The Historical Inspirations in Game of Thrones

March 30, 2020 by Rachael Dickson in English History, TV and Film

Plenty of people have written about the parallels between Game of Thrones and the Wars of the Roses before, but I’ve always been interested in how even the small details of the show align with history in some instances. I’ve talked about this numerous times with other English history friends and many of these examples come from those conversations. Many thanks to Leigh Beck for being my constant game of thrones history buddy!

Honestly, because there’s SO much, I’m going to keep adding to this post over many days and weeks, whenever I can. :)

westeros and essos.jpg — A map of the Westeros and Essos in Games of Thrones

Overarching World-Building, Character, and Historical Things:

Westeros and Essos : England and Europe. Though Westeros is significantly larger than England, you can still see the similarities when you look at the maps side by side. Essos/Europe are both much larger than Westeros/England, and is where rival claimants (like Henry Tudor and Daenarys Targaryn) go to the throne to hide from the Westerosi/English king’s reach.

Hadrian’s Wall (Credit: Gannet77 / iStock)

The Wall : Hadrian’s Wall. In Game of Thrones, the Wall runs for 300 miles along the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms from the sea on the west to the Bay of Seals and separates the realm from the domain of the wildlings who live beyond. In the story, it was constructed some eight millennia before. Historically, Hadrian’s wall was built by the Romans in AD 122 (so - ancient times) and runs for 73 miles, from sea to sea.

The Wall on a map of Westeros from Game of Thrones

Tywin Lannister : the Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker. The way he married off his daughter Cersei to the new king he put on the throne, Robert Baratheon, closely parallels the way Warwick married off first his daughter Isabel to George, Duke of Clarence (Edward IV’s brother) when he tried to put him on the throne, and then his daughter Anne to Edward, Prince of Wales (the son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou), when he put Henry VI back on the throne.

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (The Kingmaker)

Jaime Lannister : Richard, Duke of York (in one context) - In the books, it’s described that during Robert’s rebellion, after Jaime killed Aerys Targaryen (for reasons not revealed until the Season 3 episode “Kissed by Fire), he sat on the iron throne. That’s how Ned Stark found him when he arrived at the castle. The Very Honorable Ned was appalled, because 1) Jaime had broken his oath to protect the Mad King and had killed him instead, and 2) Jaime had no right to sit on the throne. Though there’s no evidence that Jaime intended to claim the throne, that’s the message his actions sent.
This can be seen as a parallel to a specific incident during the Wars of the Roses. In October 1460, after 5 years of on and off battles and political squabbling between the Lancasters and the Yorks, Richard, Duke of York (Edward IV’s dad) arrived in London and took residence at the royal palace. He entered Parliament with his sword borne upright before him (an honor usually only accorded to kings) and placed his hand upon the empty throne, as if he were to sit in it and occupy it. The assembled peers were dead quiet and clearly did not agree with his claim to the throne (for a long time, the Wars of the Roses were about making sure Henry VI was advised by the right people and didn’t focus on deposing him at all). This demonstrated that York would not be supported in his claim to the throne at that time, so instead, he negotiated a truce in which York and his heirs would be recognized as Henry’s successors. The temporary peace that resulted from this agreement only lasted a few months, and within the year, the Duke of York and his eldest son were killed. The death of York, who was extremely popular with the common people, was a huge turning point for the Wars; within a few weeks of his death, his eldest surviving son was named Edward IV.

A rendition of Tyrion Lannister as described in the books, by Jerg Ruber on Deviantart.

Tyrion Lannister in the TV show (Peter Dinklage)

Tyrion Lannister : Mary Grey - Tyrion is the youngest child of a very important family in the kingdom and is referred to throughout the books as a dwarf. Mary Grey (1545-1578) was the youngest child of the Greys, who had a claim to the English throne (her sister Jane Grey was the “8 days queen”), and was also likely a little person. Mary was described by a Spanish ambassador as “by the Spanish ambassador as “little crook-backed, and very ugly.” Similarly, although Tyrion is very handsome in the TV show (because Peter Dinklage is GORGEOUS) , in the books he’s portrayed as significantly less so. This picture from Deviantart portrays book Tyrion really well.
In the books and TV show, it’s related that Tyrion once impulsively married a commoner woman named Tysha in secret; his father punished both him and the woman rather severely for it. Although Mary’s older sister Katherine Grey had married in secret and been fiercely punished for it by Elizabeth I (who didn’t want anyone in line to the throne to get married without her approval, which she was unlikely to give), Mary herself eloped with the Queen’s sergeant porter Thomas Keyes. Keyes was only minor gentry, while Mary was in one of the highest ranking families in the country, and he already had 6-7 children. He also apparently was about 6 feet 8 inches tall! Once the Queen found out about the wedding, Mary was put under house arrest and Keyes was committed to the notorious Fleet prison. They never saw each other again.
Aerys Targaryen : Henry VI - Decent parallel for Henry VI, the Mad King whose madness started the war over the throne to begin with, although Henry VI was a very pious man whose "madness" took the form of basically being catatonic for several months, while Aegon liked burning and torturing people randomly.

Robert Baratheon : Edward IV, a young, promiscuous man who leads a rebellion and takes over a kingdom from the mad king.
He and his two brothers Stannis and Renly are a good parallel for the three sons of York- Edward, George, and Richard. Renly's marriage to Margaery Tyrell (the daughter of a very powerful and rich house) can be seen as a reference to George marrying Isabel Neville right before rebelling against his brother Edward.
Stannis and Renly revolt against Joffrey partly over fears that he's a bastard. There were many rumors that Edward IV was a bastard, a result of his mother's supposed affair with an archer. In addition, Edward IV’s children with Elizabeth Woodville were declared bastards due to their father’s supposed previous marriage to another woman, giving legitimacy to Richard III’s claim to the throne.
The Old Gods of the Forest : Celtic polytheism
The Faith of the Seven : Roman Catholicism - Though the faith of the seven is described as polytheistic, while Christianity is monotheistic, the concept of the Trinity is a good parallel to the faith of the seven. Both religions have traditional places of worship with elaborate architecture and decoration, specific religious ceremonies to recognize marriages and births, a supreme religious leader believed to have a a special connection to god (pope/high septon), a holy book, hymns and a specific liturgy, ceremonial garb. They also both unfortunately feature often corrupt priests.
The Lord of Light : Zoroastrianism

Season 1 Plots and Details:

Cersei : Anne Neville, daughter of the kingmaker who ends up becoming queen herself
But also, Cersei : Margaret of Anjou, smarter and fiercer than her husband, ends up leading battles and killing lots of people for the rights of her son (who was portrayed as being rather sadistic in at least some fictionalized versions of history I've read, which are often based on at least rumor)
Cersei: Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of the Edward IV analogue, from a social climbing family, very close to her brother. A powerful adversary who is fiercely protective of her children (even though they are accused of being illegitimate). In this metaphor, Tyrion is the Richard III character she sees threatening her children.
Finally, Cersei : Anne Boleyn - Her affair with her brother can be compared to the conviction of Anne Boleyn for incest with her brother (which was almost certainly 100% made up by her enemies).
Renly Baratheon: George, Duke of Clarence - Both Renly and George, Duke of Clarence thinks they should be king, just because. Both have to be put to death by his brother for the sake of the realm (Clarence was executed by Edward IV after he’d rebelled against him a few times, accused the queen of witchcraft, and hired a sorcerer to foretell the king’s death, which was highly illegal).
Toward the end of season 1, Renly offers to give Ned men so they can take Joffrey away from Cersei ASAP before Robert dies. This is similar to how Richard III took Edward V away from his mother's family after the death of his father Edward IV. Most of the time when there was an underage monarch suddenly on the throne there would be a major power struggle and often one of the leading players would be the new king’s mother. Elizabeth Woodville/Edward V and Margaret Tudor/James V of Scotland come to mind.
This situation is exactly what Henry VIII was trying to prevent when he chose not to appoint a lord protector for Edward VI but instead had a whole Council of Regents...and that lasted all of 6 seconds before there was THE FIRST coup to be Edward's regent. My advice is to always get the king in your possession ASAP. If you have the child King under your control then you're all set. Ned failed and paid dearly for it.

