王冠 第一季

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Series one, episode one: Wolferton Splash

The series opens with King George VI spewing blood into a lavatory pan, to indicate that he is a sick man. Before the opening credits, there is a scene in which the King invests Prince Philip, as Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip is described as a Prince of Greece and ‘of’ Denmark. Then the King knights him as he bestows titles on him in the wrong order, and only then gives him the Order of the Garter. There is a scene in which the King uses the ‘C’ word. We are introduced to the Prince Philip character, portrayed throughout the series as a kind of ‘Jack the Lad’, smoking a cigarette on the day before the wedding and treating it all as something of a game.

This episode introduces the various themes. We see tension between the King and Prince Philip, we meet Group Captain Peter Townsend hovering amorously around Princess Margaret, and Princess Elizabeth preparing for her future role, at work with her father.

At the 1947 royal wedding Prince Philip’s mother is depicted in a nun’s habit – in reality she was a civilian then and did not adopt the habit (which she wore at the Coronation) until 1948. But this allows Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) to describe her disparagingly as ‘the hun nun’. But then she calls her daughter ‘Elizabeth’ when it was always ‘Lilibet’. There are scenes in Malta of Princess Elizabeth’s carefree life, though her son, Prince Charles, was not in Malta at that time.

The King has to have an operation, so we see Princess Margaret waiting anxiously with Queen Mary and the King with his doctors. There are gory scenes of the lung being removed and the lung is wrapped up in a copy of The Times (a story gleaned from Hugh Trevor-Roper’s letters). There is a scene where Sir John Weir, the well-known homeopathic doctor, informs the King of the gravity of his illness despite the operation. It is curious that this role was assigned to Weir. In reality he failed to give the King proper advice. He was even mistrusted by the admirable Dr Margery Blackie, the most distinguished of homeopathic doctors, who had little time for him.

In 1948 Dermot Morrah, a respected Times writer, reported privately that the King was in danger of losing his leg: ‘One special source of anxiety is his personal physician – a homeopathic quack with a fascination for women, some of whom planted him on Edward, Prince of Wales, who bequeathed him to his successor as official medical officer. Of course they’ve called in good men as consultants, Cassidy and Learmouth especially, but this old menace is there all the time, and it was he who let the trouble go to this length before sounding the alarm.’

It was as bad in 1951, in which this episode is set. Weir accompanied the King to Balmoral for the summer. The worldly doctor enjoyed himself shooting with Scottish dukes. Only when the local doctor was called in was the gravity of the King’s illness appreciated, resulting in him being whisked down to London to have his lung removed. Following that, those who understood such things realised that the King’s life was likely to be short.

This episode depicts Churchill becoming Prime Minister again (in October 1951), and suggests that neither he nor the King are in good health, the King is forced to wear rouge (which was the case). In reality it is not certain how much the King was told about his state of health. The episode ends with Princess Elizabeth looking at the King’s boxes, and in a sense facing her destiny.

A minor mistake: Princess Elizabeth’s car has the royal coat of arms on it. This is reserved for the monarch. Lady Churchill’s GBE riband at the wedding is too red and too wide.

Series one, episode two: Hyde Park Corner

Episode 1 warned us that the King’s life was in danger. Episode 2 carries him off. It starts with Princess Elizabeth arriving in Kenya on the first leg of the proposed Commonwealth tour she is undertaking on her father’s behalf.

We see the royal limousine arriving at an event and the Royal Standard fluttering on the front of it, the inference here being that Princess Elizabeth has already become Queen, but no, it is the wrong Royal Standard. Princess Elizabeth’s would have had a label of three white points. Soon afterwards a cocky Prince Philip mocks a Kikuyu chieftain for wearing a medal to which he is apparently not entitled, in fact a VC, though this is not explained. This was in February 1952 and yet Prince Philip was wearing a 1953 Coronation medal, which, arguably, might not have mattered, but for the fact that he was chiding someone else for wearing the wrong medal.

As they arrive at Treetops for the fateful night of 5/6 February, the Prince Philip character does a Crocodile Dundee feat in seeing off a bull elephant. In reality there were no elephants there that day or night.

The scenes in which Lord Salisbury is seen plotting to get rid of Churchill have not been well received by the Cecil family due to inaccuracies. He would never have elicited the help of Lord Mountbatten, for example. Anthony Eden did not go to Sandringham to ask the King to exercise his constitutional right to remove the Prime Minister from office on account of his incapacity to run the country properly, least of all in February 1952. Churchill himself is given a fictitious secretary called Venetia Scott, so that she can play a role in Episode 4.

Following the King’s death, we see a gruesome scene in which Princess Margaret visits the body of her father during the embalming process. Churchill did not broadcast in the presence of the entire Cabinet, yet his actual words are as moving to listen to today as they surely were at the time. Tommy Lascelles, the Private Secretary, is invested with a most sinister role. He is given good lines, such as when he passes on the Queen Mother’s offer to Townsend to become her Comptroller at Clarence House: ‘I don’t expect you to accept.’

Minor mistakes: It was not Lascelles who told Churchill of the King’s death, it was Sir Edward Ford; Queen Mary was told by Lady Cynthia Colville, not by a footman; it is unlikely that Princess Elizabeth had just written to her father before hearing of his death; Queen Mary did not come to Sandringham to curtsy to the new Queen (that happened at Marlborough House); there is no evidence that Lascelles caught Princess Margaret and Townsend kissing; contemporary evidence proves that the Queen Mother did not cry hysterically when she heard of the King’s death (she was far too stoical); Martin Charteris did not disappear from royal service immediately after the King’s death (he became part of the team, though no longer the new Queen’s actual Private Secretary). Some of these things are acceptable under the heading of dramatic licence.

