to enjoy certain Royal Household privileges.
As the credits roll, various captions tell us that Blunt was given immunity and remained in his post until 1972. One states categorically: “The Queen never spoke of him again” — a brazen assertion. They do not tell us that he was publicly exposed in 1979 and stripped of his knighthood.
There are some minor errors. In a dinner-party scene, the Private Secretary would not have sat on the Queen’s right with the Duke of Gloucester on her left. Nor would Tony Snowdon have kissed the old Duke at his supposed birthday party. (His birthday was March 31, not January 10, but there you go.)
Series three, episode two: Margaretology
This episode begins with Tommy Lascelles informing Princess Elizabeth that she is to be prepared for her eventual fate as Queen after her father’s death. In the episode, the young princess appears unhappy about this. They then create the fantasy that the young Princess Margaret wanted to be Queen in her place and that Princess Elizabeth supported this plan, believing her sister would do the job better.
I am as sure as I can be of anything that Princess Elizabeth never wavered from accepting her duty. All she ever wanted to be was a pride to her father, and, as we know, she did not disappoint him. As for Princess Margaret, she was well aware that she was the younger sister, with all that that implies.
The episode focuses on the 1965 visit to the US undertaken by [Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon]. So we see Princess Margaret setting off to the US, with Snowdon telling her that she is a natural number one, but that it is her tragedy to have been born number two.
Apparently one of the purposes of the visit was the promotion of a book of photographs by Snowdon (Private View, the proceeds of which, in real life, went to charity). They visit Lewis Douglas, former Ambassador to Britain (correctly depicted wearing an eye patch) at his ranch at Tucson, Arizona. Much is made of Princess Margaret as an outgoing personality, contrasted to a rather lonely and staid Queen back in London, bemoaning her lot to Prince Philip, and describing herself as “dependable, predictable, reliable”.
We see a lot of the American tour, and at the end of it, the Princess Margaret figure returns home triumphant, apparently having secured a vital £1,000 million bailout from the Americans. She seeks to share the Queen’s burden by taking on more duties, but the Prince Philip character tells the Queen that there are good dull monarchs such as her father, grandfather and Queen Victoria and by implication herself, and then there are the wild members of the Royal Family — Edward VII, the Duke of Clarence (referred to here as “Prince Eddy”), the Duke of Windsor and Princess Margaret, and the episode ends with Princess Margaret both rejected and dejected.
President Lyndon B Johnson looms large in this episode, played rather powerfully and enjoyably as a complete vulgarian. Apparently, he failed to attend Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral because Harold Wilson had failed to send troops to assist him in the Vietnam War. No. He had wanted to attend but was genuinely confined to bed with bronchitis, so the official US representation was Earl Warren, Chief Justice, and David Bruce, American Ambassador to the UK. Former President Dwight D Eisenhower also attended as a wartime ally of Churchill’s, who knew him well. Johnson did get annoyed with Wilson for not supporting him over Vietnam, referring to him as “a little creep”, but not until later.
In this episode, the Queen issues an invitation to Johnson to visit her at Balmoral for a weekend. The Queen says whatever is offered must exceed what she offered the Kennedys — which, in real life, was just a dinner because they happened to be in London. Curiously this invitation is issued on a formal card more usually employed for lunches, dinners or receptions.
There is no evidence that the Queen invited Johnson to Scotland. Furthermore, Johnson is told that no US President ever got invited to Balmoral. Funnily enough, Eisenhower was entertained there both in 1946 and in 1959. As it turned out, Johnson was the one US President between Truman and Trump that the Queen did not meet.
The Johnson figure is shown a picture of Princess Margaret and told to entertain her at the White House, and she is told to go. He does not seem to know who she is, though in real life, he had spent some time upstaging her at the independence celebrations in Jamaica in 1962, over which she had presided.
The film gives us a riotous romp through America, with Princess Margaret raving it up, getting drunk, having fun and bickering with Snowdon. The dinner at the White House involves a potential diplomatic incident in which Princess Margaret insults the memory of Kennedy, they have a drinking competition, they dance wildly, she plants a kiss slap on the President’s lips and obscene limericks are exchanged (many of which have been relayed to and memorised by Wilson, back in London, and so he recites them to a sullen-looking Queen). Contemporary newspaper accounts reveal a rather more formal dinner at the White House, with staid speeches, on what was, as it happens, the President’s 31st wedding anniversary.
So, let’s have a look at what really happened. It is true that the trip was partly private and partly public. Much was revealed with the release of papers relating to 1973, when Princess Margaret’s Private Secretary, Lt Col Freddy Burnaby-Atkins, complained that a recent visit to Western Australia had lacked purpose. The then American Ambassador, Lord Cromer, en poste from 1971 to 1974, did not want her in the US because Sir Patrick Dean (he appears briefly in this episode) had warned him that her behaviour in 1965 had been controversial. The Private Secretary said she was keen to go to Canada or the US: “She would, I think, take on anything challenging.”
In a memo Lees Mayall gave the Foreign Office committee on royal tours he explained: “This is mainly due to the behaviour of some of HRH’s friends, who tend to take such visits very lightly.”
Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon had gone to America in 1965 after an invitation from Sharman Douglas, daughter of Lewis Douglas, which was the basis of Dean’s reservations:
They worked and played hard. It was a mistake that so much of their time was spent with and organised by Miss Sharman Douglas, though she did her best, after her own fashion, to make sure the visitors had a gay and amusing time. However, the keynote was the “jet set” and it was not always possible to persuade the public that HRH and Lord Snowdon were serious as well as gay people. Hosts must understand that it does the royal party no good to turn the period of rest into a jamboree of actors and photographers, as was the case with the visit to the Douglas family.
In a debate on February 4, 1966, William Hamilton (the Labour MP for Fife West) attacked the visit, saying it had attracted “public and private criticism” all over the Commonwealth. He cited high-society dinners and receptions, and quoted the Sunday Express describing it as “a holiday frolic among the tinsel princes and princesses of Hollywood”. He queried the origins of the visit and its cost to the public purse. Twelve people travelled with her, and the whole of the first-class compartment of a BOAC plane had been reserved. He asked how many official duties had taken place. Christopher Warwick, Princess Margaret’s biographer, gave the whole programme between November 4 and 25 seven pages in Appendix IV of his 1983 account of her life, which give a daunting list of engagements, and besides the glamorous ones that attracted media interest, there were visits to universities, “the British Home organised by the Daughters of the British Empire”, the auditorium of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory etc.
