Marionettes

The Crown 2×5

Queen Elizabeth II: What is it now?
Michael Adeane: Lord Altrincham has been struck.
Queen Elizabeth II: Dumb, I hope.
Michael Adeane: Better than that, ma'am. In the face. Quite forcefully, I'm told.
Queen Elizabeth II: By whom? Which gallant and chivalrous individual?

Tommy Lascelles: If I had a shilling for every time someone of a progressive or liberal disposition had warned needlessly of a popular attack against the Crown, I'd be a rich man. The British people adore their sovereign. It is what constitutes, indeed defines, being British. No, the worst I've ever encountered is, uh, apathy, where people simply accept the King or Queen as they accept the sky above their heads. But it's a long way from apathy to insurrection.

Tommy Lascelles: Now, as regards the newspapers, the Crown can count on their support first, there is nothing to attack. That's the advantage of a constitutional monarchy. They have no power so there's nothing to complain about. And even if they wanted to, they'd always let us know first. The palace would then threaten them with a boycott on the next major royal event, causing the newspapers immediately to back down. Because the very people you fear will hate the Queen are the same ones who buy copies in their millions. Why? Because they love her.
Martin Charteris: So I'm worrying unnecessarily?
Tommy Lascelles: Martin, I shall leave the drawing of that inescapable conclusion to you.

Michael Adeane: Sorry to disturb, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness. Just to say it might be worth avoiding certain newspapers this morning...

Robin Day: So, I'd like to begin by asking Lord Altrincham a simple question. She's our head of state, loved, respected and admired around the world, so why do you hate her so very much?
Lord Altrincham: I... I don't.
Robin Day: Then why criticize her like this?
Lord Altrincham: That's like asking an art critic why he criticizes art.

Lord Altrincham: I'm a passionate monarchist who believes constitutional monarchy is Britain's greatest invention.
Robin Day: Do you, indeed?
Lord Altrincham: Yes, I do. I believe that monarchy provides clarity. A symbolic head of state, transcending the self-serving interests of the egocentric and self-motivated politicians who go in and out of office, who, as King Lear wonderfully says, "ebb and flow by the moon." But when working at its best, monarchy can rise above such matters and unify a society. It can set the tone and become the embodiment of the nation, of national character. But the problem is, at the moment, it's... It's not doing that.

Robin Day: You would like to see Her Majesty endowed with superhuman powers.
Lord Altrincham: It's not superhuman to be a little spontaneous.
Robin Day: Judging from your article, you'd like the Queen to have the qualities of a wit, you'd like her to be a better orator, a TV personality, in addition to being a diligent, dutiful and devoted monarch and a mother.
Lord Altrincham: All I'm suggesting is that, in her public speeches and in her appearances, she should be more, uh, natural. Her style of speaking is, quite frankly, a pain in the neck. She sounds strangled.

Robin Day: But you'd accept that being Queen and head of the Church of England is not an easy job or a simple one? If you'll forgive me, it's arguably a harder job than editing a small periodical.
Lord Altrincham: No, I quite agree. Her Majesty has a seemingly impossible task. She has to be ordinary and extraordinary, touched by divinity and yet one of us, but being ordinary doesn't have to mean bland or ineffectual. Or forgettable.

Lord Altrincham: Let me just say this. To criticize the monarchy, to criticize Her Majesty, personally, gives me no satisfaction. But we have to remember that, since the Second World War, since Suez, Britain has changed beyond recognition. And yet the monarchy continues its pre-war routines as though nothing has happened. I believe it would serve the Queen and her courtiers well to remember that until recently, monarchies were the rule and republics the exception, but today, republics are the rule and monarchies very much the exception.

Lord Altrincham: It's the assumption everyone has made. Because I dare offer an opinion, I must be trying to burn the temple down. On the contrary, I'm trying to make sure it survives.
Queen Elizabeth II: Well, those of us in the temple are very much looking forward to hearing what it is we must do in order to survive. Shall we begin? Is my voice all right? You can understand me?
Lord Altrincham: Yes.
Queen Elizabeth II: Not too strangled? Not too much a pain in the neck?

Queen Elizabeth II: So, what is it that you'd have me change?
Lord Altrincham: It's not so much what I'd have you change, just an acknowledgment that it has changed.
Queen Elizabeth II: What?
Lord Altrincham: Everything. And to prepare yourself for the fact we now live in a time where... people like me...
Queen Elizabeth II: Can say exactly what they think.
Lord Altrincham: Yes.
Queen Elizabeth II: In any way they want.
Lord Altrincham: Yes.
Queen Elizabeth II: And, remind me, why is that, exactly?
Lord Altrincham: Because the age of deference is over.
Queen Elizabeth II: And what is left without deference? Anarchy?
Lord Altrincham: Equality.

Queen Elizabeth II: How can it be equality when I cannot return the fire?
Lord Altrincham: You can. But I struggle to think of a moment in history where it has worked to a monarch's advantage to return fire on their own people.
Queen Elizabeth II: But you have managed to think of how this monarch might do something to her advantage.
Lord Altrincham: I have.
Queen Elizabeth II: And that same monarch is sitting before, forgive me... a failed politician and an unrecognized journalist... and taking his advice on how to do her job.
Lord Altrincham: The situation is as baffling to me as it is to you, Your Majesty.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: Rounding up the numbers, we have a local restaurateur, a bus driver, a bank clerk... and a woman policeman. All to open things up.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: Bring us more in line with the real world. Democratize us. And so it goes...

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The stings and bites we suffer as it slips away. Bit by bit, piece by piece. Our authority, our absolutism, our divine rights...
     The history of the monarchy in this country is a one-way street of humiliation, sacrifices and concessions in order to survive. First, the barons came for us, then the merchants, now the journalists. Small wonder we make such a fuss about curtsies, protocol and precedent. It's all we have left. The last scraps of armor as we go from ruling to reigning to...
Queen Elizabeth II: To what?
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: To being nothing at all. Marionettes.

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Quotes,Queen Elizabeth II,british monarchy,twentieth century,Buckingham Palace,London,Windsor,Lord Altrincham,newspaper,tone deaf,public address,public relations disaster, + Quotes on the IMDb
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