Series one, episode three: Windsor

Back we go to 1936, seeing Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret playing just before their uncle, King Edward VIII, broadcasts his Abdication speech. There is no way that Queen Mary would have come into the room to see the King to try to dissuade him from broadcasting. And Mrs Simpson was not hovering in the background as he made that speech. In reality she was in Cannes. In the real abdication speech he was announced as ‘His Royal Highness Prince Edward’ not as Duke of Windsor.

Presently there are many scenes involved with the aftermath of King George VI’s death, the young Queen wearing black and sometimes a black veil, and Tommy Lascelles becoming ever more the dominant figure in the Palace.

Two big issues are explored to show how Prince Philip no longer has any say in the running of his family. There are many scenes of the redecoration of Clarence House, and he wants the family to stay there. He insists that the Queen puts this proposal to Churchill. The other issue is the family name. It is understood that, in real life, the Queen and Prince Philip would have preferred to stay at Clarence House, which was the perfect London home for a young family, not too big, and with a well-sized garden. Buckingham Palace has always served multiple purposes: a series of state rooms, offices for members of the Household, and the King and Queen’s rooms along a long corridor on the Constitution Hill side. It must have been a bit like living in an Edwardian hotel. But Churchill insisted that the monarch must live in the Palace, and so they moved in on 5 May 1952. The Queen Mother moved into Clarence House on 18 May 1953.

The name issue was another genuine cause for Prince Philip to be upset. As seen in this episode, Lord Mountbatten, curiously dressed for dinner in his own home (Broadlands) as an Admiral, boasts, with some justification, that the House of Mountbatten now reigns in Britain. Normally the male who marries a Queen Regnant gives his name to the new house, hence Queen Victoria was the last Queen of the House of Hanover which became Saxe-Coburg when she married Prince Albert in 1840. Prince Ernst August of Hanover was at Mountbatten’s table in 1952 and did not like what he heard. He informed Queen Mary who called for Jock Colville, then Private Secretary to Winston Churchill. The Prime Minister duly informed the Queen that the Royal House must be called the House of Windsor. There is a fictional scene in which the Queen reads out this declaration to the Privy Council.

It is true that Prince Philip was livid about this though, in reality, he wanted it called the House of Edinburgh, rather than Mountbatten, the preferred choice of his ever-manipulative uncle. Harold Macmillan recorded that Prince Philip wrote a well-reasoned memorandum making his case, but the Government would not countenance the Mountbatten name being used. In opposing Prince Philip, ministers such as Macmillan were keen to send ‘a shot across his bows’, to keep the young consort in his place.

The Duke of Windsor comes over for his brother’s funeral, and the series makes much of the newly styled Queen Mother’s hostility to him. The Duke of Windsor also wants various things. There is a lot of bargaining in this episode. The Queen asks Churchill to do her a favour by informing the Cabinet about the Mountbatten name, claiming that she is keeping him in office by agreeing to a delayed Coronation. In fact the Coronation was always planned for June 1953 as it takes a long time to arrange such a ceremony.

Then Churchill asks the Duke of Windsor to help put various points to the Queen – for example to be an intermediary over the other two issues of this episode, the family name and the move to Buckingham Palace. In exchange, the Duke wants to retain the allowance King George VI promised him (which ceased at the King’s death) and again demanded an HRH for the Duchess. There is a curious scene in which three contrasting aspects of love are explored – we see a sequence with the Windsors dancing romantically, the Queen and Prince Philip at the opera (where he takes her hand), and Princess Margaret popping in to Townsend’s office to kiss him with some passion.

The Duke of Windsor then lunches with the Queen, which did not happen in real life, and puts Churchill’s two points to her. Most erroneously, we find the new young Queen turning to the Duke of Windsor for avuncular advice. He is presented as a sage and explains in the almost Shakespearean language the scriptwriters give him why she, as a monarch, must move from Clarence House to Buckingham Palace.

Alex Jennings, the actor, looks incredibly like the Duke of Windsor, but the real life Duke never delivered such Shakespearean oratory. Nor would the real Queen ever have asked for advice from a man so patently incapable of giving it.

The Duke of Windsor had been immensely tiresome ever since the Abdication in 1936, and Tommy Lascelles had seen him off on more than one occasion, most effectively in 1945. The Royal Family felt gravely let down by the Abdication, and Lascelles wrote at one point in the 1940s that any appearance in Britain by the Duke would have a grave effect on the health and peace of mind of George VI. Later on, in real life, the Queen was courteous to her uncle, and various rapprochements were made before he died, but the trouble with the Duke of Windsor was that if he was given an inch, he would take a mile.

In other themes, we see Prince Philip asking Group Captain Townsend to teach him to fly, a theme followed up in the next episode. He did learn at White Waltham, near Maidenhead, but was taught by Flight Lieutenant C.R. Gordon, of Cheltenham. He received his wings from Air Chief Marshal Sir William Dickson, on 4 May 1953, having flown for 90 to 100 hours.

The film-makers also introduce the idea that Prince Philip bullied Prince Charles, which is again addressed in later episodes.

Minor mistakes: Prince Philip was a descendant of the royal houses of Greece and Denmark, but not of Norway. King Haakon of Norway (1872-1957) was a Prince of Denmark who was given the Norwegian throne in 1905.

A recurring mistake throughout the series: All the characters arrive at Buckingham Palace through the ceremonial front gates. Normally they enter via the gate to the right near Constitution Hill.