Rebutting Hamilton’s attacks, Walter Padley, the Labour Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, described the visit as an outstanding success: “It began as a private visit . . . Then it developed — and I emphasise this — as the result of Government and official interest, into a visit which consisted mainly of official and public engagements undertaken at the specific request of Her Majesty’s Government.”
Small things — the President would have been at the steps of the White House. She would have called him “Mr President”. Princess Margaret would not have been met by Wilson at London Airport and the Queen most certainly did not offer her the Order of Merit or the Royal Victorian Chain after this trip (Princess Margaret was pleased to be given the latter on her 60th birthday in 1990).
Series three, episode three: Aberfan
The Aberfan pit disaster was a particularly horrific event, Aberfan being near Merthyr Tydfil in Glamorgan, South Wales. It occurred at about 9.15 on the morning of Friday, October 21, 1966, and 116 children and 28 adults died. It happened because a period of excessively heavy rainfall caused a build-up inside the tip, which caused it to slide downhill in a massive slurry — a black avalanche — engulfing the junior school and other nearby buildings. It was later proved that Tip 7, which covered the village, had been based on ground above water springs and that action should have been taken to avoid the disaster. The worst affected school was Pantglas Junior School where five teachers and 109 children were killed.
In this episode, we see Harold Wilson arriving with Marcia Williams (later Baroness Falkender) in an aircraft of the Queen’s flight. We see Martin Charteris suggesting that the Queen might visit immediately. She and Sir Michael Adeane think not: “The Royal Family visits hospitals, Martin, not the scenes of accidents,” says the Queen. She sends a message of sympathy.
Lord Snowdon goes to Aberfan. He did so in real life, explaining to Princess Margaret that he went because he was Welsh. He reached Cardiff at 2am. Like other visitors, he appreciated that he must not get in the way of the rescue operation, but he did sterling work in comforting the bereaved. In his diary account, Harold Wilson gave him “the highest praise” for what he did. Later, Lord Snowdon told Anne de Courcy that it haunted him for years: “It was probably the worst day of my life.”
This episode shows Prince Philip attending the funeral (on the Thursday) and later giving the Queen a moving account of what he saw. In real life, he arrived on Saturday, October 22, the morning after the accident. He did not attend the funeral.
The message relayed is that the Queen is sympathetic, but hide-bound by convention, and unwilling to budge. Here we see Wilson trying in person to persuade the Queen to go. She does give the real-life explanation as to why she did not go immediately — that she was reluctant to paralyse the rescue operation, for which there is logic. But a heartless streak is hinted at. When Wilson asks her to go and comfort people, she replies: “Put on a show? The Crown doesn’t do that.” She rings the bell to dismiss him.
On the Sunday, apparently the Queen, Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were all together at breakfast. (This was actually the day when the Queen opened St George’s House, Windsor — of which more later.)
From here it gets worse. There are angry scenes in which the National Coal Board is blamed for the tragedy. Marcia Williams tells Wilson that all this was the fault of the Tories and that they need to capitalise on it, sidestep the blame, otherwise they risk returning to the 13 years in opposition. She suggests spinning against the Queen. I found the Marcia-Wilson scene particularly unpleasant, and I hope it did not happen. I don’t know how much spinning went on in those days, but we then see the Queen’s three Private Secretaries informing her that the Labour government has sought to suggest that her absence indicates lack of care for the people of Wales and for the whole working class. Apparently, this forces her to go. She went with Prince Philip on Saturday, October 29, spending two and a half hours there, and was described in real life as being “very upset”. In the series, Martin Charteris urges her to express emotion.
In a statement at the end, we are told that the Queen regretted not going to Aberfan more than anything else in her reign. Her various biographers have stressed this point. Ben Pimlott cited a former courtier saying she was not spontaneous, but “regrets that now”; Sally Bedell Smith quoted her as saying, “People will be looking after me. Perhaps they’ll miss some poor child that might have been found under the wreckage”, but somewhat condemned her, stating that “her tardy reaction showed an unyielding side to her nature that would cause problems in the years to come”. Robert Hardman is more sympathetic, putting it down to “a deep reluctance both to intrude upon private grief and also to show raw emotion in public”. Those who accompanied the real-life Queen to Aberfan remember that she was in tears.
One nice touch in an otherwise grim episode – Wilson lights a cigar (he used to smoke a cigar in private – I saw him do so at a private lunch at the House of Commons in 1977 – the pipe was for the public – so a good touch by the film-makers, later expanded upon in the storyline).
Series three, episode four: Bubbikins
This episode has two clashing themes — the later life of the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother, Princess Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece — and the challenges facing the Royal Family regarding finance, and how they should relate to the media — leading to the 1969 Royal Family film.
Having written the only authorised biography of Prince Philip’s mother — Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (published in 2000) — I am well placed to sift truth from fiction. The film-makers assign Princess Alice a character totally at variance with her real nature, and they make her do things which she would never have done in real life.
Looking first at Princess Alice, she did run a nursing sisterhood in Athens, and she was always in quest of funds. She based this on the convent in Moscow, created by her aunt and godmother, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, but the difference was that the Grand Duchess was rich and strong, and Princess Alice had no money and did not have the same strength and drive. She did her best, however. Here we see her selling a sapphire brooch — she did do that sort of thing. But needless to say, no police came to her convent, convinced that she was a fraud.
It is true that they were worried that there would be a coup in Greece and so she was brought over to London. This film makes a strong point that Prince Philip did not want her in the Palace, thought she was an embarrassment, feared that she would disrupt the Royal Family film, and when she arrived, did not even visit her. He tells the Queen that she has been in institutions most of her life (in fact only for two years). In reality, Prince Philip had been trying to persuade his mother to come over for some time. Only when his sister told her that the Queen had most particularly invited her did she agree to leave her apartment in Athens. She came over in King Constantine’s plane when it next came to London for a refit. (Martin Charteris did not go and collect her.)
She lived at Buckingham Palace for two years between 1967 and her death in 1969, not in the rather dismal room this film assigns to her, but in a fine room overlooking the Mall and the Queen Victoria Memorial.
