The Crown (2016) s04e07 Episode Script

1
Here they come, all the regulars.
All the furs and diamonds on parade.
I wonder how many of them are aware
of the tension behind the scenes.
Some of these people have paid
a thousand pounds for a ticket.
All that remains for the performers
is to sort out their makeup,
put on their clothes,
maybe have a sandwich,
and sit and worry.
Word gets passed around
that the royal car is
just around the corner.
The Queen, we're told,
is just moments away.
And right on time, the royal car
pulls up to a crowd of well-wishers.
The Queen, the real star of tonight,
steps out onto the red carpet
to be greeted by the much-loved
theatrical impresario Lord Delfont,
president of the Entertainment
Artistes' Benevolent Fund.
For tonight is the night
when the worlds of show
business and royalty
come together for a good cause.
For you, Annette.
Joan Collins from the
television series Dynasty.
A big smile from the Duke of Edinburgh.
All right then, George.
And now the national anthem.
Oh, it's started, has it?
God save our gracious Queen ♪
Long live our noble Queen ♪
Right then, Katherine. Here you are.
And you, Nerissa.
God save the Queen ♪
Good girl. Swallowed?
Well done.
How are you doing?
On her be pleased to pour ♪
Nearly bedtime.
Long may she reign ♪
May she defend our laws ♪
And ever give us cause ♪
To sing with heart and voice ♪
God save our Queen ♪
To the Royal Variety Show.
Let's dance ♪
Put on your red shoes ♪
And dance the blues ♪
Let's dance ♪
To the song they're playing ♪
On the radio ♪
If you say run ♪
I'll run with you ♪
If you say hide ♪
We'll hide ♪
Because my love for you ♪
Would break my heart in two ♪
- I have come tonight with a gift.
- Oh.
Gossip.
My favorite.
Is it wicked?
Very.
Is it about someone famous?
Yes. But I must ask you
to keep it a secret.
Oh, don't be coy.
I'll be the judge of
that when I hear it.
- Ma'am.
- Dazzle.
You're not taking this seriously.
Mm. How can you tell?
This is a huge secret!
It's virtually a state secret.
I'm
I'm all ears.
And eyes.
- And lips.
- All right.
Did you say lips?
I'm feeling naughty.
Yes, I can see that.
Mm-hmm.
Ma'am, I have greatly enjoyed
the last few months.
- So have I.
- And the closeness
that has developed between us.
- Not closeness. Intimacy.
- Oh, God
Please.
There was a time when the men I loved
would simply leave me for other women.
Now they leave me for the Church.
Who?
- Derek Jennings.
- Dazzle?
- Yes, Dazzle.
- What were you doing with him?
Falling slightly in love.
- Oh, Margaret!
- Mm.
Colin Tennant said we were the two
most impossible people he knew,
that we should be kept
apart at all costs
in the interests of public safety.
Like nitrogen and glycerin.
But he's so handsome.
Yes.
Has an unkind word for everyone.
Which I adore.
And a touching vulnerability.
And because he has found
happiness as elusive as me,
so we discuss all the different
ways that we try to find joy
and calm.
- A good brisk walk, I say.
- Mm.
- Yes. That might work for you.
- It does, every time.
But it might not be enough
for the rest of us.
And Dazzle has found the thing
that works best for him.
Which is?
The priesthood.
- Catholic priesthood?
- Yes.
That's the second reason he was
never the right man for you.
The first being?
Well, he's, you know
a friend of Dorothy.
- Dazzle?
- Famously, yes.
Are you sure?
But the way he looks at me sometimes
Hmm.
Describe that.
With great big adoring eyes.
I think you'll find that's because
you're a royal princess,
and he's a raging snob.
Am I that stupid?
Or desperate?
- I don't like the sound of that cough.
- It's fine.
You've been struggling with
your chest for a while.
Should have realized
when he kept suggesting
going to the opera.
Oh.
Princess Margaret is undergoing
investigative surgery
at the Royal Brompton Hospital.