Series one, episode four: Act of God

This is a curious episode based on the great fog that descended on London between 5 and 9 December 1952. This fog caused some spontaneous burglaries and one murder. London was perfectly used to fog, so it was not treated as a particular emergency until much later when it was estimated that between 4,000 and 12,000 people died – though most of them had breathing problems or were very old. Most of this episode is fictional and did not happen. Obviously the scenes involving Churchill’s fictional secretary, Venetia Scott, were made up. She is killed when hit by a bus, but since there was no public transport, other than trains on the London Underground, due to the fog, this could not have happened.

The film-makers then involve Churchill failing to take action, the question of Clement Attlee, the Leader of the Opposition, potentially turning the situation to political advantage, and Churchill’s decision to visit a hospital during the crisis, but all this is fiction too. Interestingly the fog did not rate a mention in Martin Gilbert’s official biography of Churchill.

The other scenes involve Prince Philip learning to fly and Government annoyance at this. Queen Mary falls ill and takes to her bed, attended by Sir John Weir. The Queen walks through the fog to visit her ailing grandmother to discuss what is expected of her as a monarch.

Series one, episode five: Smoke and Mirrors

There is a flashback to 11 May, with George VI explaining the significance of anointing in the Coronation ceremony, and talking of the weight of the crown, both actual and symbolic. The action then moves forward to 1953, with the Queen trying on the same crown before her Coronation.

Queen Mary falls gravely ill, which brings the Duke of Windsor over. In this series he comes from France, though he actually came with his sister, the Princess Royal, from New York. There are lots of opportunities for him to complain to the Duchess of Windsor about his family, his mother and his treatment. The Queen is warned by the Queen Mother to be wary of the Duke – ‘like mercury, he’ll slip through the tiniest crack.’ During his visit, the Duke is summoned from Marlborough House to Lambeth Palace where he finds the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tommy Lascelles and one other, ranged against him explaining why he should not attend the Coronation and that the Duchess would not be invited. The Duke is furious, but he agrees to put out a statement explaining why he won’t be there.

While he is at Lambeth Palace, a message comes through that Queen Mary has died. In reality the Duke was not at Lambeth Palace. Her funeral is shown (with the Royal Standard on her coffin, not her personal standard).

In real life, the question of the Duke’s possible attendance preoccupied the Archbishop of Canterbury as early as November 1952 and he raised the matter with the Queen at lunch. It was agreed that his presence ‘would create a very difficult situation for everybody, and if had not the wits to see that for himself, then he ought to be told it.’ Churchill took the line that while it was understandable that the Duke would wish to be present at family funerals, it would be completely inappropriate for him to attend the Coronation of one of his successors. Tommy Lascelles wrote to the Duke’s lawyers making it clear that no summons would be forthcoming. A statement was prepared for the Duke to issue to save face, but he must have alarmed the British Government by giving an interview at Cherbourg in which he said he might well be in England at the time of the ceremony. As it happened he and the Duchess stayed in Paris and watched it on television with friends, a scene recreated in this episode. We see the Duke explaining the proceedings in the Abbey, again in Shakespearean phrases, to a group of undistinguished guests. The episode ends with him playing his bagpipes outside the house, with tears in his eyes, presumably to hint that he is regretting all that he discarded.

The other main theme in this episode is the role of Prince Philip in the preparations and also in respect of the part he intends to play in the ceremony. Here he only agrees to chair the Coronation Committee if he has total control and we see him coming out with all sorts of modern ideas for the day, such as inviting Trade Union leaders and businessmen to take part. He is told that some things cannot be changed. There is a row with the Queen and he tells her he refuses to kneel before her to do homage. In the end he is obliged to do so, but he is given credit for insisting the ceremony be televised.

Having written a book on the Coronation and delved into the Archbishop of Canterbury’s papers I can testify that these reveal the Archbishop of Canterbury, pushing Prince Philip out as much as possible. He pronounced: “There must be no association of him in any way with the process & rite of Coronation.” Yet they also show that Prince Philip was quite happy to do fealty after the Archbishop (when he could have been expected to go first) and that he presented a silver gilt wafer box to the Abbey, and a chalice and paten to Lambeth as a form of offering to respect taking his place next to the Queen during the communion.

Unlike other flaky consorts such as Prince Claus of the Netherlands and Prince Henrik of Denmark, Prince Philip was raised within the Royal House of Greece. But for the birth of the future King Constantine in 1940, he would have ended up as King of Greece in 1964, and marriage with Princess Elizabeth would have been out of the question. In real life he adapted quickly to his changed circumstances, but in The Crown, they put him in conflict at every opportunity.

The Coronation scene was a wonderful opportunity to create a scene of great visual magnificence but it fell seriously short in regard to a great number of details. Earl Mountbatten, seated in the front row of the Royal Box (he was not in the front row) appears dressed in ducal robes, and is not wearing his Garter collar. Nor is the supporting actor representing the Queen’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. The Marquess of Salisbury carries the Sword of State (which he did at the actual Coronation), but he crowns himself with an Earl’s coronet. The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (Mistress of the Robes) fails to put on a coronet. The oath was not administered during the anointing but before it. There are a number of peeresses sitting where the Peers sat in reality. Thus this scene is one of the least convincing in the series.

The St Edward’s Crown with which the Queen is crowned was far too big, but this may have been intentional to demonstrate the burden the Queen was assuming.

Series one, episode six: Gelignite

The theme of this episode is the Princess Margaret – Peter Townsend love affair and their attempt to marry in 1953. The opening scene shows the Queen and Prince Philip going to the Coronation Derby, but we then see a newspaper office where an unshaven journalist has picked up what he realises is a huge scoop (hence ‘gelignite’) – Princess Margaret having been observed picking some fluff off the jacket of Group Captain Peter Townsend at the Coronation – he being by then a divorced equerry. Princess Margaret and Townsend are on the point of accompanying the Queen Mother on an official visit to Rhodesia.