The film-makers were right to have her bonding with Princess Anne. That was a lovely relationship. Princess Anne relished talking to her. She did smoke heavily, but I wonder if the point is adequately made that she was more or less stone deaf.
As for Princess Alice wandering out into the forecourt and getting caught up in the making of the Royal Family film, this did not happen. I don’t think she moved around very much in those last years. And the scene in which she gives a long interview about her life is contrary to everything in her character. This is a device to trick the viewer.
The Prince Philip character finally deigns to visit her. We think he is going to berate her. Instead he tells her that she should have been greatly more celebrated, and that she is a credit to the Royal Family due to her saintly life. She discusses his “dormant” faith with him. Interestingly, in real life, she did not press her religious ideas on him. At the end, off they go, arm in arm, for a walk in the Palace gardens. Another schmaltzy scene.
To give an overview of the relationship between Princess Alice and Prince Philip, he was the much-longed-for son, arriving in 1921, when four older sisters had been born between 1905 and 1914. Princess Alice adored him, but there were long periods when she did not see him, due to being hospitalised, then living remotely in Germany in the 1930s, and later in Athens. From time to time she reassumed the role of mother. I suspect that others in his family sought to minimise her influence on him. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Princess Alice led a normal life for the rest of her days. But her family could not have been certain that there would not be a recurrence of illness, and so they were always worried about her.
Prince Philip was with her in Athens just before the war, but steered into the British Royal Navy, in which he served throughout the Second World War. On his part, he was very good to her, often flying her from one place to another and, as related, buying her the apartment in Athens, and pressing her to come and live with them in London.
The film-makers have been selective in retelling Princess Alice’s story. She was not “treated” by Sigmund Freud, though he was consulted briefly. And nor, in a nasty flashback, was she taken away by the men in white coats as a youthful Prince Philip clung tearfully to the car. She was taken away, but Prince Philip was kept away on a picnic with his grandmother. When they came back, she was gone. Frankly, that is bad enough.
So — to the Royal Family film. The episode opens with Prince Philip giving an interview in which he hints he might have to give up polo and that the Royal Family might have to move out of Buckingham Palace. This interview did take place — for NBC in America, but not until November 9, 1969 — some months after the film was released (in July 1969).
It gives the chance for Wilson to respond, saying that some of the Labour cabinet are hostile to the idea of an increase in the Civil List. He himself is conflicted. The film implies that the Royal Family are paid. They are not paid salaries, only expenses. The Civil List is for the running of their official lives, offices etc.
In the film, Prince Philip summons Princess Anne, and she appears in her riding breeches. The actress playing her, Erin Doherty, has been given some good lines. He warns her of the danger of the Royal Family getting out of touch — the Greek Royal Family having been driven into exile — and tells her about the film they will make.
We see some scenes being filmed for Royal Family. And when it is released, according to what we are told here, it is a disaster, and given hostile reviews. The Queen is furious.
In real life, the film was well received, as noted by the Queen’s various biographers. “The film received ecstatic notices,” wrote Ben Pimlott. Sally Bedell Smith pointed out that 400 million people saw it in 130 different countries and “the reaction of the public was overwhelmingly positive”. Robert Hardman quoted Sir William Heseltine, one of the private secretaries and a key instigator of it, as saying: “It was a fantastic success . . . You couldn’t go into the Seventies ignoring television as they’d done in the Fifties and Sixties.”
According to this episode, the Queen prevents international distribution and a BBC repeat. Yet after the BBC showed it, ITV then did so and it is anticipated that 68 per cent of the British public saw it.
It is true that now it is not allowed to be seen.
Small points — the Tsar of Russia was Princess Alice’s uncle, not great-uncle. As stated, Princess Alice would not call her daughter-in-law “Your Majesty”. She did call Prince Philip “Bubbikins” when he was young.
Prince Philip wears the GBE neck badge, though after 1968 he had the Order of Merit. To be fair, he wears the OM in later episodes. Other details of decorations are correct.
Series three, episode five: Coup
The coup episode is based on a strange incident in 1968, three years after Mountbatten retired as Chief of the Defence Staff.
According to his authorised biographer, Philip Ziegler, Hugh Cudlipp, Editorial Director of the Daily Mirror, visited Mountbatten at Broadlands in May 1968 and they discussed “the dangerous decline in national morale”. Cudlipp then fixed a meeting with his boss at the Daily Mirror, Cecil King, at Mountbatten’s London flat in Kinnerton Street, and Mountbatten invited his friend, Sir Solly Zuckerman, along to make sure that nothing got out of control. There is more than one version of what happened. Mountbatten, Cudlipp and Zuckerman agreed that King inveighed against Wilson’s government and suggested that the situation could decline into anarchy with bloodshed in the streets, and tried to persuade Mountbatten to be prepared to take over and lead a Government of National Unity should that happen. Zuckerman said it was rank treachery and stormed out. Mountbatten said he could not contemplate such an outrageous proposition.
Cecil King’s version was different. He maintained that Mountbatten said the Queen was worried about the state of the nation and that he did not seem averse to stepping forward. Mountbatten’s reputation was somewhat smeared by implication. Since nothing came of the proposed coup, who did what does not matter much.
This episode gives us a version of this. Mountbatten is to be kicked out as Chief of the Defence Staff, to get Wilson good headlines. They describe him as “crooked, vain and power mad”. As relayed, Mountbatten retired in 1965. Cecil King cooks up an idea to make use of him, making the point that when one door closes, another opens.
Concurrent to this is an examination of the Queen and her racing. Her horse, Apprentice, fails to win at Royal Ascot, and Lord Porchester advises her to branch out more globally in order to compete better with the Aga Khan. The Queen heads off for about two weeks (in real life just a day or two), first to Normandy and later to Kentucky, which extends into an entire month away. The real Queen has never neglected her duties as monarch by going abroad for a month for purely private reasons.
The Queen has only ever travelled abroad privately in connection with equestrian interests, but only for a few days in total, not weeks on end as in this film. But it gives the film-makers the chance to emphasise that if she were not Queen, then she would prefer to be a country woman, breeding racehorses.
Small points — Mountbatten’s uniform is pretty good. Maybe the GCB riband is too purple and the Garter collar is hopeless — they dressed him as the real-life Mountbatten was dressed for the Silver Jubilee in 1977. His real-life retirement scene found him with Garter riband as in the portrait carried out after him.