Magaret of Anjou and her son Edward, Prince of Wales

Cersei and her son, King Joffrey in Game of Thrones

Joffrey : Edward, Prince of Wales (son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou) - After the second battle of St. Albans in 1461, Cersei had the two Yorkist men who had guarded her husband Henry VI throughout the battle executed (although the king had promised them immunity). It has been alleged that she had her son, who was then 8 years old, decide what to do with the men; he replied that they should be decapitated.
Similarly, Cersei had her son Joffrey (who became king at 12 in the books and 16-ish in the TV show) decide what to do with Ned Stark after Ned confessed to treason and acknowledged Joffrey as the true king. Although Cersei wanted him to spare Ned’s life, Joffrey ordered him decapitated.
Ned Stark : Richard of York - Just as Ned Stark was killed by an angry queen and her young son, Richard, Duke of York, was beheaded by the forces of Margaret of Anjou, who was fighting to keep her son in line to the throne (a previous peace between the Yorks and Lancasters had been negotiated by having Henry VI name Richard of York his heir). Both Ned’s and Richard’s heads were displayed on a gate or wall after their executions.

Season 2 Plots and Details:

The Parhelion over the battle of Mortimer’s Cross

Red Comet : Solar Eclipse - In Season 2 of the TV show and the second book, a red comet appeared in the sky around the time of Ned Stark’s execution and the hatching of Daenarys Targaryen’s dragons. This comet was seen by all of the viewpoint characters, scattered across two continents, and was described and interpreted differently by all of them.
Historically, a full solar eclipse occurred on the day that Anne Neville, Richard III’s queen died. It was considered a bad portent for Richard’s reign and he lost at the Battle of Bosworth a few months later.
Another astrological phenomenon known as a parhelion, in which three suns appear in the sky, also occurred immediately before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461. Edward, Earl of Rutland, the future Edward IV, convinced his troops that it was a good sign for their cause.

Robb Stark and Talisa Maegyr in Game of Thrones

Robb Stark : Edward IV - The son of an executed powerful man (Ned Stark/Richard, Duke of York) young claimant who everyone underestimates until he wins all his battles. Both Robb and Edward IV also went against their planned marriage to marry an unplanned, unsuitable match for love (Edward IV marries Elizabeth Woodville even though Warwick was trying to arrange him a marriage with a princess of France, Robb marries Talisa in the TV show for love and Jeyne Westerling in the books for honor even though he was already promised to wed one of Walder Frey’s daughters).

Henry VII (Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond)

Daenarys Targareyn : Henry Tudor/Henry VII. The last of her line after the death of her brother, both of them were raised to believe they were the rightful heirs to the throne. Interestingly enough, both Daenarys and Henry used dragons as their sigils; Dany because of her family’s history with actual dragons, and Henry because of his roots in Wales. In addition, just as historically, numerous people fleeing from Richard III joined with Henry Tudor over the sea, several men who left Westeros joined with Dany to help her get the throne.
But also Daenarys Targareyn : Elizabeth I - One of the first female claimants to the throne, someone no one expected to get to the throne, and also a woman incapable of or unwilling to have children, making succession discussions a touchy subject!

Season 3 Plots and Details:

Theon Greyjoy : Henry Tudor -Theon, the heir of a known rebel, was raised in the house of his family’s enemies, The Starks, as one of their own. Similarly, Henry Tudor, the Lancaster heir, was raised by the Yorkist Herberts as part of their family for about 8 or so years after his uncle/guardian Jasper Tudor fought against the Yorks.

“The Princes in the Tower”(Edward V, King of England, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York)

Bran and Rickon Stark : Princes in the Tower (Edward V, King of England, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York) - Both Bran and Rickon and the “Princes in the Tower” were boys of renowned families whose very existence proved a threat to others who wanted their families’ power. Bran and Rickon escaped Winterfell when Theon and the Ironborn captured it; Theon burned the bodies of two commoner boys and showed them to the people.
“The Princes in the Tower” is actually a bit of a misnomer, as Edward V had been acknowledged as king by numerous peers and nobles when he was placed in the Tower of London; in fact, his placement there confirmed this, as it was traditional for monarchs to spend the night before their coronations at the Tower. It was only after both he and his brother were lodged in the tower that their uncle, the Lord Protector, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had them declared illegitimate. Edward entered the Tower in May 1483 and was joined by his younger brother in June. A week or so later, they were declared illegitimate and their uncle Richard was crowned King Richard III in July. There are no recorded sightings of either of them after the summer of 1483; an attempt to rescue them in late July failed. It became widely assumed that Richard III had had his nephews killed, which turned many people against him and played a large role in his downfall a few years later. However, it seems unlikely that this was the case, as their mother Elizabeth Woodville eventually came out of sanctuary (almost a year later, in March 1484) and sent her daughters to live at court with Richard III; it is unlikely that she would have agreed to this if she actually believed that Richard killed her sons. Their fate is still a mystery.

Season 4

Tommen : Henry VIII - the much younger brother of the previous heir to the throne who married his brother’s widow (Catherine of Aragon/Margaery Tyrell).

Tywin Lannister : the Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker - Rounding back to this theme from earlier, Warwick died in battle with Edward IV, with whom he was very close and who he put on the throne, after betraying him by rebelling against his rule (twice). Tywin was killed by his son Tyrion, after betraying him by sentencing him to death for the murder of Joffrey (which he didn’t commit) and sleeping with Tyrion’s beloved lover Shae.

Season 5

Tommen : Edward VI, child king who brings in a new harsher form of religion. In Tommen’s case, this was the Sparrows. In Edward VI’s case, it was a conservative form of Protestantism. Both religions were led by persuasive, dynamic figures who removed a lot of the pomp and decorations from the previous religion and sought to get rid of corruption in the religious leaders.

Margaery Tyrell : Anne Boleyn - Her closeness to her brother and tolerance for his sexual habits (considered abnormal by the church) could be compared to Anne Boleyn's closeness with her brother George, with whom she was falsely convicted of committing incest. Margaery too, was punished for her closeness with her brother, in her case, knowing about his homosexuality and not reporting it to anyone.
The yellow rose of Tyrell : the white rose of York likely (the red rose of Lancaster wasn't really used much contemporaneously, although they did occasionally use a golden rose apparently).

Stannis Baratheon : Richard III - Both men believe that they are the rightful heirs after their deaths of their brothers (Robert Baratheon/Edward IV), as the royal children are/are supposedly illegitimate. Both men were supported by lots of people until the murder/disappearance of a child (princess sheeren/ the princes in the tower, although I should note that no one knows what happens to the princes in the tower). Both were very religious and devout and loyal - up to a point.

The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes

February 10, 2020 by Rachael Dickson in English History, theater

All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!

One of the coolest things I’ve learned about Six is that not only is the entire CAST of each show all female, the backing band is all female too! Each musician is named for a real lady in waiting to one of the queens of Henry VIII. The only queen who doesn’t have a historical lady in waiting represented in the band is Catherine Parr.

First off, what’s a lady in waiting anyway? Each royal lady of the Tudor court were served by numerous attendants and servants. Although most members of a Queen’s household would be male, those who served her personally or kept her company were always women.

The Ladies in Waiting of Six, West End cast.