The Princess invites the Queen and Prince Philip to dine with her and Townsend and they believe that they have her blessing, but they soon run up against the establishment. Tommy Lascelles invokes the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which stated that no lineal descendant of George II could marry without the consent of the Sovereign, and so Princess Margaret is asked to wait for two years. The series suggests that the Queen deceived her sister by appearing to support her wish to marry him and then eventually forbidding it. The film-makers imply that the Princess never forgave her sister, a theme which recurs in later episodes. The essence of this episode is more or less correct, but the sequence of events is somewhat muddled. Since there are also a number of contradictory accounts left by Peter Townsend, Tommy Lascelles, and Princess Margaret to her biographer, it is hard to settle on a true version, since that true version depends on which source is trusted.

Lascelles appears at his most severe in this episode, a Satanic and menacing figure. This is an interpretation that might well have resonated with the real life Princess Margaret, not to mention the real life Peter Townsend.

There is no doubt that Princess Margaret fell in love with the Group Captain. He was the trusted equerry of the father she adored and a Battle of Britain hero. He was rather a gentle figure. However, as Lascelles made clear to him in no uncertain terms, he had been placed in a position of trust and responsibility. He was a married man with two sons and he was considerably older than the Princess. The real Lascelles said of him: ‘He has Theudas trouble’, a reference to the Acts of the Apostles: ‘For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody.’ Churchill made it clear that the Queen could not sanction the marriage. So Townsend was sent away to Brussels, where he stayed for two years. By the time he returned in 1955, when the British public were agog to know whether the marriage would take place, the path of love had completely run its course. This is the main theme of Episode 10.

Minor mistakes: The costume department gave Townsend his CVO, but failed to give the actor playing Lascelles any medals or Orders (by 1953 he was entitled to a GCVO, CMG, MC and various other medals); in Rhodesia, there was a Governor-type figure in a Guards tunic with a GCB, but only bar ribbons for medals. At one point we see the telephone switchboard, which includes Highgrove House. This is the house that the Duchy of Cornwall bought for Prince Charles in 1980, so it would not have been on the switchboard in the 1950s.

Series one, episode seven: Scientia Potentia Est

It is 1940 and the Princesses are with their French governess. Princess Elizabeth goes to Eton College to be instructed by the Provost, Sir Henry Marten (not Vice-Provost as stated in the series). This leads to the Queen wishing to be better educated – knowledge is power - and as the story moves on into 1953, one of the themes is that she wants a tutor to help expand her general knowledge. Martin Charteris such a figure called Professor Hodge, but he is a completely fictitious character. The Queen did not seek a tutor to help her and nor would she ever have taken advice over constitutional matters from a figure outside the Palace system.

Retirement, or rather non-retirement, is in the air. Churchill is getting old and rather desperate, but refusing to go. The Anthony Eden character is ill in Boston, rather luridly so, taking injections, the implication being that he was almost a drug addict (a theme which gets worse in subsequent episodes). Then Churchill has two strokes. Evidently the Queen is not informed and so the fictitious Hodge urges her to summon Churchill and Lord Salisbury to tick them off like recalcitrant schoolboys. The Crown plays out the two wiggings. Symbolically this is to demonstrate that the Queen is getting on top of her role as an assured constitutional monarch.

Tommy Lascelles is also about to retire. In this series, the Queen wants her former Private Secretary, Martin Charteris, to take over and even offers him the job. He and his wife (Gay in real life, but here carelessly called Mary - the name of his daughter), go to look at the Private Secretary’s new home at St James’s Palace and have a tree trimmed outside it. They even say the house will be good for ‘the girls’. (In real life they had the one daughter and two sons). Michael Adeane hears about this, is aggrieved, and complains to Lascelles, who engineers that he does succeed him and not Charteris. Once again Lascelles proves himself more dominant and the Queen’s private wishes are set aside.

This is inaccurate. It is traditional that the monarch’s serving Private Secretary stays on for a few months at the beginning of a new reign to help with the transition as did Lascelles until after the Coronation, retiring at the age of sixty-six on the last day of 1953. Michael Adeane and Martin Charteris were working as a team (along with Edward Ford, who is not portrayed in the series). Michael Adeane was always the natural successor, and there was no fuss. He took over.

In this episode, the film-makers have put a 1972 story into a 1953 context, presumably so that they could use the Lascelles figure. There was a fuss over Adeane’s successor when he retired. At that time Charteris was the natural successor but Lord Cobbold, a former Governor of the Bank of England, wanted to sweep away the Guards officer Old Etonian types who held sway in the Palace and replace them with more meritocratic types. He tried to reject Charteris in favour of Philip Moore. But Charteris went to see the Queen and asked to take over. She immediately agreed, and he proved to be an inspired Private Secretary, who succeeded perhaps better than any other Private Secretary in presenting her to the world as she really is. He served until 1977.

The message that emerges from this episode is that the Queen is conscientious, prepared to do her homework and research, with a knack for discovering the truth when it is kept from her – as, for example, with Churchill’s two strokes (though Lord Salisbury is unlikely to have been willfully withholding this information from her).

Lascelles is well played in the series, though his older daughter (now 94) has said that his hair parting is wrong and his moustache too big. By curious misfortune, the actor playing Michael Adeane looks more like the real life Martin Charteris.