When the Sovereign leaves the country, six Counsellors of State are appointed and two of them act in tandem. Therefore, the Queen Mother would not be running the country on her own, as suggested here.
Series three, episode six: Tywysog Cymru
Episode six introduces Prince Charles taking part in theatricals at Cambridge. The episode covers his Investiture as Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle in July 1969. It involves him being moved from Cambridge for a stint at Aberystwyth University. All this did happen, and unlike other episodes it is closer to the truth, though it introduces one or two speculative themes.
The Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, and Sir Michael Adeane tell Wilson’s cabinet that the Investiture will be a traditional ceremony with a considerable military presence. Wilson tells the po-faced Queen it would be less of an Investiture “and more like an invasion”. In fact, the ceremony was modernised by Lord Snowdon, and there had only ever been one such before — in recent times — in 1911 for Edward, Prince of Wales, son of George V.
It is decided that Prince Charles will go to Aberystwyth for political reasons, so that he can identify himself as a “true native son of Wales” and learn some words of Welsh. The Queen thinks he should stay at Cambridge. Wilson wants him there to dampen down hostile nationalist feelings. So he is confronted by a phalanx of the Royal Family, led by the Queen, who tells him where his duty lies. Played as a forlorn figure by [Josh O’Connor], loose of chin and slightly jug-eared, he is miserable at the prospect and tearful. The Princess Anne figure gives him a kiss and then a punch in the stomach to stiffen his resolve. In truth, the Aberystwyth decision had been taken two years before by George Thomas, Secretary of State for Wales.
He arrives at Aberystwyth at a time when Welsh nationalism is prevalent. This is true — he did. He meets Sir Ben Bowen Thomas and is assigned a tutor, who is distinctly anti-Royal, called Mr (in fact Dr) Tedi Millward, Vice-President of Plaid Cymru (born in 1930 and still alive). This is also true. Years later Millward recalled: “The early ’60s was the start of an upsurge in Welsh nationalism that saw the first Plaid Cymru politician elected to parliament — Gwynfor Evans, in 1966. By that point I was a well-known nationalist, so I was a little surprised when the university asked me if I would teach Welsh to Prince Charles, for a term, in 1969. This was ahead of his investiture as Prince of Wales in July. He had a one-on-one tutorial with me once a week. He was eager, and did a lot of talking. By the end, his accent was quite good. Toward the end of his term, he said good morning — ‘bore da’ — to a woman at college; she turned to him and said, ‘I don’t speak Welsh!’ His presence caused a bit of a stir. Crowds would gather outside the college as he drove up in his sports car.”
In this episode Millward does not want the job. “You can’t make me do this.” But he does, realising that the Prince will make his speech in Welsh.
Prince Charles arrives in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, greeted by protesters. (As noted, he drove his own sports car.) Millward welcomes him as “Charles” and they have a discussion as to whether the Crown threatens Welsh identity by imposing Britishness. We see him in the language laboratory, to learn Welsh. We see him in a grim student room. Other students are reluctant to engage with him — a door is slammed in his face. We see him solitary with his cello as rock music blares from the next-door room. He pleads his misery to his sister who urges: “Chin up.”
We see the Queen and Prince Philip contemplating the Investiture speech. Here the film-makers introduce a fictional theme — that Prince Charles might adapt his own speech. We see that his parents have no confidence in him.
Back in Wales, the Prince gradually wins the sympathy of his tutor, who takes pity on him when he realises he spends the evenings alone in his room, and invites him to supper at his home. Millward’s wife, rabidly hostile, is not pleased. But the Prince engages with their son and thus Millward’s wife also begins to feel sorry for him.
Prince Charles is portrayed as amiable, shy and doing his best. He learns his Welsh for the speech. The Investiture looms. Prince Charles apparently rewrites his speech to make it more relevant, to reflect himself and his own views.
The real speech had touches which were Charles’s — the reference to “a very memorable Goon” for example — but it was in no way provocative and certainly not political — as delivered here. It was approved by the Welsh Office. Nor did he hesitate over his speech as they have him do here.
Prince Charles goes to say goodbye to his tutor, arriving in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, and gives him a present. The tutor wonders what his family made of the speech — he says that having delivered it in Welsh they did not understand a word of it. At the real ceremony, he did it in English and Welsh.
The film-makers ram home perceived family divisions when he gets home. The Queen is not there to greet him — she has retired to bed, but agrees to see him briefly. He hopes to be thanked, but no. Here the storyline goes off on its own. The Queen tells him he was sent to Wales to heal divisions, not to inflict them on his own family. The speech evidently highlighted the suffering not only of the principality but his own. The Queen reads press cuttings. He whines: “Am I listened to in this family?”
We get a theme introduced that is explored further in later episodes — that Charles is in conflict with his family. He is the sensitive, thoughtful one. They are remote figures from another age. The Royal Family’s role is to say nothing. Charles is depicted as the rebel that in real life he is not.
Prince Charles’s tour of Wales was a triumph. In real life, he got back to Windsor Castle to find no one to greet him. His father and sister had gone to bed, and his mother was in London with a cold. So he retreated to his room to write up his diary
Series three, episode seven: Moondust
This is a curious episode, with a message that emerges rather positively towards the end. It is based on the false premise that Prince Philip discovers his faith as a result of a fictitious private chat with the men who went to the moon in 1969. It depicts the plight of Prince Philip in a midlife crisis, feeling he has achieved little, is more interested in exercise and action than contemplation, and is devoid of faith (as hinted at in episode 4). By the end, he realises that there is more to life than action and achievement.
Two themes are explored to create this — the [moon landings] followed by the visit of the astronauts to Buckingham Palace, and the arrival of a new Dean of Windsor, Robin Woods, and the creation of what turns out to be St George’s House. To achieve this, the timeline is twisted. The astronauts landed on the moon in July 1969 and visited the Palace in October 1970. The new Dean arrived at Windsor in 1962 and St George’s House was opened in 1966.
The conflicting themes are banged on the head. The moon landing is a great scientific achievement (walking on “another heavenly body”). Numerous scenes emphasise that, in contrast, Prince Philip has achieved very little, his duties are tedious and pointless, so he undergoes a spiritual awakening. At one point, he is even reckless, flying a plane to the limit of its capacity.