In Tudor times, the Queen would basically never be alone; she must always be accompanied by noble ladies, day and night. Even at night, if the Queen wasn’t actually spending the night with the King (royal couples kept separate bedrooms in those days), she would likely have someone sleeping in the bed next to her.

Ladies-in-waiting (also known as “ladies-of-honor”) were married noble women who held the highest rank in the Queen’s household. These women often were married to the King’s own personal attendants. These ladies accompanied the Queen both privately and in public, at various ceremonial or casual occasions. They were all expected to be excellent dancers, singers, musicians, and needed to be proficient at whatever other games or past times the Queen was interested in. Although the Queen might choose her own ladies, often times, the King actually chose them, as a favor to a friend or because of his own interest in the woman. They spent long periods at court and were expected to put their positions before their own families.

Next in rank were the maids-of-honor, who were unmarried well-born women, generally young girls age 16 or older. It was a great honor to be asked to serve the Queen or Princess in such a fashion. It was very common practice for nobles to send their children off to work at another family’s home for a few years as an attendant of some sort to teach them the skills they’d need to run their own households and move up in the world. Positions at the royal court were greatly coveted; there, nobles’ daughters could meet many powerful people and make good marriages.

Maids-of-honor were expected to be beautiful, accomplished, and highly virtuous, as while they were at court away from their families, the queen acted in loco parentis; any scandal attached to a maid-of-honor would reflect poorly on their mistress.

Photo by Melissa Jo York Tilley, from when I myself played a maid of honor at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in 2011!

Elizabeth I, Francis Drake, and some of her court. Jean-Leon Huens—National Geographic/Heritage-Images — Elizabeth I, Francis Drake, and some of her court.
Jean-Leon Huens—National Geographic/Heritage-Images

Henry VIII ended up marrying three of his former queens’ maids-of-honor – Anne Boleyn, who served Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, who served Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Howard, who served Anna of Cleves. This was actually very unusual for the time; kings were expected to marry for advantage, to cement powerful alliances or to achieve other goals that would serve the good of the country. Henry VII married Elizabeth of York to help bring about the end of the Wars of the Roses; Henry VI and his father Henry V both married French princesses as part of peace treaties with various entities in efforts to try to end the 100 Years’ War. Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was a rich Spanish princess and the daughter of two powerful monarchs – Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon; she brought legitimacy to the Tudor dynasty as Henry VII (whose claim to the English crown was pretty weak, actually) worked to fight off pretenders to his throne.

The Banquet of Henry VIII in York Place (Whitehall Palace), 1832, by James Stephanoff — The Banquet of Henry VIII in York Place (Whitehall Palace), 1832,
by James Stephanoff

The ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honor assisted the Queen in her daily tasks, helping dress her in the layered clothing of the period and lacing her into her dresses. They washed and bathed her and even assisted her with using the privy (yup. That was a thing. And it was actually a very sought after position). The Queen and her ladies often sewed, read, or danced together.

Each Queen had different preferences for their ladies. Catherine of Aragon was known for reading devotionals to hers. Anne Boleyn gave her ladies little books of prayers and psalms to carry with them always, and had them sew garments for the poor. Jane Seymour had strict rules as to her ladies’ garments; trains had to be so long and different parts of clothes had to have a specific number of pearls embroidered on them.

I’ve noticed before that historical dramas always seem to have fewer attendants around the Kings and Queens then would have been there in reality; if the real numbers were represented, it would probably be a bit overwhelming to modern eyes, as we just have very different standards of privacy and necessity. During Henry VIII’s time, there were usually 6-8 “great ladies of the household” serving the Queen at any time, and Catherine of Aragon had 30 maids-of-honor, while Anne Boleyn had 60! After Henry started living separately from Catherine of Aragon, she actually had around 250 maids-of-honor, as he didn’t want to be accused of treating her poorly (at that time, anyway)! Although I’m sure they likely served the queen in different shifts, that’s still a huge amount of women who served the queen throughout the week. Can you even imagine?

Maria de Salinas, by an unknown artist (lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon)

Catherine Willoughby, Maria de Salinas’s daughter, by Hans Holbein the younger.

Maria - María de Salinas, known as Baroness Willoughby after her marriage (maid-of-honor and lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon) – Drums

Maria de Salinas actually came with Catherine of Aragon from Spain and served her as a maid-of-honor until 1516, when she married an English nobleman named William Willoughby (and became a lady-in-waiting to Catherine). She was devoted to Catherine; although she was ordered to leave Catherine and stop communicating with her after Catherine’s marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, she begged permission to visit her later. In the final days of Catherine of Aragon’s life, Maria simply disobeyed all orders to avoid her and forced her way into the castle where her beloved mistress lived; Catherine died in Maria’s arms two days later.

Maria’s daughter, Katherine Willoughby, became a ward of Henry VIII’s buddy Charles Brandon after Baron Willoughby’s death; Brandon ended up marrying her after his third wife (Henry VIII’s sister, Princess Mary Tudor, the dowager Queen of France) died. They married when Katherine was 14 and Charles was likely 49 (eww), but by all reports had a pretty happy marriage. Katherine was actually friggin awesome and I’d love to see more portrayals of her in media; she apparently named her dog Gardiner after a bishop she detested, because it amused her to call “Gardiner” to heel. Her name was floated as a possible seventh wife for Henry VIII at a time when he was considering placing Catherine Parr aside, although of course, that never went anywhere. She was also named the guardian of Parr’s child with Thomas Seymour after the death of both of her parents (it’s not known what happened to this child, but she doesn’t appear in the records, so she likely died very young). As a fierce Protestant, Katherine fled to Europe with her second husband and their two children and lived in exile during the reign of Queen Mary.

Another interesting fact: Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife, was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting Maude Parr. It was possible that she was actually named after Catherine of Aragon.

Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee (1540), by Hans Holbein the Younger

Maggie - Lady Margaret Wyatt, later known as Margaret Lee after her marriage (served Anne Boleyn) - Guitar

Margaret served Anne Boleyn and was likely her long-time friend, as the Boleyn’s estates lay near the Wyatt’s. The sister of Thomas Wyatt, the poet who fell in love with Anne Boleyn and wrote MANY passionate poems about her, Margaret was serving Anne as a lady-in-waiting at least by 1532, when she accompanied her to Calais, when it is presumed that Anne and Henry VII secretly decided to marry /very soon/. Margaret was Mistress of the Queen’s Wardrobe, a role that placed her in charge of Anne’s clothing and jewels.

It is believed that Margaret attended Anne at the Tower of London and at her execution; she served as chief mourner at her funeral. Anne gave her a prayer book in farewell, and wrote in it “Remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to day.”

I’m really glad Maggie is included in the Ladies-in-Waiting. Anne Boleyn is portrayed in basically every TV show, movie, and book I’ve ever watched/read about her as not really having any close friends; it’s wonderful to learn that that wasn’t really the truth. I feel like women’s friendships are often erased from the narrative, both historically and in fiction. Men get to have same-sex buddies, but women don’t. That neither seems fair nor realistic, so I’m happy to learn more about a woman I really didn’t know much about before.

Possibly a portrait of Elizabeth “Bessie” Blount, by Lucas Horenbolte,

Bessie Blount’s son with Henry VIII, Henry Fitzroy, at age 15.

Bessie - Elizabeth "Bessie" Blount (maid-of-honor to Catherine of Aragon, lady-in-waiting to Anna of Cleves) - Bass

Bessie Blount is a really interesting choice for the backing band in Six, as historically, she was the only acknowledged mistress of Henry VIII who did not go on to become his wife. We have no known portraits of Bessie, but I’ve included a possible painting of her.