Series one, episode eight: Pride and Joy

The King used to say of his two daughters: ‘Lilibet is my pride, and Margaret my joy.’ (This is something first published by me in my biography of the Queen Mother and therefore explains the title of this episode). Here there is a complete jumble of the real life facts. The episode starts with a scene where the Queen unveils a statue to King George VI in the Mall. This was in fact unveiled on 6 October 1955. But suddenly plans are being made for the Commonwealth tour of 1953 and 1954, so the story moves back in time.

There is particular discussion about Gibraltar as a place that could be dangerous. This was quite true. There were threats from the Spanish and for a visit of less than two days, there were detectives from Scotland Yard operating under cover there for several months. There are some scenes from the Commonwealth tour demonstrating the Queen’s determination to undertake it all, and the strain this put on her. At one point the press see the Queen and Prince Philip emerging from a house after a row. Rightly, they stress the success of the tour.

The film-makers decided that while the Queen was away on her Commonwealth tour, the country would be run by Princess Margaret, rather than the Queen Mother, enabling them to use her as a modernizer breaking all the rules and introducing a spontaneous and touchy-feely (quasi Diana, Princess of Wales) approach to being Head of State which, not surprisingly, upsets everyone. She rewrites a speech, suiting her wayward personality and introducing more colour into it, and delivers this at an Ambassadors’ reception (curiously British Ambassadors serving overseas, in Washington and Athens, who appear to have flown in for this occasion). She gets the guests laughing. The point they seek to make is that Princess Margaret thinks she would make a better Queen than her sister, more in tune with the changing times. The Charteris figure gets more and more worried as she chats to miners, gives spontaneous interviews to the media in which she mentions her affection for Townsend and takes a dig at the Queen. She gets ticked off by Churchill who begins to detect a crisis arising, akin to the Abdication. When the Queen comes back, Churchill alerts her to Princess Margaret’s behaviour.

None of the above happened and is ultimately tabloid invention. Nor do I subscribe to the idea that there was bitter jealousy between Princess Margaret and the Queen. Princess Margaret always supported her sister.

To achieve this, they blur the dates and have the Queen Mother out of the way, buying Barrogill Castle (later renamed the Castle of Mey) in Scotland, something which actually happened a whole year earlier, in 1952. Lascelles (who would by then have retired) tells the Queen Mother what her duties will be, but she tells him she wants to be away. The episode twists history by suggesting the Queen Mother was prepared to shirk all her responsibilities.

In reality the Queen Mother was very much in London while the Queen was away, not least looking after Prince Charles and Princess Anne, who stayed with her at Royal Lodge most weekends (when she was not away racing) and at Sandringham for a long Christmas holiday. She was the senior Counsellor of State during the Queen’s absence. Counsellors act in tandem and Princess Margaret usually assisted her. But Churchill had the same kind of audiences with the Queen Mother as he would have done with the Queen, but not so regularly. The film also has Princess Margaret being advised by Martin Charteris, when in real life, he was travelling with the Queen and Prince Philip.

As to the Castle of Mey scenes, the Queen Mother did not ride horses after the early 1930s, so to see her cantering along the beaches is somewhat strange. Nor is it likely that the castle’s funny old owner, Captain Imbert-Terry, would not have recognised her. While she stays with the Vyners, she addresses the issues of her early widowhood. As this is meant to be late 1953, and not 1952, this does not convince – even with dramatic licence.

Minor mistakes: At a fitting they dress Prince Philip in the naval uniform which he wore but once – at the Coronation, an outdated uniform with epaulettes; later, he wears a Garter riband and bar medals, which is incorrect. The Caribbean Governor in white is wearing what might be a curious interpretation of a military GBE riband along with a huge GCMG star. When Princess Margaret gives her speech, the guests are wearing Orders, but she is not.

Series one, episode nine: Assassins

In London in 1954 Jean Wallop, a private person still very much alive, arrives in a restaurant to dine with Lord Porchester (later 7th Earl of Carnarvon). He proposes to her. She accepts on one condition – that he does not still hold a torch for ‘her’ – i.e. the Queen. I have it on impeccable authority that the future Lady Carnarvon did not even know that he knew the Queen when she met him. The outcome of this scene is that he tells her that for the Queen there was only ever Prince Philip, and she (his bride to be) is the only one for him. The Porchesters were married in January 1956.

The Crown suggests that Porchester was the man many wanted the Queen to marry, and they hint that she would have been happier with him than with Prince Philip. For the record, the Queen Mother originally wanted Princess Elizabeth to marry a Grenadier Guards officer. The late Duke of Grafton springs to mind. But from very early on, she set her heart on the good looking Prince Philip. Soon after he returned from war, they were engaged. The Queen Mother told Sir Arthur Penn: ‘Won’t the Grenadier Guards be disappointed?’ They were and at first refused to have Prince Philip as their Colonel.

The episode depicts Porchester ringing the Queen late at night, with a certain number of double entendres, his wife-to-be coming through from the bathroom. The Queen’s love of racing is emphasized as is Prince Philip’s boredom with it. This theme is rather dropped as the episode goes on, though in one scene, the Queen and Prince Philip watch a mare being covered, with Lord Porchester observing from afar and with some predictably cheap lines. Afterwards Prince Philip jumps out of the Land Rover in a rage. This is followed by a scene back home with a declaration of love by the Queen for Prince Philip.

Lord Carnarvon was a close adviser to the Queen as her racing manager and she often stayed with him and his wife to visit studs in the Berkshire area. Both she and Prince Philip flew down from Balmoral to attend his funeral in 2001.