The 54-year-old princess, who
was admitted this afternoon,
is unlikely to learn the
results of those procedures
for several days, but royal sources say
she has not been suffering
from any specific ailment.
The hospital has declined
to release further details
on the princess's condition.
It's thought that Princess Margaret
was smoking as many
as 60 cigarettes a day
and that would go against
I think we'll switch this
off, shall we? It's a bit
Princess Margaret will
stay in hospital
Princess Margaret will be fine.
Princess Margaret is in good hands.
- You all right, Katherine?
- John. Come on.
- Don't be difficult now.
- Katherine, come on.
- Right.
- Come on. It's bedtime.
Dolly needs to go to bed, doesn't she?
All together.
There we go.
Beddy-byes, Katherine.
You're in this one.
Happy birthday to you ♪
Happy birthday to you ♪
Happy birthday, dear Edward ♪
Happy birthday to you ♪
Well done!
Happy birthday, Katherine!
Children-wise, we seem to do
things in twos in this family.
I can honestly say I never wanted four.
A brace would have been
quite enough for me,
but, um, the boss put her foot down,
and after a tough negotiation
on the yacht in Lisbon in a storm
- Do you remember?
- Yes, I do.
along came, um, another two
The B-team!
Yes, the second 11!
who have been very special.
Not that the first lot aren't special,
but they were expected, I suppose.
Duty.
Whereas the second lot came out of
I was going to say "pleasure," but
that's maybe not the right word,
judging by Anne's face!
What's the word I'm looking for?
Joy?
Exactly.
Joy.
They were conceived in reconciliation,
and they have bound us all
together and brought great joy.
So please raise your glasses.
Are you sure?
Come on, Margot.
- Steady on.
- Here.
Many happy returns to, um
I'm sorry. What's your name again?
The runt of the litter,
dear Edward.
- Happy birthday!
- Thank you.
- You want the big piece?
- Yeah!
You can't have all of that! Come off it.
I'll chop it up in two.
Seeing as it's your sister's birthday,
you get the extra big piece.
Has everyone seen it?
I remember the day that
one was christened.
- Other way round.
- You don't play.
- Shall I play?
- You don't play!
There's a photograph
of us with our babies.
Yes.
You were holding yours
as if it were a bomb.
You looking terribly glum,
having just had another
huge row with Tony.
- Mm.
- He was never the right man for you.
Well, I've come to the view that
there is no right man for me.
- Don't say that.
- No, it's true.
Love is a tender kiss for most people.
For me, she saves her sharpest ax.
Well, I am ready for a new chapter
without men,
without cigarettes, without
Ma'am?
I'm finally ready
to focus on the one thing
that won't let me down.
What's that?
Us.
My position as a royal.
My duty.
So I come on bended knee
with a familiar request.
Give me as much
responsibility as you can.
As many jobs, as much work.
What your sister needs to stay afloat
is a sense of meaning.
Mm-hmm.
- Look how big his head is.
- You look ridiculous.
Hello, you.
Hello, you.
And hello, him.
- Your Royal Highness.
- Not interrupting, are we?
No, not at all. René is coming at noon.
Oh, a new beau?
No, a new hairdresser.
- Another friend of Dorothy's.
- Ah.
Other than that, nothing, no.
The day stretches before me
like a great yawning void.
So
What do you want?
It can't be good news,
or you wouldn't have brought Lurch.
Ma'am, we've come to talk to you
about the 1937 Regency Act,
which created a list of senior
royals who could be called on
to deputize for the monarch
on formal occasions.
Yes, I know all about that.
I've been stepping in for her for years.
Yes.
Uh, but there is a specific
number of those senior royals,
just six.
Go on.
Well, the recent 21st
birthday of Prince Edward
means that he is now of age,
and as a child of the sovereign's
well, he ranks higher than you
in the line of succession.
And you will therefore
be required to relinquish your
role as Counsellor of State.
Don't take that away from
me. It's all I've got.
- Oh, Margaret.
- It makes no sense.