The moon landing part of it is an excuse for scenes of astronauts at work, the Queen sending a message to the moon, the Royal Family watching the landings, drinks in hand (the Queen Mother clutching a glass of champagne), and, in due course, the astronauts coming to London, as indeed they did on October 15, 1970, to be entertained at Buckingham Palace.
Intercut with all this are scenes involving the Dean of Windsor. The Queen is at church with a very bored Prince Philip (filmed at Englefield Church, for those who like spotting locations). The cleric is stumbling over his sermon — “a general anaesthetic” as Prince Philip dismisses it — and he loses the plot. On the way out, the Queen suggests to Sir Michael Adeane that the Dean has reached “the moment of his own obsolescence” after “20 years” and needs to be replaced.
That Dean was a fictional figure, but the new Dean is very real — Robin Woods, who succeeded Eric Hamilton, who died en poste in the deanery at Windsor Castle on May 21, 1962. He is rightly portrayed as a whirlwind “with a bit of oomph”. He bounds in and talks of creating an academy or conservatoire out of empty buildings in the precincts of St George’s Chapel — a place for priests in midlife to recharge and raise their game. Prince Philip resists. He is against “talking and thinking”. He believes you raise your game “by action”.
There is a scene in which Prince Philip denigrates the “academy” set up by the Dean. He listens to the men gathered there, musing on their chosen vocations, the dwindling congregations and a lack of interest in God, compared with some 500 million people watching the moon landings. The Dean tries to put this into perspective and then presses Prince Philip for his thoughts. His response is that what he has just heard is “pretentious self-piteous nonsense” and that the priests should get out and do something useful. He believes that the moon astronauts have it right while these priests are navel-gazing prophets of doom.
The Queen then tells Philip that there is a chance that the astronauts can come to the Palace on their victory tour. He is delighted. Prince Philip requests some time alone with the astronauts. He is peeved to be offered only 15 minutes “to discuss mankind’s greatest achievement”.
We see him planning his questions. A lot of import is given to this private meeting. They all have colds, which give them the chance to splutter at his every inanity. Again the theme is that he has not been able to achieve what he wanted in life due to his position. As he tries to question the three men, he finds that in fact they were so busy going through the procedures that there was no time for contemplation. There is a joke about the sound of banging, which turns out to be a badly working water cooler. They then ask him a lot of questions about living in a huge palace. He is gravely disappointed.
Following this depressing scene, Prince Philip visits the now empty bedroom where his mother had been housed. (She died in December 1969.)
And then we get the turnaround. He goes back to the academy, now described as St George’s House (although set in a rural surrounding not inside Windsor Castle), and he talks about the three professional men with no flair or imagination. He speaks of his jealousy of the astronauts, his dedication to exercise, his dissatisfaction with his life. He speaks of his mother’s death. She had seen that he missed “faith”. He had lost his faith. Without it, what is there? “The miracle of divine creation.” The answer is in the head or the heart, wherever faith is. “Having ridiculed you,” he tells the gathering at St George’s House that he is “now full of respect and admiration, and not a small part of desperation.” He has come to say: “Help! Help me.”
Having watched most of this episode with irritation, I am happy to say that, albeit in a lugubrious way and with the usual fictional examples cooked up to back their thesis, they pulled it round in the end.
In real life, Robin Woods was a splendid Dean of Windsor. I was lucky enough to meet him when I was 14 (1966) and to see a lot of him before he moved to Worcester as their bishop in 1971, and a certain amount after that. I subscribe to the verdict in his Times obituary (1997) that he was the best Dean the College had in its long history. Not only did he create St George’s House for the College of St George (in 1966), but also the Windsor Festival (still thriving after 50 years) and the Lay Stewards. And he did have a powerful influence on Prince Philip’s religious life. Today there are more books on religion and ornithology in Prince Philip’s extensive library at Buckingham Palace than on any other subject.
In a discussion I once had with Princess Anne about her grandmother, Princess Alice, she told me that her father liked to wrestle with all questions of religion. He likes to argue, and he is prepared to be swayed. I have heard him sum up many a St George’s House lecture, over which he used to preside. He has explored not only Christianity, but also many other religions and he has seen many far-off places where these religions are followed.
At the end of the episode, the captions tell us that Prince Philip and the Dean became “lifelong friends” — “For over 50 years St George’s House has been a centre for the exploration of faith and philosophy . . . Its success is the achievement of which Philip is perhaps most proud.”
I ended this episode thinking that perhaps this is the best publicity St George’s House will have had in its 53-year history.
Small points — Robin Woods was born in 1914, so he was not the same age as Prince Philip, who was born in 1921. The Queen would not have “an audience with the astronauts”; she would receive them, as she did. The Duke of Gloucester is still up and about!
On the plus side, unexplained, there is an amusing vignette of the ebullient amateur astrologer Patrick Moore as the television studio guest during the moon landings.
Series three, episode eight: Dangling Man
The Duke of Windsor is the focus of this episode and the theme explored is the one generally perceived to be at the core of the Abdication — the path of love versus that of duty. The time frame is late 1970 until May 1972, but well-known events are out of sequence. They are considerably jumbled to suit the chosen thesis.
The Duke of Windsor, now played by Derek Jacobi instead of Alex Jennings, is ill. The Crown likes illness — so we get the Duke spluttering with throat cancer, similar to the opening scenes in the first episode when George VI was vomiting. He too vomits. This is 1970. (He was not ill until 1971.) At the American Hospital, the Windsors are told that the Duke is terminally ill (they were not told — he said, even close to the end, that he was not ill, but that it was the cortisone that made him feel so bad). She tells the Duke they must throw a party.
The Windsors are visited, as indeed they were, in October 1971, by Emperor Hirohito of Japan, whom the Duke had first met when he visited London in 1921, and Empress Nagako. According to the film, the Duke sees this late-life visit as the last chance to restore his reputation. So he fixes for cameras to be there. The Emperor resents this as he does not want to be photographed with a man who lost his throne. In real life, the Emperor and Empress posed happily with the Windsors, but on the terrace, not in the drawing room. The film-makers still give the Duke almost Shakespearean lines as he muses on living on an island where he had once reigned as Sovereign.