The Graham Sutherland story is well told. Sutherland was commissioned to paint Churchill’s portrait to be presented to him in Westminster Hall for his 80th birthday on 30 November 1954. Peter Morgan is on firm ground here as it is within the political domain. Intermingled with this is the theme that Churchill should stand down. There is a fictional scene where Eden visits Churchill at Chartwell and bids him to give way in a histrionic, hysterical way – presaging the recurring theme that he was some kind of junkie. As to the portrait itself, it was revealed after her death in 1977 that Lady Churchill had destroyed it. In 1957 she described Churchill’s reaction to the painting in a letter to Lord Beaverbrook: ‘it wounded him deeply that this brilliant … painter with whom he had made friends while sitting for him should see him as a gross & cruel monster.’

There is a partly fictitious version of the speech he gave in Westminster Hall in which he teases the audience that he is about to retire and that his successor, Anthony Eden, is to hand. It appears that he then promptly resigns and with the brutality of the political system, as he leaves the Palace, Eden’s car draws up. The Queen’s speech at Churchill’s farewell dinner was taken from a private letter from the Queen to Churchill after his resignation and not delivered as such on the night. As we listen to it, we see another scene – Lady Churchill presiding over the burning of the Sutherland portrait.

In reality Churchill did not resign immediately after his 80th birthday in November 1954. He hung on in office until April 1955.

Series one, episode ten: Gloriana

The episode reprises the events of December 1936. Edward VIII agrees to see his brother, the Duke of York, but not the Duchess (there is no evidence for that). Then the new King informs his daughters that their uncle has put love before duty. He tells them never to let each other down thus introducing the theme that there could be tension between them later on.

A Royal Standard is hoisted over Balmoral. It is Princess Margaret’s 25th birthday (21 August 1955) and she declares she still feels the same way about Group Captain Townsend. It seems possible that she can now marry him. But the Queen discusses the Royal Marriages Act with Michael Adeane. He invokes a different version of the situation. He mentions that both Houses of Parliament need to approve and the need to wait for 12 months. Still under the illusion that she is free to marry, Princess Margaret wants to announce it.

Another scene shows Prince Philip teaching Prince Charles to fish so that we realise that he is quite tough on the boy. The Queen Mother voices the opinion that Prince Philip is taking it out on Charles due to the frustrations of his life. The Crown likes to think that the Queen Mother is very thick with Lascelles, in his retirement. She relied on him a bit after the King’s death but Lascelles took a dim view of her philosophy of life, considering it was best summed up in the hymn: ‘the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate’. But it gives them the idea that Prince Philip was sent by the Queen to open the Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia in November 1956 to get him out of the way, to get him away from bullying his son and in the hope, as expressed clearly in this episode, that he would come back ‘changed’. But this all happens in August 1955 and he did not undertake the voyage until October 1956.

The second and final round in the Princess Margaret – Peter Townsend drama is played out. We see headlines speculating as to whether or not she is going to marry the Group Captain.

Apparently Prince Philip is somewhat in league with Princess Margaret over the marriage question. Townsend returns and they run together in a passionate embrace. Then come the problems, the involvement of the Attorney-General, the threat that Lord Salisbury will resign if the marriage takes place, the Queen saying she will support her in any way she can, but then that she would be deprived of money and titles, and have to live abroad for several years as Mrs Peter Townsend. Princess Margaret claims the country is on her side. The invented words of their father about mutual support are repeated by the Queen.

Then it all gets worse, with the Cabinet advising against the marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Bishops reminding the Queen that she is Defender of the Faith and of the oath made at the Coronation, and finally the Queen seeking advice from the Duke of Windsor in France. He tells her ‘You must protect the kingdom’. And so, in this episode, the Queen’s line is that Princess Margaret cannot marry Townsend and remain part of the family.

In reality, Eden did advise the Queen at Balmoral, but there was no involvement from the Archbishop, and the Duke of Windsor was in no position to pontificate about the role as sister and Queen, and duty to the realm.

The film-makers maintain that Princess Margaret broke off from Townsend because she had been forbidden to marry him. Furthermore, she tells him she will never marry anyone else. And then Townsend makes a public statement, in fact reading much of the written statement that in reality Princess Margaret issued to the press. He then returns to Brussels.

In truth, the decision was a mutual one between Princess Margaret and the Group Captain, largely based on the fact that Lascelles’s separation plan had worked and the love between them had died.

None of the characters are happy at the end of this episode. Princess Margaret is seen depressed at parties, and Peter Townsend sitting forlornly alone in his apartment in Brussels. Prince Philip is angry at being sent away on the long tour.

The situation with Nasser in Egypt is flagged up during this episode, meetings with Eden, more pills being taken and in the end, Anthony Eden slumped in front of burning cine-film of Nasser, having just stuck a needle full of drugs into his arm – followed by an image of the Queen posing in tiara and evening dress, next to the Crown Jewels which have been brought to the Palace for effect. She is shown as an assured and confident young monarch while the ever-frustrated Prince Philip drives off down the Mall in his open care, all alone, looking distinctly fed up.

I should be grateful that it is Cecil Beaton who gets the last word in both this series and Series two, extolling the virtues of monarchy with Shakespearean lines. Nevertheless Claire Foy’s Queen looks ominously sad.