Bessie was around 7 years younger than Henry VIII, and 13 years younger than Catherine of Aragon. She was reputed as a beauty, and their relationship lasted around eight years (much much longer than most of his other affairs). She gave birth to an illegitimate son named Henry FitzRoy in 1519 (FitzRoy was a common surname of the illegitimate offspring of royalty, as it literally means “son of the king”); this is the only illegitimate child that the King ever acknowledged as his own. This birth was pretty important, as by this time, Catherine of Aragon had been pregnant numerous times (in 1509, 1510, 1513, 1514, 1515, 1517, and 1518), yet only one child, Mary, had lived beyond a few months of age (most of her children were miscarried, stillborn, or died within a few hours). Thus, the existence of Henry Fitzroy proved that Henry COULD have healthy male children. This helped fuel Henry’s desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon later in life.

For a while in the 1520s, when it became clear that Catherine of Aragon would not be able to have a legitimate son with Henry, the king seriously considered naming Henry Fitzroy as his heir; he did give him the royal title of the Duke of Richmond at a certain point. This plan fell to the wayside though, when Henry decided to marry Anne Boleyn. Henry Fitzroy later died at the age of 17.

Joan/Jane Meutas, by Hans Holbein the younger

In 1522, a few years after her son with Henry was born, Bessie married her first husband. She apparently was absent from court for many years while raising her children with her first and second husband, although she later served Anne of Cleves briefly. However, Bessie’s poor health caused her to leave court before even her mistress’s 6 months as queen were done. She died shortly thereafter.

Joan - Jane/Joan Astley, known as Jane/Joan Meutas after her marriage (maid-of-honor, then lady-in-waiting to Jane Seymour) - Keyboard

I haven’t found a ton of information about Jane Astley, also known as Joan. We know she served Jane Seymour and got married in 1537, probably shortly before Jane Seymour’s death after birthing her son, the future Edward VI. Jane and her husband were granted several estates and positions after Jane Seymour’s death, so they likely remained in favor at the royal court.

The most notable part of Jane’s life appears to be the drawing of her portrait by the famed Hans Holbein the younger.

Her maiden name, Astley, is the married name of Elizabeth I’s famed companion, Kat Astley, so it’s possible that she’s related to her husband somehow, but there’s no actual proof for that. I’m just guessing, tbh. I wonder why her name was chosen for the Ladies in Waiting? There are several other more famous ladies-in-waiting to the Queens of Henry VIII that could have been a good choice: Jane Parker/Boleyn perhaps.

The Costumes of the Ladies-in-Waiting: The ladies-in-waiting of Six all wear very similar costumes, with only very slight variations. Each band member wears the same long sleeved black shirt with silver and pearl trimmings. They specifically have parallel silver lines all down their sleeves and diagonal silver lines on the main shirt meeting in downward points like chevrons. Beads resembling pearls are scattered throughout. Some of the band members have shirts that are longer than others’, which is probably just a comfort thing.

The ladies also sport what look like leather/pleather ruffs. These are an interesting historical detail, as ruffs weren’t actually worn at all until at least 13 years (1560s) after Henry VIII’s death (1547) ; so they’re anachronistic in a way that most historical details in Six costumes aren’t (keeping in mind that like, the costumes are obviously not intended to be exact historical replicas). I plan to talk a lot more about ruffs in a later post about the Haus of Holbein’s ruffs, so I’ll leave it at that for now. :D

You know, in looking at the pictures side by side, I’m wondering if the Ladies-in-Waiting shirts were specifically based off of this one portrait of Maria de Salinas. It’s not great quality, and it’s hard to tell what’s going on in it (I’m 90% sure that collar is supposed to be fur or ruffles, but not A Ruff, as that wouldn’t exist for many decades yet). Despite that, the similarities are very evident!

The pearls all over the costumes may actually be a reference to the pearl requirements of Jane Seymour’s ladies in waiting/maids of honor, which I mentioned briefly earlier. We actually have historical records showing that her ladies were required to wear girdles/belts with a specified number of pearls; if there weren’t enough pearls (at LEAST 120), they weren’t allowed to appear before the Queen.

Pearls also edge the band members’ neck ruffs and headbands, which seem pretty obviously based off of a French hood. Look how similar the headbands are to Anne Boleyn’s French hood from her portrait.

The layout of the pearls on the shirt actually reminds me a LOT of some historical armor, specifically the brigandine. Brigandines are made of heavy cloth or leather with steel plates riveted to it, and are pretty distinctive, as you can tell from these renaissance painting examples.

The chevrons on the shirt may be a reference to popular skirt or doublet styles in Elizabethan times. Alternatively, chevrons were commonly used in renaissance heraldry, so these may be referencing that.

The band members wear black pants with lacing up the front that resemble one of the Catherine-Parr-in-Six variations, although their pants are significantly more shiny and leather looking than Parr’s, which are matte cloth. The pants also seem to be a deliberate reference to renaissance cloth or leather armor, which was generally worn with close fitting pants

The temporary costumes that have been pulled out a few times for main Queen cast members when their costumes need emergency repairs and for emergency alternate step-ins (like the awesome time that co-writer of the show Toby Marlow and original soundtrack Anne of Cleves Genesis Lynea stepped in to perform at two sold-out shows after the cast and alternates were badly affected by illness) also appear to be based on the Ladies in Waiting costumes. As you can see, the main portion of the shirt is the same, although it may be worn with or without sleeves and with or without an additional neck piece. Lauren Drew of the UK tour cast is shown wearing shorts that look an AWFUL lot like the Anne of Cleves shorts, although I don’t think I’ve seen those cool chain closures on the side before. Toby and Genesis are shown just wearing plain leather/pleather shorts.

The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References!)

January 18, 2020 by Rachael Dickson in theater, English History

There are lots of specific Tudor fashion elements found in the Queens' looks when you look closely! I compiled a LOT of painting references and closeups on the costumes so you can see exactly what I’m talking about. These are elements that show up in other musicals and plays set in Tudor times as well, and I’ll try to add references to those soon, as there are, of course, many other works than just Six, lol.

Since I’m going to be talking about a few different periods of history here, I’m going to do a quick overview of the years we’re working with:

The Tudor period started under Henry VII, Henry VIII’s dad, when he defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry VII reigned from 1485-1509.
Henry VIII lived from 1491-1547 and reigned from 1509-1547.
- Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) - was married to Henry from 1509-1533.
- Anne Boleyn (~1501-1507 - 1536) - was married to Henry from 1533-1536.
- Jane Seymour (~1508-1537) - was married to Henry from 1536-1537.
- Anne of Cleves (1515-1557) - was married to Henry in part of 1540.
- Catherine Howard (~1523-1542) - was married to Henry from 1540-1542.
- Catherine Parr (1512-1548) - was married to Henry from 1543-1547 (when he died).
Edward VI (Henry VIII’s son with Jane Seymour, 1537-1553) reigned from 1547-1553.
Mary I (Henry VIII’s daughter with Catherine of Aragon, 1516-1558) reigned from 1553-1558.
Elizabeth I (Henry VIII’s daughter with Anne Boleyn, 1533-1603) reigned from 1558-1603.

^The gable hood of Catherine of Aragon, the French hood of Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr’s feathered hat.

Hairpieces/Head Coverings: Every queen wears a headpiece or hair piece of some sort but they have different styles; this represents that in Tudor times, ALL women would have their hair covered in some way at all times (ignore the hair in The Tudors y'all, it's just...hilariously wrong).

Famous hats included the Gable hood (seen on Catherine of Aragon and Jane Seymour) and the French hood (popularized by Anne Boleyn and seen in her portrait and in Katherine Howard's supposed portrait). Women even started wearing male hat styles at times, as seen in Catherine Parr’s portrait.

^These photos demonstrate the square necks and the plentiful jewelry and neck elements evoking jewelry both in Tudor portraits and the costumes of Six.