I have the maturity. I have the wisdom,
not to mention the experience.
Edward's a boy.
He's an immature, useless boy!
That may be, but we have
to play by the rules.
You will have time to concentrate
on your convalescence.
Would you leave us, please?
Leave us.
I don't want more time.
Don't you see?
Time, it scares me.
It fills me with dread.
I want
I want something to fill it with.
- Well, you still have your interests.
- Oh, please!
- And your friends.
- Friends!
The ones worth knowing,
they're fed up with me.
- Your charities.
- Charities? They don't want me either.
No, not now we have
the Princess of Wales,
who's younger, she's nicer, prettier.
- No. Nobody wants this.
- Oh, Margot.
I asked you for just one thing.
To give me work!
A purpose! Dignity.
Yes, and if it were up to me,
I would have given it all to you,
the whole show, gladly, from day one.
But it's not.
- So we have to live with it.
- No.
I will have to live with
it, not you. I will!
No.
Ah!
Anne.
Welcome, ma'am.
- Everything all right?
- No.
It turns out my objection
to the Marcoses
has caused a terrible stink
with the board of directors.
"What board of directors?"
I hear you sensibly ask.
The island is a limited company,
it needs a board of directors.
You ever heard anything so absurd?
It's in no one's interests anyway.
Welcome, Your Royal Highness.
Ma'am?
Ma'am?
Ta-da!
All dry.
Lunch?
What a wonderful spot.
You should have seen it in its heyday.
It's rather sad now it's
neglected, gone to seed.
Look at these heliconias.
Is that a silk cotton tree?
Hmm?
Yes.
"The challenge for any
gardener is the pruning."
"You need very nimble fingers."
Roddy.
The garden or the neglect?
Sadly, both!
Thank you.
Diana's pregnant again.
Congratulations.
Which one might imagine
would lift the spirits.
Instead, an even deeper gloom seems
to have descended on both of us.
We hardly see one another
anymore, and when we do,
we quarrel more than ever.
It's so depressing,
corrosive.
Mm.
And it's left me with no option
but to start seeing someone.
Yes, I think we all know about that.
No, not Camilla.
I meant
a professional.
A therapist, to help with the moods.
A headshrinker?
Aunt Margot, you can't call them that.
Has it helped?
It hasn't made things worse.
Mm. Not much of an endorsement.
The reason I bring it
up is I promised Anne
that I would urge you to
try seeing someone too.
Are you both ganging up on me?
We both care.
Why not try back in London?
Anne thinks she's found someone good.
It's outrageous that I, an
HRH, should travel to see her.
I gather it's part of the process,
that the patient accept
that they are a patient.
Apparently, the healing cannot start
until the grandiosity is diminished.
What grandiosity?
I'm so far down the royal
pecking order these days,
I'm virtually an untouchable.
Here we are.
I had therapy once before
in the early days of my
marriage to Lord Snowdon.
The problem we face is I'm
Well, I'm so opposed to all of this.
I find it pathetic.
It violates everything I
was brought up to believe.
What were you brought up to believe?
Self-pity won't get you very far.
You've just got to get on with it.
Well, that's a very common attitude.
It's also quite old-fashioned.
Did you just call me common? And old?
Because that would not
be a good way to start.
So, what made you want to try again?
Ma'am.
Ma'am.
Because
Well, I'm ashamed to say
I've been feeling
a little low
for a while now.
And
this current slump
seems to have resisted every
attempt I've made to muscle through.
Are you aware of anyone else
in your immediate family
struggling with mental health issues?
The Prince of Wales.
He has his ups and downs.
But I wouldn't say that's a condition.
That's just marriage.
The Duke of Gloucester, my uncle.
He got low from time to time.
I only ask because I am aware,
through professional colleagues,
of the sisters.
Sisters?
What sisters?
That's when she told
me about our cousins.
Our first cousins, Katherine
and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon.
Third and fifth daughters of
Mummy's favorite elder brother
- Uncle Jock.