（有剧透）“爱美人不爱江山”，这样的标签，常给我们一个多情逍遥的形象。谁曾想过，他们也背负哀愁与痛苦。也许有人放弃得潇洒，爱得热烈，但至少不是《王冠》镜头下的英王室爱德华八世。 《王冠》（ The Crown ）是 Netflix 出的一部良心历史剧，主要讲的是待机时间超长的英女王伊丽莎白二世。和之前写的《黑镜》S3E6《全民公敌》一幕高潮强过一幕的叙事节奏不同，《王冠》叙事较缓，有点像剪辑中的“问答模式”，抛出一个冲突，解决一个，又抛出下一个。娓娓道来一个又一个的故事。相较于《全民公敌》极少的人物刻画，《王冠》的人物塑造相当细腻。因此，若你心中有坑，想找一部剧填补空虚，或平息郁闷，你也许会觉得它无聊。但若你心绪宁静，这画面极美，布景华丽，台词优雅，演技一流的王室故事绝对上瘾。

爱德华八世（1894-1972）是当今女王的伯伯，即女王父亲乔治六世的哥哥。爱德华八世即位后，与辛普森夫人相爱。辛普森夫人离过婚，前夫尚在世。英国国教教义中是不允许和这样的人结婚的。在王室、内阁、教会的压力下爱德华八世选择退位，并和辛普森夫人结婚。他们在法国结婚，王室中无一人参加他们的婚礼。婚后很长一段时间定居法国。 人物 今天要介绍的是第一季第5集。这一集的主线是年轻女王加冕，副线是对爱德华八世的刻画。（开始剧透了...）这这位王叔的出场是他在巴黎的家中接受采访。在采访中我们得知，他有一个房间保留了在英国和在王室中的记忆。

他有思乡时吹的风笛，这是一个伏笔。

通过记者唐突的问题，我们还知道他在位时并没有“加冕”过。

从这些场景可以感受到他并不像想象中的“不爱江山”，他内心还是对王权贪恋。 接着，他被告知母亲病重，让他回去探望，不能带妻子。他的母亲玛丽王后（Queen Mary ) 对他比较刻薄，也反对他娶辛普森夫人。因此，怀着不情愿，他还是去了。

但是尽管嘴上恶毒，他还是温情地陪伴母亲。 接着他被告知，他的妻子不能过来参加女王的加冕仪式。女王的首席秘书、教会的大主教等过来告知他。注意这个画面的构图。

人物都放在画面的右边，中心人物在画面正中。在空旷且层高的室内，人物拍得渺小，显得疏离。一个很长的斜线（桌子）分割了人物，增加了疏离和不舒服感。 这一幕会谈他是没想到的，他本以为可以来参加加冕，看的出来他也很想参加，他试图劝说其他人。

遭到拒绝后，他又开启了尖酸吐槽模式。欣赏一下王室说话的艺术。

不能去现场，王叔就邀请了一帮人，在巴黎家中看电视直播。拜女王丈夫菲利普亲王所赐，这也是王室加冕的第一次电视直播。在直播时又是开启了活弹幕模式。 吐槽女王的马车：

然后有一个细节真是见足了编剧和导演的功力。如果让你拍一个内心尚留恋王权，被迫退位的国王，面对想亲临却被拒只能观看直播的加冕仪式，你会怎么写怎么拍呢？你一定想过他在直播时或直播后的表现，可你想过他在直播前会怎样吗？

也许是这辈子最后一次可以感受它了，这个曾经想象过无数遍的神圣时刻。这么多年过去了，原以为可以放下了，他们的不谅解，我的帝王心。在这个新旧交替的时刻，我只想，坐在殿堂里，让前尘往事淹没在这煌煌盛事中。然而，现在只有一个电视屏幕.... 通过演员一个表情（注意上图拍摄角度），通过妻子迟迟催促才下楼的一个场景，完美展现了这些...

女王加冕使用了暖色调，和王叔家中的直播形成了鲜明的冷暖色调对比。

在最神圣的受膏时刻（开头有交代，指主教在新王身上抹圣油，这代表了王彻底转变，与神相连），直播切掉了这个画面。现场有人不解，王叔说

王之落寞啊！ 我又要提编剧圣经《故事》了。它说，好的人物描写需要给到层层压力，揭示人物内心的欲望。对王叔的刻画里，从保留王室盒子的贪恋，到被告知不能参加加冕时，表面的不屑和傲骨，到观看直播的尖酸刻薄，到王之落寞。人物压力层层推进，笔力精到。 镜头 《王冠》的镜头有个特色是它用到比较多的运动镜头。不像《黑镜》，描述的是一个结构简单的事件，有强烈的事件线索。《王冠》的一集就记叙了许多的历史事件，事件间的时空线索没有《黑镜》那么连贯。因而导演运用运动镜头来进行事件（场景）间的转场，使时空的衔接更自然些。 例如菲利普亲王对女王的加冕计划演讲镜头转到直播 idea 的展现。 原本对他就是一个微微仰拍，然后再一个自上而下的摇镜转场。【豆瓣放不了动图，可以去我公号看,下同><...】

再如从女王和亲王看剧转到王叔家中的采访，也是一个自上而下的摇镜。

除了转场，还用来表现人物。 第7集里表现女王生气，是一个面向女王的推轨镜头，且通过摄影机速度快于女王来呈现。（注意推轨速度先慢后快）

以及在这一集的最后的一个相当有表现力的画面。在直播结束后，是王叔背对着镜头在吹风笛。镜头后退，同时上升，这同时从距离和高度上远离了人物，显得那么疏离。

但镜头拉到最后，给了一个正面大特写，是泪流满面又使劲吹风笛的他。一个强烈的对比。

等不来的谅解，回不去的盛世。我心羁绊，而无人顾盼。像王维诗里写的，回瞻旧乡国，淼漫连云霞。 王权早逝，乡关何处？ 走不出的他乡里， 回首，只有凉薄迷烟。 剧会说话出品，转载请注明出处。

剧里出现的帝国王冠真身我没见过，但属于伊丽莎白二世的王冠，我见过另一顶。

前年夏天跑去爱丁堡边缘艺术节，顺便观光了城堡，就见到了。人们排长队进一个旋转上升的小塔楼，楼上放的就是象征苏格兰君主权的宝剑，权杖，和王冠，还有一块看似平凡无奇的加冕石，每件各还能说出几桩野史。几百年了，为了盘这么几件东西，英格兰和苏格兰人民大战不下三百回合。