Jewelry/Bling: Necklaces and jewelry were big in Tudor times, noble ladies would often wear lots of rings, bracelets, and several necklaces. You can see this in their portraits. The Six Queens play off this by wearing a lot of different sparkly jewelry in their costumes as well. Aragon has a huge pile of gold necklaces, they all wear earrings, Anne Boleyn wears sparkly fingerless gloves, both Boleyn and Howard wear their initial necklaces, and the neckline details seen in the costumes of Seymour, Cleves, and Howard, all evoke the jewelry seen in so many of these portraits.

Necklines: Wide and low cut square necks were very big under Henry VIII, you can see this in the necklines of several of the queens' costumes, including Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves (if you ignore the cross crossing detail on Cleves’ costume). Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard also have wide and low cut necklines, although this is more of a sweetheart look.

Sleeves: All Tudor women would have worn long sleeves coming down at least to the wrist, and sometimes below that. These long sleeves, or elements of them, at least, are seen in the costumes of Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, and Katherine Howard.

Lacing: There's a lot of lacing elements prevalent in the main queens' outfits and in the alternates outfits, in various pairs of pants, sleeves, and necklines, and connections between tops and bottoms. Most of these are cross lacing (Xes) and others evoke spiral lacing or even ladder lacing. These even show up in some of the fabric patterns and the way they’re cut and laid out! This looks to be a reference to the side, front, and back ties often found on Tudor gowns, although in reality, Tudor gowns were generally spiral laced or ladder laced rather than cross laced (Xes); what you see at renaissance faires is not generally accurate. You can see what I mean in the collection of painting references; all of these show spiral lacing or ladder lacing except for one Italian painting, which shows Xes which are almost certainly more decorative than practical. The other forms of lacing are simply more supportive and adjustable, which is the entire idea behind having lacings in an outfit anyway, after all.

Major thanks to Festive Attyre’s post on spiral lacing for all their painting references for this section.

Boning/Stay Type elements: I believe the strong vertical and diagonal stripes present in all the queens' costumes, and specifically those that “look” supportive may refer to boning within dresses and supportive stays. These aren’t overtly Tudor, as they’re generally associated with later time periods, and I unfortunately don’t have any painting references for this because they were explicitly /underwear/ and not something that would show up in art, but we do know that whalebone was used for support in women’s garments at least by the time of Elizabeth I’s death, as her effigy wore a corset containing whalebone. I’ve included a picture of the effigy corset and a few pictures of historical reproduction corsets so you can see what I mean.

Ruffs: Big neck ruffs are seen on The Ladies in Waiting (the in-house, on stage, all female band) and during the Haus of Holbein number. Neck ruffs like this ARE Tudor, but weren’t seen until quite a while after Henry VIII’s death; you didn't really see neck ruffs until Elizabeth I. (if you’d like to read more about the Ladies in Waiting’s costumes and historical influences, I have a whole blog post on that over here!)

Split Skirts/Contrasting Underskirt: The open front skirt, revealing hot pants under it, are a pretty obvious style reference to the classic Tudor dress look where a kirtle (underdress) was layered under a contrasting overdress. This isn’t too obvious in a lot of the six wives’ portraits, but you can totally see it in the above portrait of Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I).

Howard is the only main queen that has this style of skirt (Aragon does too, but hers blends in with the rest of her gold and black and isn’t a distinctly contrasting color), but a LOT of the alternate costumes have this look.

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E10 Cri de Coeur

December 26, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in TV, English History

All My Posts on The Crown
S3: 1 & 2: “Olding” & “Margaretology” 3: “Aberfan” 4: “Bubbikins, 5: “Coup” 6: “Tywysog Cymru” 7: “Moondust" 8: “Dangling Man” 9: “Imbroglio” 10: “Cri de Coeur”
S4: 1: “Gold Stick” 2: “The Balmoral Test” 3: “Fairytale” ( + Cinderella References) 4: “Favourites” 5: “Fagan” 6: “Terra Nullius” 7: ”The Hereditary Principle” 8: “48:1” 9: “Avalanche”
The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown; Tiaras/Crowns Overviews: Season 1 ; Season 2

Princess Margaret’s marriage to Tony Armstrong Jones (Lord Snowdon) has fallen apart, as he’s having yet another fairly public affair with a younger woman who Margaret merely calls “The Thing” (but in reality, is named Lucy Lindsay-Hogg). Margaret is miserable and depressed, and ends up taking a younger lover (Roddy Llewellyn) to cheer herself up. Simultaneously, Queen Elizabeth prepares for her Silver Jubilee, celebrating her 25th year on the throne.

Antony Armstrong and Lucy Lindsay-Hogg in real life (Credit: Nikki English / Shutterstock).

Roddy Llewellyn and Princess Margaret in real life (Credit: Hulton Deutsch / Getty).

Harry Treadaway as Roddy Llewellyn and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret in The Crown

The name of this episode comes from a heartless comment the Queen Mother makes about Margaret’s suicide attempt, calling it more of a “cri de coeur, instead of a coup de grace.” A cri de coeur is “a passionate appeal, complaint, or protest.” A coup de grace is a final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.
The episode starts with Elizabeth visiting Margaret at her home, in the aftermath of one of the couple’s fights. Broken glass lies everywhere. Margaret says it’s just part of who they are though; “War is our love. A brutal fight to the death is our mating dance.” She even makes excuses for Tony’s affair: “He can’t help himself, my priapic little snapper.”
Poor Margaret. She looks absolutely fabulous at her birthday party, with lovely 60s hair, even though her husband is conspicuously absent and off with his lover. When she states this to her family and asks them to take her side “and impose sanctions” on Tony, they’re assholes who take his side. ON HER BIRTHDAY. I understand Prince Philip’s point; Margaret can certainly be a difficult person, but surely she doesn’t deserve this level of disrespect.
I know Margaret and Tony have kids. We’ve seen them briefly in S3E7, Moondust, at the rocket launch party at the palace. Where are they during this episode? Do we ever see them? Margaret carelessly tells Elizabeth that the nanny has them but otherwise doesn’t really refer to them (to be fair, neither does Tony, except when he explains his anger over the photos of Margaret and Roddy by saying “she’s the mother of my children”). I’ve watched it multiple times and haven’t noticed them anywhere.
Margaret packs up her things for her getaway in a suitcase that looks very old and worn, possibly in a reference to how she herself feels. On her trip out, she wears an acid green shirt and skirt with brown fur coat. She wore green and brown a fair amount in both “Margaretology” and “Aberfan” as well (S3E2 and S3E2), when her marriage was rocky, but still holding together, with some good times.
The Queen and the Queen Mother also both wear a fair amount of green in this episode, possibly in reference to this being a Margaret-centric episode.
Jesus Christ, Tony left her a “love note” in a book that says “you look like a cheap pantomime dame.” What a horrible person. Does her family really not see this side of him ever?
It broke my heart to see Margaret arrive at her friend’s house sleeping in the back of the car, presumably too mentally and emotionally exhausted to deal with anything right now (and possibly a little drunk already). Her friend ushers everyone back into the house rather than wake her; I guess there isn’t really a better way to handle that situation.
This friend, by the way, apparently is Anne Tennant, Lady Glenconner, who was very close to Margaret in real life and actually wrote a memoir about her that came out this year called “Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown.” I need to buy that! Anne was a maid of honor at Elizabeth II’s coronation and an Extra Lady-in-Waiting to Margaret. This show is good enough at details that it’s possible she’s been shown throughout the three seasons without me noticing; I’ll have to go check at some point.

Roddy Llewellyn in real life (Credit: Mirrorpix / Getty).