- being locked up
in the Earlswood Institution
for Mental Defectives,
if you please, in Redhill.
Yes, I remember hearing
about Katherine and Nerissa
and their terrible problems.
But they're long dead.
It's my understanding they're
both very much alive.
But we can check.
What are you doing? That's my button.
Ah. Here we are. Burke's.
Let me do that. I'll do that.
No, I'm fine.
Ah.
Here we are. Ooh, heavy!
- Catch!
- Don't you dare!
Not funny. Go carefully.
P, R, S
Oh, did I just see it?
Mmm
Oh, yes. Look, here it is.
Nerissa, deceased 1940.
Katherine, deceased 1961.
There it is in black and white.
Both died long ago.
How strange.
I'm not here.
Buckingham Palace.
Who was it?
Mr. Jennings, ma'am.
Dazzle? Hmm.
What did he want?
To let you know he'd be in London
next week for a few days,
in case you had any time.
No.
Mater misericordiae, ora pro nobis
You're not praying, are you?
I am.
Maria, mater gratio When was
the last time you drove a car?
I drive all the time. Well, maybe
not this particular model.
Anyway, you're a fine one to
talk. You can't drive at all.
At least I recognize my limitations.
I'd have been happy for
the chauffeur to drive us,
- but then
- What are you doing?
well, we wouldn't have been alone.
Why is it so important that we're alone?
What if someone asks me who I am?
- They won't. You're a priest.
- But I'm not.
Not yet. I'm still just a seminarian.
They don't know that.
You still look suitably clerical
and beyond suspicion.
It feels wrong, ma'am.
Deceitful.
You can always confess later. Now go.
Here we go. Just through here.
They are alive, ma'am.
You saw them?
I did.
How were they?
Like children.
But they know who you are.
And they know who your sister is.
They have pictures of the whole family.
Which they know is their family.
- You love that one, don't you?
- Oh, yes.
Keeps it in pride of place, she does.
Aww!
Shall I get your cousins to say hello?
Did you say cousins?
- Hello.
- Hello.
And there are more.
More what?
More relatives.
Cousins of theirs, equally afflicted.
- Hello.
- You can sit down here, love.
Wanna sit on the bed?
- All family together.
- Oh, family, yes.
You all right, Nerissa?
Oh, darling!
Oh, what a surprise!
You're just in time for lunch.
Not hungry.
Oh. We're starving. We've all
been for long walks this morning.
Well, you and I are
about go for another.
You don't mind if I steal
her away, do you?
No, not at all.
Five.
Five, Mummy!
Five members of our close family
locked up and neglected!
What do you expect us to do?
Behave like human beings.
Oh, don't be so naive. We had no choice.
They're your nieces.
- Daughters of your favorite brother!
- They were unwell.
Aunt Fenella was overwhelmed.
Then the way things suddenly
changed for all of us,
none of us could have foreseen it.
It? What's it?
The abdication
No! Not everything that
is wrong with this family
can be explained away by the abdication.
Well, the abdication
did change everything.
You were too young to understand.
Everything.
It's complicated.
No, it's not!
It's wicked, and it's cold-hearted,
and it's cruel.
And it's entirely in keeping
with the ruthlessness
I myself have experienced
in this family.
If you're not first in line,
if you're an individual character
with individual needs,
and God forbid an
irregular temperament
If you don't fit the perfect mold of
silent, dutiful supplication,
then you'll be spat out,
or you'll be hidden away,
or, worse, declared dead!
Darwin had nothing on you lot.
Shame on all of you.
- Margaret
- No.
Margaret!
If I try to explain,
will you at least listen?
The fact is,
the moment that man,
your perfidious uncle,
abdicated the throne,
it really did change
everything overnight.
I went from being the
wife of the Duke of York,
leading a relatively normal life,
to being Queen
and wife of a king-emperor.
At the same time,
my family, the Bowes-Lyons
went from being minor
Scottish aristocrats
to having a direct bloodline
to the Crown
resulting
in the children of my brother
Katherine and Nerissa.
and their first cousins
Idonea
Etheldreda
And Rosemary.