那个操着销魂的苏格兰口音，穿着苏格兰短裙的男导游也神秘莫测：『现在的英女王同是英格兰和苏格兰的女王，所以这顶王冠，暂时是属于英国皇室的。不过等到下一任君主上位，王冠可要还给苏格兰喽！』

同行的朋友看这东西金光闪闪，简直什么贵镶什么，就酸酸地说：『戴上一时爽，不过脖子也要断了吧？』

爽，都在心里呀！我当时这么想着。

有人造过一个词，叫『技术投胎』，指他人生下来就在一般人花多少力气也到不了的起点。

举个🌰，就好比你很享受谈恋爱时看看电影拉拉手，暂称穷光蛋式的浪漫。突然有一天女朋友告诉你，现在搞对象，流行先给女方浪掷千金，豪宅起送，比如，她就收到过这么N套......这起点太不一样了，值得生气。

说实话，我们这种平凡人，光想着自己没受到的好处了，要怎么理解技术投胎后的烦恼。《The Crown》里出现的哪一个人不是技术投胎的受益者。很多人说欲戴王冠必承其重。知道重，但具体有多重？太抽象了。

那就换一个角度讲讲吧：技术投胎者要吃的苦，你也没吃到呀！张女士的那句话反过来怎么说？你穿不上的华袍也沾不上虱。

我试着厘清一下这部女王养成记里的主要人物的关系。如果这里史实虚构傻傻分不清楚，请不要怪我，毕竟我看的还是一部讲皇室的肥皂剧。

来自宇宙时尚大刊Vogue

伊丽莎白二世倒霉的爸爸，老国王乔治六世，作为次子，本来根本就摊不上当国王的使命。他那位性格软弱的哥哥，伊丽莎白二世的伯父，曾经的爱德华八世，后来的温莎公爵，在二战时面对德国人性格十分软弱，想了一个逃进温柔乡的办法让皇室蒙羞，讨离异、且前夫在世的美国交际花当老婆，在这件事上开了个头。于是这位《国王的演讲》里写的乔治六世，只能结结巴巴上位，又几乎没过上什么好日子，就罹病去世了。他母亲玛丽王太后说，我的一个儿子是被另一个儿子害死的。

温莎公爵和妻子演的是一场被贬谪到法国，有家回不了的苦命鸳鸯戏。皇室说起『那个女人』，也是一副咬牙切齿的样子。为了维持奢靡的生活，两人表面上与皇室维持友好关系，想尽办法领津贴，私下则骂骂咧咧。真爱说了那么多遍，不是为了撒狗粮，而是为了说服自己，没有做错选择。

公爵心里也不是不想当王。这个念想变成了法国家中的阁楼，里面装满了他短暂身为『爱德华八世』时的纪念品，变成了他时常吹响的苏格兰风笛。这个念想，变成了他与庶人同看伊丽莎白二世加冕典礼电视直播时的刻薄吐槽。侄女真正戴上王冠的时刻，直播中断了。别人问他这个『圈内人』，为什么？他说，『因为此刻，她就是神。』

也来自Vogue，这个角选得跟原型好，像，啊

谁要当这个没有实权，又一辈子被约束的神啊？

但这种事，没的选。『神』身边的人，也没的选。

女王小时候帮助过父亲在加冕典礼前演习向教会、议会、人民宣誓。轮到她自己的时候，她问能不能借帝国王冠来练习。

『借？这顶王冠不是你的，又是谁的呢？』

老国王得知自己重病后主要做了两件事，一件是安排女儿访问邦国，另一件就是给女婿安排工作。周围的侍从都虚情假意，只有老国王知道自己时不久矣，特意挑了一个大雾天，带着大家都不看好的女婿去猎鸭子。

史传这位女婿，菲利普亲王，是出了名的喜欢裸睡，剧拍得很仔细，出现了好几个早晨他光屁股被叫醒的场面。这次是老国王亲自出马。在湖上，老国王一句点破：亲王这个职称，才不是你的工作呢。

『She, is the job』。爱她，保护她，没有比这更伟大的爱国了。看到这里有些泪目。

女王的丈夫，就这样变成了一个被闲置的男人。他的孩子不能继承他的名字，要姓温莎，他不能先行于他的妻子，他必须在加冕典礼上向自己的妻子下跪，余生必须留守白金汉宫，他也不能继续自己的海军事业。为了培养点爱好，他跟着玛格丽特公主的姘头学开飞机，几乎提前感受中年危机

女王的妹妹，玛格丽特公主在剧中的性格十分飒爽，爸爸在世时的一句『Lilibet is my pride, but Margaret is my joy』让她恃宠若娇，但并不令人讨厌。22岁的玛格丽特爱上爸爸身边比她年长16岁的侍从，又是离异，前妻在世，人民拥护的姻缘却被英国教会否定。姐姐作为皇室家长不能支持她的自由婚姻，也是一种痛苦。

真美啊这个set，一身衣服也喜欢

还有一条线没有说，丘吉尔，倔强的人民领袖战后服老的一段，人物刻画得特别好，不展开讲了。提示大家注意他和女王口音的神还原，还有很多场景服装的设置，都是这部剧讲究的地方。

至于不仅有王冠还有很多顶帽子的女王本人，还在超长待机呢，也是真敢拍。提供一个小道消息：《王冠》一共会出五季，每季跨度十年。掐指一算也能拍到现在了。

很多人还提到，这部剧是靠钱砸出来的。就凭能让平凡人看到极尽完美中的身不由己，该砸。