Harry Treadaway as Roddy Llewellyn and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret on the Crown

The swimsuit Margaret picks up for Roddy when they’re out shopping looks very similar to one he wore in real life (see comparison photos), although it’s hard to tell how close they are, when the photo is in black and white.
After Roddy shows up, Margaret actually starts smiling and laughing and looking happy again. While she’s playing the piano and singing with Roddy, she looks fucking amazing. We’ve never seen season 3 Margaret look this happy.
Also - Margaret has sung a SHIT ton in this season, taking advantage of Helena Bonham Carter’s lovely voice. I think she only sung once in the first season (a Christmas carol with her father, I believe, in S1E2), and never in the second season. Bonham Carter is also clearly having the time of her life in this role; I read in an interview that she was surprised to get the role, since her predecessor as Margaret , Vanessa Kirby (5’7”), was several inches taller than Helena (5’2”). The real life Princess Margaret was 5’1”, so Bonham Carter is much close in height. I guess this show cares far more about good acting than they do about making the actors look exactly like their predecessors or their historical counterparts (see also, Derek Jacobi taking over as the Duke of Windsor, even though at 5’8”, he was considerably shorter than his predecessor Alex Jennings, who was 6’2”).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth on The Crown

A real souvenir teapot made for the Queen’s silver jubilee.

I made an audible gasp when Tony pulled out old pictures of the royal family for the Queen and we see Claire Foy and Matt Smith in the photos again. It’s the first time we’ve seen any depiction of either of those actors since the S3E1 intro of Olivia Colman with the coinage changeover. It inspired a surprising amount of nostalgia in me.
Tony did design a few things for the Royal Family over the years, most notably, the stage and setup at Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales, but I couldn’t find any evidence that he designed any Silver Jubilee memorabilia, as he and Margaret were on pretty terrible terms at that point. However, memorabilia like that did totally exist at the time and is still made today for big royal events like weddings. I actually use several royal memorabilia plates as soap dishes in my own house, including one for Elizabeth’s actual silver jubilee! (I also have one for the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday and one from Elizabeth’s father’s jubilee). Yes, I’m definitely an anglophile. :D

The real life Princess Margaret and Tony Armstrong Jones, with a focus on Margaret’s engagement ring.

Margaret’s engagement ring as shown in The Crown season 2 “Matrimonium.”

Right after the photos of Margaret and Roddy have come out in the press and she’s been revealed to the world as a “whore,” she’s seen crying in bed, wearing a ruby ring surrounded by diamonds, and sporting red fingernails. This seems to indicate her “tramp” status (which is insanely hypocritical, since Armstrong Jones had cheated on her many times at this point without even really trying to hide it. But alas, this intense shaming of Margaret did happen in real life.). Also, I’m nearly positive that this is meant to represent Margaret’s engagement ring from Tony. I can’t find a photo of Bonham Carter wearing the ring, but the shot of her crying makes it look a lot like the ring Tony proposed with in S2E7 Matrimonium and the one Princess Margaret wore in real life. In real life, Armstrong Jones “designed” the ring for Margaret, choosing a ruby center stone to reflect Margaret’s middle name, Rose.
The next scene shows Tony working in his dark room under a red light; this color theming seems to show their continuing connection, even as they both move on to loving other people. A lot of reviewers have criticized Tony’s line in this scene about how he’s still upset about the situation because Margaret’s the mother of his children as hypocritical, but I see it more as, an acknowledgment of, yes I absolutely understand her right to do this, but also, it still hurts because of our past and our familial connection through our kids.
Wow, this portrayal of the Queen Mother is really nasty, isn’t it? She’s so awful to her daughter, even though she absolutely knows that Tony has been cheating on her for ages.
When they land back in England (they couldn’t like, fly in Roddy through a back way to reduce the controversy at all? really?), Roddy and Margaret are both wearing staid colors, burgundy and greys, which are a big departure from the wild bright prints they wore while on vacation. They match each other and also, interestingly enough, match the house she lives in; this is most noticeable when she runs away from Tony and after Roddy.
I hope we see Roddy again in Season 3. I love that actor, Harry Treadaway, who I knew previously from Penny Dreadful (and didn’t recognize at all initially, as he was hardly portrayed as a heartthrob when he was Dr. Frankenstein). It also would be terribly inaccurate if we don’t see him again, as in real life, Margaret and Roddy were together for 8 years.
While calling Roddy a boy, Tony is literally wearing the youngest looking clothes we’ve ever seen him in –a blue denim jacket, blue denim jeans, and a hippie looking necklace.
“You look like a Jewish manicurist” (something he said about her to his lovers/friends in S2E7 “Matrimonium”) and “How do I loathe thee, let me count the ways” – these are the worst “love notes” ever. They’re clearly hate notes.

The Queen and Harold Wilson in real life. — The Queen and Harold Wilson in real life (Credit: PA Images).

We then take a brief break away from Margaret and Tony to go say hello to Harold Wilson again, who’s back as Prime Minister for a bit. Elizabeth’s “unconstitutional cheer” note about Wilson resembles very much something her father said about Winston Churchill in the first episode .
- King: “My dear Winston, congratulations. Would it be terribly unconstitutional of me to say how happy I am? I miss our weekly chats. Your predecessor is a fine parliamentarian. A good man. But as company, as a companion….”
  Winston: “An empty taxi pulled up at the house of commons and Mr. Atlee got out.”
- Queen: “I let out an unconstitutional cheer when you beat Mr. Heath this time.”
This also is emphasized when after he tells her that he has Alzheimers and will be stepping down soon, she offers to dine with him at Downing Street. Just like Winston Churchill. My heart. /sob/
They really were this close in real life and to date, Wilson and Churchill are the only PMs who’ve had the Queen over to Downing Street for dinner. However, his second time in office as Prime Minister lasted for two years, not the …two minutes? shown in The Crown. In reality, it would have been pretty shitty to be elected into office and then immediately resign like that.
Sometimes I want to throw things at the queen mother. Like when she asks if margaret’s suicide attempt was a cry for help.
Towards the end of the episode, the queen is back in Margaret’s bedroom where the episode started, looming over her. Margaret is in bed, noticeably sick and wearing purple, which only seems to emphasize how worn down and tired she looks. The Queen is wearing her pearl necklace while she visits Margaret., which ties back to their connection in S3E2, when they both constantly wore pearl necklaces (Margaret wears hers less now).
I looked up that pearl necklace actually; in real life, her three-strand pearl necklace was gifted to her by her father King George VI.
In the show, Margaret claims she’ll be the first divorcee in the English royal family since Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves (which is funny, but Henry VIII himself considered their marriage, and his earlier one with Catherine of Aragon, annulled, and therefore, not ended via divorce). This isn’t quite true, although she certainly was the most senior member of the royal family to get a divorce at this time. In 1967, the marriage of George Lascelles, Earl of Hareford (Elizabeth II’s first cousin), to Marion Stein ended after his mistress Patricia Tuckwell gave birth to his son. This was very scandalous for times and he was ostracized for quite a while. He married Tuckwell later that year, but had to do so in Connecticut, as at the time, registry office marriages were barred for people covered by the Royal Marriages Act and divorcees could not marry in the Church of England. His first wife Stein went on to marry the famous politician Jeremy Thorpe, who was later tried on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder, a situation which recently gained new notoriety in “A Very English Scandal” (which is hilarious, and you should really watch it if you get a chance).
Margaret was definitely not the first royal since Henry VIII to /try/ to get a divorce. That honor goes to Prince George of Wales, who married Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. George apparently detested Caroline completely and after he became King George IV, sued her for divorce based on infidelity (something he had also committed). They went through a scandalous and embarrassing divorce hearing, but Parliament refused to grant the divorce.
In many ways, Margaret’s own troubles really helped pave the way for younger royals and made their lives easier. Three of Elizabeth’s children have had divorces (Princess Anne from her husband Captain Mark Philips in 1992, Prince Andrew from his wife Sarah Ferguson in 1992, and Prince Charles from his wife Lady Diana Spencer in 1997). since the events shown in this episode and none of them were faced with quite as many obstacles as Margaret was. And although Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, abdicated the thrown so he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcee with two living former husbands, and Princess Margaret was previously kept from marrying divorcee Captain Peter Townsend, Prince Harry married divorcee Meghan Markle in 2018 without any apparent trouble.
Tony Armstrong Jones and Lucy Lindsay-Hogg married in 1978 pretty soon after his divorce from Princess Margaret came through. He and Lucy separated in 2000 after it was revealed that Tony had fathered a child with another woman two years earlier.
Armstrong Jones would stay relatively close with the royal family after his divorce (although he and Margaret avoided each other) and later photographed the Queen for her 80th birthday. He also took photos of Diana, Princess of Wales. You can see some of his photography here.