The Emperor’s conciliatory visit appears to annoy the Queen and in particular the Queen Mother, as does the idea that the Duke is about to give an interview about his life to the BBC, which was in fact filmed two years before in late 1969 and shown on television in January 1970. The Queen refers to the Queen Mother’s loathing of the Windsors. (Actually she had been very fond of the Duke, and took the line that she did not know the Duchess and therefore could not hate her.) The Queen announces that she has given Prince Charles permission to visit the Duke (which he did, when staying with the Ambassador, Christopher Soames, at the British Embassy on October 3, 1971). In this episode he arrives alone, whereas his real-life visit was in the evening and there were other guests present.
A new theme is introduced. Camilla Shand is dating Andrew Parker Bowles. Meeting him in a pub, she berates him for an affair he has had, and goes off with a miscellaneous young man instead of accompanying him to a ball, which gives an idea of what we are meant to make of their relationship. Parker Bowles is on the loose, goes to the ball and meets Princess Anne. She comes on to him; she has been watching him on the polo field. (There are photos of them both at polo matches at Windsor and it seems they saw a lot of each other between 1969 and 1971 or so.) In the next scene, Princess Anne is shown in bed after having spent the night with Parker Bowles, who warns her, in nautical metaphors, that there is another figure on the scene — Camilla. The film-makers tell us their impression of the nature of the relationship between Parker Bowles and Princess Anne, deeming it somewhat casual.
The next scene shows Prince Charles playing polo, watched by the Queen Mother and Mountbatten (who, in real life, had no rapport whatsoever). Prince Charles and Mountbatten then meet for a meal. They discuss the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, somewhat disparagingly. Prince Charles tells his great-uncle that he and the Duke have been writing to each other (which, up to a point, they did, though the Duke certainly never interfered with his private life — nor advised him to get a wife). Mountbatten tells him to sow his wild oats, play the field. This advice was given in a letter to the real Prince Charles in 1974:
“I believe, in a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl before she met anyone else she might fall for . . .”
Prince Charles reveals that he has met the young Camilla Shand and is much taken with her. He claims that she used to be with Parker Bowles, but they fell out over his sister, Anne. He wants to “snap” Camilla “up”. Mountbatten is non-committal.
It would seem that Prince Charles met Camilla some time in 1971, and that they became particularly close towards the latter part of 1972, therefore after the death of the Duke of Windsor. He calls Camilla and invites her to dinner. There is some telephonic flirting. The timeline is deeply muddled in the next few scenes. Heath becomes Prime Minister (June 1970). This leads to discussion between the Queen and Prince Philip about a state visit to France (May 1972). Martin Charteris is now the Private Secretary (he took over in January 1972). He tells the Queen about the Duke of Windsor’s forthcoming TV interview (January 1970), but proposes a visit to him, which eventually took place in May 1972. Prince Philip says “certainly not”. Charteris refers to the successful visit of Emperor Hirohito (in October 1971). He asks why if the Japanese visit the Duke, his own family does not. (Heath suggested that to Robert Armstrong on November 7, 1971 — see Hugo Vickers, Behind Closed Doors (2011), page 15.)
A car arrives at the Palace (through the front gates as always in this series, whereas only for the great ceremonies in real life). Camilla comes to dinner with the Prince — he talks of his life as a predicament. He is a tortured soul. He dreads his mother’s death and yet he desires to be King. It is not for me to probe his mind, but my understanding is that the real Prince Charles has long considered his main contribution to public life is as Prince of Wales and he is in no hurry to assume the burdens of kingship.
We get a Saul Bellow reference to show that the Prince is a reader, whereas his dinner guest has never heard of him. The book was Dangling Man (1944), in which the hero exists in a kind of ridiculous abyss (an unemployed man in Chicago, waiting to be drafted in the Second World War, to give some meaning to his life). Then there is a joke exploding letter to show their shared childish humour. Suddenly the interview with the Duke of Windsor is to begin, so back we go to January 1970, before they had met.
The Windsors appear (with Kenneth Harris). The Duke’s message is that he had wanted to do things his way and that when he acceded, he continued in that vein. He claims that the real reason they wanted to get rid of him was not so much his wish to marry the Duchess, but because of his independence. We see his family watching independently — the Queen interested but concerned, Prince Philip hating them, the Queen Mother dismissive and disdainful, and Lord Mountbatten shrugging. But Prince Charles watches in wonderment.
Princess Anne saunters along the corridor. Her summation of the Parker Bowleses is: “Just make sure things remain the right way round. Us playing with Camilla and Andrew — not them playing with us.”
Seemingly it is 1972 again. The Duke of Windsor is spluttering over a letter to Prince Charles. The doctor comes. Later he retreats from the bridge table, again ill. He is put on a drip and lies in his bed. The Queen arrives on her state visit, arriving (curiously) first in Rouen, on her state visit to President Pompidou, which heralds Britain’s entry into the Common Market.
Then they go to Paris. Martin Charteris tells the Queen that there is a message — the Duke of Windsor is close to the end. Spontaneously she decides to visit him, taking everyone by surprise. Sidney, the Bahamian butler, comes to the bedroom and announces she is on her way. In reality, the visit had long been planned for May 18, on her way back from the races. Indeed, Sir Christopher Soames, the British Ambassador, was anxious that the Duke should not die during or just before the state visit.
The Queen is alone (the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles were with her in reality). She looks with disapproval at a box in the hall, marked “THE KING”. For some reason, it bears the Prince of Wales’s feathers.
The Duke has risen from his bed and is dressed. When the Queen comes into the Duke’s room, he is attached to drips by nurses and seated in a wheelchair. He rises from it with difficulty, which in reality he did. She tells him he was always her favourite uncle. Having begun with “Your Majesty”, he then calls her “Lilibet”, as he would have done. She responds “Shirley Temple” — a nickname he had used for her, not that she would refer to it in real life.
His speech to her involves him saying: “I underestimated you. The Crown always finds its way to the right head: my father, my brother and you.” There is then a discussion about Prince Charles, the Duke telling her that she does not think him up for it — which she denies saying. His message is “with the right woman by his side, he will make a good King”.
