Margaretology

The Crown 3×2

Tommy Lascelles: As His Majesty the King has not yet produced a male successor, nor do we at this stage expect one, the decision has been taken to start preparing you in earnest for the Crown. From this moment on, you will no longer be the heir presumptive, but the heir apparent, and your life will be quite different.
     You will not be able to travel unaccompanied, nor to socialize as freely. Your father, the King, had little or no time to prepare for the throne, which was thrust upon him. We will not be caught out again.
     The Crown is not just an ornament to be worn. It is a privilege and a burden, which comes with formidable expectations and responsibilities.

Princess Elizabeth: I don't think I can do it.
Princess Margaret: I could.
Princess Elizabeth: I know you could.
Princess Margaret: I'd love every minute. To be on every coin, on every banknote, to be the most famous woman in the world. I'd be so very good at it. Wearing a big crown, giving everyone orders.
Princess Elizabeth: Yes.

Lord Snowdon: Elder sister, younger sister. Number one and number two.
Princess Margaret: Who's number one?
Lord Snowdon: You. Of course. A natural number one whose tragedy it is to have been born number two.
Princess Margaret: Hmm. That is my burden.
Lord Snowdon: She knows it, too.
Princess Margaret: Yes, I think she does. That's her burden.

Harold Wilson: Uh... I fear that the President may have taken against me for what he sees as my failure to support him over Vietnam. And I wondered... in the past, the royal family has been extremely helpful in keeping the special relationship afloat. And given the... predicament the country finds itself in economically...
Queen Elizabeth II: You'd like us to roll out the red carpet. Make a bit of a fuss...
Harold Wilson: ... Please.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Don't tell me, everybody's pissed.
W. Marvin Watson: The general view seems to be that if you have a quarrel with the Prime Minister, that's one thing, but no one gets to insult the Crown, sir. It's like, uh, treason or something.

Harold Wilson: It would be a political engagement of the utmost delicacy.
Queen Elizabeth II: For which you want to send Princess Margaret?
Harold Wilson: Yes, well, that had been my reaction. But her trip to America has been a terrific success.
Queen Elizabeth II: So I gather...
Harold Wilson: So, will you ask her?
Queen Elizabeth II: If those are my instructions...
Harold Wilson: ... Please.

Lord Snowdon: It's not easy, sometimes.
Princess Margaret: What is not easy?
Lord Snowdon: Being second fiddle to a pygmy princess.
Princess Margaret: Don't talk to me about being a second fiddle! I get so little limelight. No, it's the price I pay for the sister I have.

Princess Margaret: You spent three years as Vice President. I've spent my whole life as Vice Queen. Except that came out wrong, I didn't mean I'm a... "vice queen."

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Do you remember I told you once I got drunk with that god-awful monster Tommy Lascelles?
Queen Elizabeth II: Hmm.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Well, that night he shared with me his theory about the House of Windsor. I've never repeated it to anyone since.
Queen Elizabeth II: Go on.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: He asked me to imagine a mythological creature. A Reichsadler. A polycephalus, a two-headed eagle. For the purposes of this conversation, I want you to think of it as representing us. This family. Your family.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: There have always been the dazzling Windsors and the dull ones. Your father...
Queen Elizabeth II: A saint.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: But dull. Sorry. Your grandfather, too.
Queen Elizabeth II: George V?
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Deadly dull. At the height of the Great War, when the... the Tsar and the Kaiser and the Emperor of Austria were dazzling the world, where was he? He was sticking stamps in his album. His wife...
Queen Elizabeth II: Queen Mary, wonderful.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Ditchwater. And so it goes, through George V to Queen Victoria and back. An uninterrupted line of stolid, turgid dreariness.
Queen Elizabeth II: Culminating in me?
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Well, yes, but... alongside that dull, dutiful, reliable, heroic strain runs another.
Queen Elizabeth II: The dazzling, the brilliant, the individualistic...
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: And... the dangerous. And so, for every Victoria, you get an Edward VII. For every George V, you get a Prince Eddy. For every George VI, you get an Edward VIII. For every Lilibet...
Queen Elizabeth II: You get a Margaret.

Tommy Lascelles: The principle of undisturbed hereditary descent is a pillar of stability and perpetuity for the nation. Princess Elizabeth's destiny is to accede to the throne. Yours is to serve and support. I would urge you to accept your position in life... and to dismiss forthwith any childish notions about rewriting the rule books that it might better suit your character. We all have a role to play. Princess Elizabeth's will be center-stage, and yours, ma'am, will be from the wings.

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