The real life Queen at her Silver Jubilee

Queen Elizabeth at her Silver Jubilee in The Crown

It looks like the Queen and Philip have gone back to sleeping in separate beds again. We got a hint of that in the episode previously, when we saw the bedrooms across from each other as they discussed their upcoming 25th anniversary party. They did this throughout the first season but in the second season, it seemed that they grew closer and we saw them wake up and go to sleep in the same bed together several times.
As the Queen and Margaret talk about her upcoming Silver Jubilee, Elizabeth notes that she’s had 6 prime ministers so far and asks what she’s achieved so far. Margaret points out that she’s been there and steady and keeping things going. As she says, “If you show a single crack, we’ll see it isn’t a crack, but a chasm, and we’ll all fall in.” (no pressure on Elizabeth there, right?)
The Queen’s silver jubilee outfit features an accurate but ridiculous pink hat with cloth bells on it.

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E9 Imbroglio

December 25, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in TV and Film, English History

A scene in The Crown set after the Duke of Windsor’s funeral.

The Duke of Windsor’s funeral takes place. New Prime Minister Edward Heath handles a labor dispute with the coal miners badly and the country (including the palace) has to deal with ongoing brief blackouts, which eventually result in a three-day work week and significant hardship. After realizing how serious Prince Charles is about Camilla Shand, the Queen Mother and Lord Mountbatten plot to get Charles sent off to a Naval posting far away and to get Camilla married off.

The episode starts off with the Duke of Windsor’s funeral. The Queen’s and Wallis Simpson’s outfits at the funeral seem very similar to what they wore in real life.
It’s so sad later when Charles reflects later that he felt like he had become the new Duke of Windsor, the new outsider in the family.
Is this new Prime Minister always wearing black and white? It seems like he really is always wearing the colors of the piano, his beloved instrument.
“My father is a builder.” Heath’s comment here to the coal miners hearkens back to Harold Wilson’s comment about how he makes out that he’s a common man but actually, he has higher brow tastes and comes from a privileged background.
I like how they Illustrate the power cutbacks at the castle by showing the butlers lighting candles.

The real life Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, and Queen Elizabeth, at the Duke of Windsor’s funeral. — The real life Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, and Queen Elizabeth, at the Duke of Windsor’s funeral (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor at the Duke of Windsor’s funeral in The Crown.

Charles says he’s going to need dickie’s help wih the family because he so trusts that he will be on his side. AND THEN HE ISN’T, you suck mountbatten. He later says: “you don’t love a girl like Camilla shand. She’s a bit of fun and a welcome distraction from the rigors of the navy. The first few months can be pretty tough.” [GAH, ANGER]
After Charles gets his posting abroad, he runs back to the castle to talk to his mother immediately, thinking that this is definitely her fault. Interestingly enough, she doesn’t work very hard to disabuse him of this notion, but merely lets him yell at her and then calls for the true culprits.
When Charles is trying to get to his mother, all the butlers and staff are suddenly in his way and keep saying “excuse me,” three times. It’s like he’s already just very in the way and out of place in his own home.
How did Queen Elizabeth IMMEDIATELY figure out that it was the Queen mother and Lord Mountbatten who are interfering with Charles’ relationship? I love that in this one scene, both queens are wearing coats insid. But the lamps are on? Are they trying to lower their electricity use? What is going on here?
“We’ve learnt that lesson time and time again,” they say, about the importance of not letting a royal get permanently romantically involved with the wrong person.
ALL THE BUTLERS STANDING AROUND WITH LAMPS. This is the most delightful and ridiculous picture. Anne is iconic, as usual, with her gorgeous “Starman” driving entrance, which then transitions to her walking down the hallway of Buckingham palace singing with staff following her and carrying candles.
Her reaction to seeing her entire family sitting there in the dark waiting for her is also classic. “God what’s all this?”
Philip knows that this is all serious but he can’t help but laugh out loud when in response to a request for calm, Anne just deadpans, “As opposed to how I am usually-hysterical.” And afterward, after she’s thoroughly shocked her mother by noting that she had “fun” with Andrew Parker Bowles, she notes, “I hope that wasn’t too emotional for you all.”

The real life Prince Charles and Camilla Shand. — The real life Prince Charles and Camilla Shand (Credit: Serge Lemoine / Getty).

Prince Charles and Camilla Shand in The Crown.

In one scene (I can’t remember whether it happened in this episode or in the previous one), Charles' sister Princess Anne warns him that if he gets involved with Camilla, there will "always be three people in the relationship". A wise point indeed, considering the ongoing nature of her relationship with Andrew. And the wording of Princess Anne's advice was chosen very carefully and deliberately, and pays homage to Princess Diana, who famously described Camilla as "the third person" in her relationship with Prince Charles.
The Queen and the Queen Mother wear a lot of yellow and tan colors in this episode. Possibly to refer to the candlelight and the blackouts throughout this episode?
I love it when Queen Elizabeth, with great irritation, has to ring a bell to end her meeting with Heath because her buzzer isn’t working due to the blackout.

The real-life Prince Charles while he was stationed in The Bahamas.

Prince Charles in The Crown, immediately after he was moved to his new post in the Bahamas.

Philip: “Are you warming to him yet?”
Queen: “Mr. Heath? I’m not sure there’s anything to warm to.”
Philip: “Give him some time, he’s rusty. You’re the first woman in decades he’s had a meaningful relationship with. It’s what his enemies have always held against him. The fact that he never married. People find it hard to trust a leader without a wife or family.”
Philip then relates the story of the doctor’s daughter that Heath let get away and concludes with: “There you are. When you find the right one, snap em right up. As a central theme, it’s perfect.” He means for the Queen’s speech for their 25 year wedding anniversary. As he points out, “it’s your turn, I made one on the ten year anniversary – mon petit chou.”
This refers to the speech he made in season episode of the Crown. So I didn’t realize this, but “mon petit chou” is probably where Philip’s nickname for the queen, “cabbage,” came from, as this French phrase translates to “my little pastry puff” and “my little cabbage.”

The real life marriage of Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla Shand.

The marriage of Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla Shand in The Crown

Charles philosophizing about being on the sea to Camilla on the phone: “Something about the wave, one begins to disappear. And then suddenly, you’re somewhere else entirely. And it’s a feeling I’ve never had before – a sense of safety and belonging and all that loneliness having vanished – and it’s all rather miraculous. I think you are miraculous. Tell me is there any part of all this that’s surprised you?” Camilla: “Of what?” Charles: “Our friendship.” Camilla: “You should ask if there’s any part of this that hasn’t surprised me…. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you. None of this was supposed to happen. “ (she says this while Andrew Parker Bowles lurks in the background).
In real life, it appears that the royal family had absolutely nothing to do with Charles’ breakup with Camilla. Her relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles was very complicated and on and off; he cheated on her numerous times, but she loved him and wanted to be with him. Their fathers finally worked together to force them to get married, by literally putting an engagement announcement in the newspaper.
Heath’s positioned as a symbol in this episode, with his piano playing run over Queen Elizabeth’s 25th wedding anniversary speech at the end. I’m not entirely certain what the goal is here though, as it is explicitly noted that he is single and has a tragic back story with “a doctor’s daughter,” who waited for him until the end of the war, and then he chickened out of marrying her at the last minute. Perhaps he’s meant to refer to Prince Charles, who has to give up love in this episode and is stationed abroad in the Bahamas.

