Gloriana

The Crown 1×10

Queen Elizabeth II: Than advise me. Group Captain Townsend will be leaving Brussels and returning home shortly, having done exactly what we asked him to do. How can I keep my word after I gave it knowing only half the facts?
Anthony Eden: Let me take the temperature of the Cabinet. We must not forget that times are changing. Morality is changing. The country is changing...

Anthony Eden: I discussed the matter this morning with the Attorney General and he advised that there was no easy way around the governing rules of the Royal Marriages Act. Furthermore... several senior members of Cabinet remain violently opposed. Indeed, Lord Salisbury has made it clear that he would resign from Government, rather than submit to what he considers a subversion of the Church's teachings... the Holy Sacrament of Marriage and the decay of moral standards. But I realize this doesn't help you.
Queen Elizabeth II: No.

Anthony Eden: So if it is... Your Majesty's intention to support your sister, come what may?
Queen Elizabeth II: It is.
Anthony Eden: Then the best I can offer is to... place a Bill of Renunciation before Parliament. It would deprive her of all her rights, privileges and income. She would have to be married in a civil ceremony abroad. And be obliged to live out of the country for several years. But you will have kept your word. And she will have prevailed and will be Mrs. Peter Townsend.

Princess Margaret: I could live perfectly happily without the staff, without the car, without the parties, without the attention. Without the money. Effortlessly. I am more than my title, than these privileges. ... So if that's what's on offer, I'll give up my title and we'll leave the country.
Queen Elizabeth II: It's not what I want for you. So please think about it. I mean really, really think about it.
Princess Margaret: Fine. And while I'm thinking about it, perhaps you could think about this. I have a country that is for me. Newspapers that sympathize with me. I represent what a growing majority want. The future, not the past. A kinder, more tolerant attitude to marriage and divorce.

Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Give the people what they want.
Queen Elizabeth II: Do they really know what they want?

Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Quite frankly, the world today isn't what it was a few years ago, and he was not the guilty party... I think they're making it very clear.
Queen Elizabeth II: Well, the Archbishops just made themselves clear, too.
Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: You don't need to listen to them, surely?
Queen Elizabeth II: As Head of the Church of England, I thought I might.
Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Oh. Well, in the name of the people that live with you and love you, might I suggest not being Head of the Church for a minute. Or Head of State, or Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, or the Army, or the Navy, or the Government, or the Fount of Justice, or the whole damn circus, frankly.
Queen Elizabeth II: And be what?
Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A living, breathing thing, a woman. A sister. A daughter. A wife.

David, Duke of Windsor: I share with her the fate of having a great love that captured much of the country's imagination, only to have it forbidden by the establishment. So, naturally, my sympathy is with her.
Queen Elizabeth II: I see.
David, Duke of Windsor: But there is also the other great love of my life... the Crown. And protecting that crown. And I imagine you find yourself in a difficult position now. Split down the middle. One half is sister. One half is Queen.
Queen Elizabeth II: Exactly.
David, Duke of Windsor: A strange, hybrid creature. Like a sphinx or Gamayun. As I am Ganesha or Minotaur. We are half-people. Ripped from the pages of some bizarre mythology, the two sides within us, human and crown engaged in a fearful civil war, which never ends. And which blights our every human transaction as... as brother, husband... sister, wife, mother.

David, Duke of Windsor: I understand the agony you feel and I am here to tell you, it will never leave you. I will always be half-King. My tragedy is that... I have no Kingdom. You have it. And you must protect it.

Queen Elizabeth II: I've asked you here... to say that I've given the matter thought. A great deal of thought. The issue of your marriage has, for the past weeks, months, gone to the very heart of a great number of things. The country, morality, divorce... But also something closer to home. Who I am. What I am.

Queen Elizabeth II: You know how I hate confrontation, or mess, or dereliction of duty. But... I was prepared to go through it all and support you, as a sister. Because I'd given you my word. But...
Princess Margaret: But? But what?!
Queen Elizabeth II: But I realized... as Queen... that I have no choice. I cannot allow you to marry Peter and remain part of this family. That is my decision.
Princess Margaret: In defiance of the pledge you made to our father? And the pledge you gave to me.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes.

Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Don't dress betrayal up as a favor.

— All hail sage Lady, whom a grateful Isle hath blessed. Not moving, not breathing. Our very own goddess. Glorious Gloriana. Forgetting Elizabeth Windsor now. Now only Elizabeth Regina.

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