He goes on about Camilla — which he could not have done as they were not close by then. And I am sure there were no letters about her. Nevertheless, the Queen takes them. He apologises: “Forgive me.” The Queen replies: “Thank you. What you did. Your Abdication of the throne did change my life for ever . . . There are days when I consider it to be a blessing. I’ve even on occasions found myself wanting to thank you.” In reality, the Duke of Windsor never felt the need to ask forgiveness from anybody for abdicating. And the Queen accepted her lot, though it is well known that the Royal Family attributed some blame to the Duke for the early death of his brother, George VI, on whose shoulders he landed so many responsibilities.
The Queen holds his hand. Unlike with Churchill in episode 1, when the Duke proceeds to lose consciousness, she does not kiss him. She walks slowly out.
There is a flashback to Prince Charles writing to the Duke about the nature of kingship and of love. He says he recognises himself in the Duke, which I am quite sure he did not. He seems to be thinking that the Duke should have stayed as King with Wallis at his side. He promises he will not be denied what he has been denied. Again, this fundamentally undermines Prince Charles’s approach to his role as Prince of Wales.
Then we see the Duchess holding the Duke’s hand. His pug suddenly jumps from the bed. It is true that his dog did leave the bed shortly before his death, as dogs sometimes do. He dies. The Duchess looks distraught as the nurse leads her from the bedside. In fact, the Duke did not want her to see him in extremis as he wished to spare her suffering. She was asleep in her own bed when he died in the night of May 28, 1972.
Series three, episode nine: Imbroglio
One of the suggestions of this episode is to suggest that Lord Mountbatten and the Queen Mother plotted against Prince Charles to prevent his evident decision to marry Camilla Shand in 1972. The Duke of Windsor’s death is to the fore in the opening scenes, so we are at the end of May 1972. We see the coffin arriving, draped in a full royal standard (without his particular label — three points, the centre one bearing a crown) so the film-makers have inadvertently reinvented him as King.
Next is the burial, with the Duchess of Windsor at the graveside, where Garter King of Arms reads out his styles and titles (this did happen, but in St George’s Chapel). At the reception, the Duchess gives Prince Charles the Duke’s pocket watch, with the Queen and the Queen Mother looking on disapprovingly. The Duchess seems to know about Camilla and gives him two bits of advice. The first is: “Never turn your back on true love, despite all the sacrifices. David and I never once regretted it.” The second is: “Watch out for your family.” He says: “They mean well.” “No they don’t,” says the Duchess.
It is perhaps worth stating that the Duchess of Windsor never wanted the Duke to abdicate. Though they could never admit that they regretted the Abdication, I fear they did. I only ever saw him once, but I have never seen a man with sadder eyes.
We then cut to a scene of questionable taste, Prince Charles, partly naked, in bed with Camilla, expressing his admiration for his recently deceased great-uncle. He thinks they united against him because he was brighter, wittier and more independent of thought. This is a recurring theme of this series — the Royal Family’s cold dedication to duty at the cost of warm human relations. He thinks he is the new pariah.
The facts do not support the portrayed scene. The Duchess of Windsor was appreciative of Prince Charles’s kindness to her. He was sympathetic, called her Aunt Wallis, and had sought to effect a reconciliation between the ailing Windsors and his family. The Queen Mother had not supported this. Prince Charles and Lord Mountbatten had joined the Duchess when she came down from London to see the Duke’s Lying-in-State, but she was already unwell and in no state to give Prince Charles advice about his love life, nor would she see it as her place to do so. She was not well at the funeral, and soon afterwards her health collapsed and she entered the long illness which finally ended with her death in 1986.
The episode moves on to Edward Heath, a flashback to his childhood and a piano his family cannot afford, the miners’ strike of 1974, power cuts and the three-day week, a theme which recurs again in this episode. But suddenly we go back to the Silver Wedding of 1972.
Prince Charles is in the Navy, being trained and lonely on the high seas. He relates this to Camilla over the telephone, but she is confused, as well she might be since we observe the hovering presence of Andrew Parker Bowles.
Mountbatten arrives somewhere (filmed at Greenwich). Charles bemoans his plight to his great-uncle, who only sees Camilla as a bit of fun. He pleads for his help. But Dickie is not on his side over this one. He throws in his hand with the Queen Mother to scupper the Charles-Camilla affair. This is of course incredible to anyone with any knowledge of the complete lack of empathy between the Queen Mother and Mountbatten. She was able to get her way quietly over many things and was suspicious of his meddling. So, as the plotline veers once more into the realms of fantasy, we hear that Mountbatten will have Charles posted overseas for eight months, while the Queen Mother agrees to take on the Shand and Parker Bowles families.
There is an interlude with Heath and a piece of coal in cabinet to remind him of the miners. Heath confronts the leader of the NUM. Heath is impressive on the subject of democracy. So back to 1974.
The Queen Mother then activates the Shands, parents of Camilla, and the Parker Bowleses, parents of Andrew, pressing for a marriage between them. Charles goes to see the Queen and is told that he is to be stationed in the Caribbean for eight months. In reality, Prince Charles was not sent to the Caribbean to separate him from Camilla. He mentions perhaps it is because Camilla is not “intact”. The Queen summons Lord Mountbatten and the Queen Mother as if they were recalcitrant schoolchildren. The Queen seems to be promoting the idea of Camilla. She does not know about the Parker Bowles link. Princess Anne arrives home in her car, listening to pop music. (She is so well played that, however absurd the plot, it is enjoyable whenever she appears.)
The episode continues with talk of “true love”, Princess Anne being confronted by the Queen, Prince Philip, the Queen Mother and Lord Mountbatten. She tells them that Camilla is obsessed with Andrew Parker Bowles, that she herself was briefly caught up in all this, but that it was just “a bit of fun”. If Charles went forward with Camilla there would be “three in the marriage”.
Mountbatten delivers the bad news to Prince Charles, who crumples up. He talks to Camilla. Her line is that yes, she loves Andrew, and apparently it will be better for everyone in the long run. In real life, Prince Charles heard about it while serving overseas, so all this was melodrama.
Politically, Heath is in trouble. The country is in trouble. The Queen is cross about the miners’ strike, so this is 1974.