Yes.
paying a terrible price.
Why?
Because
their illness
their imbecility
Don't use those words.
Their professionally diagnosed
idiocy and imbecility
would make people question
the integrity of the bloodline.
What?
Can you imagine the headlines
if it were to get out?
What people would say?
The hereditary principle already
hangs by such a precarious thread.
Throw in mental illness
and it's over.
The idea that one family alone
has the automatic
birthright to the Crown
is already so hard to justify.
The gene pool of that family
had better have 100% purity.
There have been enough examples
on the Windsor side
alone to worry people.
King George III.
Prince John, your uncle.
If you add the Bowes-Lyon
illnesses to that
the danger is, it becomes untenable.
It's all a family disease, isn't it?
When they they tell
you you can't marry.
When they strip away your official role.
When they side with your husband
as your marriage falls apart.
And now this.
This final
insult.
That every diminishment,
every
rotten
misfortune
is written
is written in my blood.
So
without tiptoeing to protect me
or dressing things up,
tell me the truth.
As well as being born second
am I destined to be mad, too?
No, ma'am.
When I heard you'd made the
appointment to come today
I did a little research.
Now the genetic fault responsible
for your cousins' condition
seems to have descended from their
common maternal grandfather,
Charles Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton.
This suggests that the recessive
gene responsible for their condition
lies with the Clinton family.
So, how did it get to
the Bowes-Lyon family?
Through your aunt Fenella,
born Clinton,
who married John Bowes-Lyon.
- Uncle Jock.
- What your cousins suffer from
is a severe developmental disorder.
And whatever issues you
may or may not be facing,
that's not the same thing at all.
It hasn't somehow passed
to my mother, Queen Elizabeth?
No.
But then, if they didn't threaten
the integrity of the royal family,
the girls need never
have been hidden away.
And what my family did was unforgivable.
Anyway, she prescribed medication,
psychotherapy,
and increased exercise.
They'll be suggesting
giving up alcohol soon.
Giving up alcohol.
You could always just convert
and come over to Rome.
Dazzle.
It's the only thing
that's worked for me.
Lifted my spirits.
Before I became Catholic,
I attended church.
After I converted, I found a faith.
- The difference is night and day.
- Now you're being evangelical.
I feel evangelical.
It's not just the beauty,
it's the rigor of the Catholic Church.
It demands complete submission,
which strong, willful
characters like mine
and, I would suggest,
yours, ma'am, need.
Hmm.
One cannot fully receive God
until one has submitted
to something larger,
and the moment I did
Don't tell me. The lights went on,
you found happiness?
More than happiness.
Ecstasy.
And the gloom we talked
about so many times
the emptiness
has gone.
How nice.
So come over.
I would, but in case you
hadn't noticed, Dazzle,
I've already submitted
to something larger.
The royal family of the United Kingdom.
If I became Catholic,
it would be a national scandal.
There'd be talk of betrayal,
second Reformation.
No, they'd make me give up
my title and kick me out.
Would that be so bad?
To free yourself once and for all?
To find happiness?
Why would I?
The title,
my seniority, the proximity
to the Crown is my happiness.
It's who I am. I don't
expect you to understand.
No, I don't understand!
You've just discovered terrible
things about your family.
A system that ignored five members
of its own to protect itself.
Will that same system protect you? No!
It doesn't protect anything
except the center.
- Those away from the center
- But I am in the center!
I am in the very center.
I am the Queen's sister,
daughter to a king-emperor,
and I will always be in the center.
Now go, Dazzle.
Back to your ecstatic new family,
and I will struggle on in mine.
And I think it would be better if we
don't see one another again.
And
should you ever find a moment
perhaps you will pray for me.
I will.
Your Royal Highness.
Yeah, I was ridin' high ♪
But then my ivory tower toppled ♪
And I tumbled from the sky ♪
I got a feelin' like I'm fallin' ♪
And you're the reason why ♪