We revert to the Queen’s Silver Wedding in 1972, seeing an evening occasion with the Lord Mayor, Prince Philip wearing the Order of Merit now (correctly). As the Queen speaks of happy family values, we get a glimpse of the lonely Prince Charles at sea, looking at the inscription on his pocket watch, and the Duchess of Windsor, a lonely widow in Paris. We cut to the Queen Mother at the wedding of Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla, smiling smugly. Prince Charles weeps pathetically — in the Caribbean.
Much has been written about the Charles-Camilla relationship. To recap, they met in 1971. Mountbatten made them welcome at Broadlands and encouraged Charles to sow his wild oats. He did not imagine that Charles should marry Camilla. Prince Charles entered the Royal Navy and went off to sea in January 1973. While serving overseas, he heard that Camilla had married Andrew Parker Bowles. The engagement was announced on March 15, 1973. That wedding took place at the Guards’ Chapel on July 4, 1973, in the presence of the Queen Mother (an old friend of the groom’s parents), Princess Anne and Princess Margaret.
It is accepted that at that time Camilla was in love with Andrew Parker Bowles, a good-looking cavalry officer, who knew when to strike. Meanwhile the young Prince of Wales was too unsure of himself to make up his mind. There was no need for any Palace plot.
Series three, episode ten: Cri de Coeur
The last episode in this series concentrates on the break-up of Princess Margaret’s marriage to Lord Snowdon. The Queen visits Princess Margaret, who is in bed. There has been a marital row. There is evidence of Snowdon’s infidelity. “He can’t help himself, my priapic little snapper.” The girl in question turns out to be Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, spotted by Lady Glenconner, who tells Princess Margaret this at a party, which she attends alone.
At a dinner, the Queen explains that Wilson is back — so it would appear to be March 1974. Yet it is also Princess Margaret’s birthday party, so August 21, 1974. The Duke of Gloucester is at the table, despite having died on June 10. Princess Margaret declares that Snowdon is now openly unfaithful and wants him banned. The family praise Snowdon’s various talents. Princess Margaret storms out.
Lady Glenconner invites Princess Margaret to stay with her at Glen, the Tennant castle in Scotland. On the way there, one of Snowdon’s nasty messages to her is found tucked into a book. According to Anne Glenconner’s memoir, Lady in Waiting (2019), such messages were delivered. Scenes at Glen bear some resemblance to her version in that book — likewise those in Mustique.
Princess Margaret travels by train — in the kind of bed I have never seen on a train — and then a huge Rolls-Royce conveys her to Glen. She arrives asleep. Actually she didn’t — she was collected and by the time she arrived, Roddy Llewellyn was in the car. In this film, Lady Glenconner produces Roddy beside the swimming pool and a relationship develops. Peebles, where they go shopping, looks more like Berkshire than Scotland.
There are scenes at Glen and on Mustique that encapsulate this relationship, but no, a bearded press photographer did not find his way on to Mustique and take snaps of Roddy rubbing sun cream into Princess Margaret’s legs. (Perhaps they muddled this up with Fergie and John Bryan in 1992?)
Lord Snowdon visits the Queen to show her some Silver Jubilee commemoratives he has designed, so it seems we are now in 1976. Whether the Queen lectured him about the state of his marriage is more questionable. In this conversation, he sidesteps any blame and cites the presence of Roddy. Nor did the Queen Mother summon Princess Margaret back from Mustique — that was not her style. Clearly the delight shown by Lucy Lindsay-Hogg in finally nailing the marriage is highly speculative — as if she were the Machiavellian provocateur in the separation. She provokes Snowdon in his darkroom.
Princess Margaret did not return to find Snowdon ensconced in Kensington Palace as shown here. In real life, he was in Australia when the separation was announced (March 1976) and had already decamped to his mother’s house.
There is a political subplot. Wilson has returned after the 1974 election but now, two years on, he admits to Alzheimer’s. He tells the Queen he is resigning. Quite out of character, the Queen tells him: “I don’t mind admitting I let out an unconstitutional cheer when you beat Mr Heath this time.” Wilson tells her: “Look what a sentimental old Royalist I turned out to be.”
There is truth in that — there had been some concern when Wilson arrived as Prime Minister, but in the end he caused no trouble. The Queen tells him that she and Prince Philip would like to dine with him at Downing Street. They did do that.
Hardly has he left than the Queen is told that Princess Margaret has taken an overdose. She did take an overdose, though not on this occasion. It happened after she had been staying in a commune with Roddy and he fled to Turkey to get away from her (more likely 1978). The Queen Mother describes this as “a cri de coeur rather than a coup de grace”. Lord Napier later told the biographer Tim Heald that he thought the overdose was probably done to create a drama: “Remember she was a great actress.”
When the Queen visits her again, Princess Margaret tells her she and Tony will eventually divorce — the first royal divorce since Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. What about Lord Harewood, son of the Princess Royal, in 1967? The Queen says they can time the announcement of the separation to coincide with Wilson’s resignation (March 1976). Those two events did coincide.
There follows one of the better discussions in the series — Princess Margaret reassuring the Queen about the Silver Jubilee, the Queen suggesting that in 25 years she has achieved nothing and the country has declined while Princess Margaret tells her that she has bestowed calm on the nation. She suggests that what the monarchy does is nothing more than “paper over the cracks” — a slightly dismal verdict.
One small change from reality on the day of the Silver Jubilee — as the Gold State Coach leaves, they make Prince Philip ride behind it, whereas, in real life, he was seated beside the Queen in the coach. I guess they wanted her symbolically alone.
While attention has been paid to uniforms, orders and decorations in this series, the Duke of Kent (briefly spotted in the royal line-up) is missing his GCMG collar.
The last scene shows the Queen alone in her coach on the way to the Silver Jubilee service at St Paul’s Cathedral. As viewers will have come to expect in this series, Olivia Colman plays her as sullen and glum, the message being that she has to carry on, whether she has done it right or wrong — again a depressing verdict. But it backs up Princess Margaret’s statement: “The rest of us drop like flies, but she goes on and on.”
Finally, it was good to see them resurrecting the late Duke of Gloucester again. I was getting used to his posthumous appearances. There he was, correctly placed in order of precedence, below Princess Margaret, but before his wife and before the Duke of Kent. He was dressed not in his Scots Guards uniform, but in a morning coat, splendidly adorned with his Garter star, medals and a Garter collar.
Good of them to take so much trouble to dress him up. By then he had been dead for three years.
第10集