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E8 Dangling Man

December 07, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in English History, TV and Film, TV

The Duke of Windsor, the former king whose abdication had put both Queen Elizabeth and her father on the throne, develops terminal cancer. The Queen, who’s visiting France to assist with the UK joining the EU, visits him and provides him some peace before his death. Prince Charles falls in love with Camilla Shand, while Princess Anne hooks up with Camilla’s ex/possibly not ex Andrew Parker Bowles.

The real life Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1955. Photo: Frank Scherschel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Alex Jennings as The Duke and Lia Williams as the Duchess were featured in Season 1 and 2 of The Crown. (This scene was set during 1953)

Geraldine Chaplin and Derek Jacobi as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Season 3. This scene was meant to take place around 1972.

The Duke of Windsor is such a controversial character historically. Modern eyes often want to look favorably upon his abdication to marry the woman he loved, but at the same time, he and Wallis Simpson undoubtedly supported Hitler and the Nazis (as shown in S2E6 Vergangenheit, which means “past,” by the way) and engaged in treasonous acts against England. They also clearly were somewhat petty and mean toward the royal family, although it’s hard not to understand their viewpoint. Apparently, Edward/David was under the impression that he would be allowed to live in England again a few years after he abdicated; he didn’t take well to being told that he could only enter the country again at the invitation of the sovereign. They were essentially in exile the rest of their lives, although Queen Elizabeth was far kinder to him then really anyone else in the family. This is shown in The Crown when both Philip and the Queen Mother are much harsher in their judgments toward the Duke and the Duchess than Elizabeth ever is, at least aloud.
His actions did have a very significant result on Elizabeth’s life in forcing her to become queen, and as she stated in S3E5 “Coup,” it’s not something she would have chosen. His abdication has already been seen to have a huge impact on how the Queen and the government dealt with Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend. It will later also impact Margaret’s divorce from Antony Armstrong-Jones, and the relationships and divorces of several of the Queen’s children. It also led to the Queen having firmly held views against abdicating under any circumstance. A very recent article quoting a spokesman from Prince Charles’s office noted, “There are no plans for any change in arrangements at the age of 95 — or any other age.”
I do have to say, Alex Jennings, the actor who played the Duke of Windsor in the first two seasons looks SO much more like him than Derek Jacobi does, as brilliant as he is.
The Duke and Duchess’s meeting with Emperor Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kojun, really did happen. The photos from that event show off how close The Crown can get to reality if they so choose.
The moment where doorman Sidney (who really existed) applies rouge/blush to the Duke’s face to make him less ill is very similar to the blush that was applied to George VI’s face in S1E1. And just as the Duke jokes that “we don't want it to look like kabuki,” the King’s assistant then said that they didn’t want to overdo it.
Emperor Hirohito grumpily says, “They promised no cameras. I don’t want people to see me to visit a man who couldn't hold on to his throne.” I also love the contrasting comments at the end of their meeting: Emperor: "imagine living in exile from his homeland. I would rather die.” Duchess: “He never leaves japan. Imagine being stuck on an island your whole life.” Duke: “An island which is home and where you reign as sovereign. I can think of worse things." There’s that same nostalgia we saw in S1E5 “Smoke and Mirrors” (when he plays the bagpipes and cries after Elizabeth’s coronation) and in S2E6 Vergangenheit, when he looks for a way to be useful to England.
The Duke of Windsor did indeed keep his red leather dispatch box marked “The King” in his foyer in real life.
My husband (who speaks Japanese, works in a primarily Japanese law firm, and knows just a ton about Japanese culture) tells me that I shouldn’t actually call the Emperor Emperor Hirohito, as the emperor gets a new name after death! This is from Wikipedia: “In Japan, reigning emperors are known simply as "the Emperor" and [Hirohito] is now referred to primarily by his posthumous name, Shōwa (昭和), which is the name of the era coinciding with his reign; for this reason, he is also known as the Shōwa Emperor or Emperor Shōwa.”

The actual meeting between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Emperor and Empress of Japan took place in October 1971. — The actual meeting between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Emperor and Empress of Japan took place in October 1971 (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

The meeting between the Duke and Duchess and the Emperor and the Empress in The Crown.

In real life, Prince Charles did correspond with his great-uncle, the Duke of Windsor. His other great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten (Uncle “Dickie”) encouraged this; he was both the Duke’s friend and keenly aware of the damage he caused with his abdication. Mountbatten was actually in charge of the Duke’s estate after his death and arranged for numerous items to be returned to the Royal Archives.
Charles did visit the Duke and Duchess once in October 1970, but apparently they had a party going on at the time. Charles didn’t stay too long and didn’t seem too impressed by it all. After both the Duke and Duchess died, a businessman named Mohamed Al-Fayed purchased their home and estate; he took Charles on a tour of it in 1986 and said he could choose anything he wanted from the estate, but Charles wasn’t interested in any of their family albums or souvenirs. So it seems that perhaps Charles didn’t view the Duke as a mentor after all.
I loved Olivia Colman’s line about this meeting in the crown: “One doesn't usually get the opportunity to meet a former king. Former kings are usually dead.” Also, in the show, Charles tells Mountbatten that the entire house smelled “Like joss sticks and dogs.” I had to look up what joss sticks are, but it refers to incense.

The Duke of Windsor and Prince Charles in The Crown.

If Andrew Buchan, the actor playing Andrew Parker Bowles looks as familiar to you as he did to me, you may have seen him before in his role as Mark Latimer in Broadchurch. Princess Anne and Parker Bowles did indeed date in real life, but apparently only for a short time. They have remained good friends and have been photographed together many times over the years.
"Where's mehmsahib?" a friend asks Captain Parker Bowles, referring to Camilla. In case you were wondering, this is a leftover Indian colonialism term that means “a married white or upper-class woman (often used as a respectful form of address by nonwhites).”
Apparently Charles’ real life first conversation with Camilla was rather hilarious. She joked “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.” I so wish they had actually shown that in The Crown; as it is, we don’t really see their first meeting, but just a bit of them checking each other out before Charles calls up Camilla to ask her out.
At the time, Camilla was in a years-long on-again, off-again relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles. The couple only got engaged after their two fathers conspired together and published an engagement notice in The Times, which forced Andrew to finally act.
Charles' inaccurate description of Camilla and Andrew’s relationship to Dickie (that she and Andrew fell out over ANNE, when we saw in the show that they had quite obviously fallen out before that) illustrates all the rumors and misconceptions around everyone involved. It’s also interesting that Charles’ description of his visit with the Duke of Windsor to Mountbatten doesn’t seem to quite align with the video we see of it later in the episode, while the Queen is reading Charles’ letter to the duke. This “audio says one thing, video says another” trick is a classic unreliable narrator film style which was also used when the Duke was writing to Wallis in both Season 1 and Season 2; his words often exaggerated the number of supporters meeting him, etc.

The real life Charles and Camilla (Credit: Shutterstock).

This scene was recreated in The Crown, but I don’t remember seeing it in the final cut.

When Edward Heath disses Harold Wilson, by saying Wilson had expected the most recent election to be his coronation, the queen responds frostily, “nothing wrong with a coronation under the right circumstances,” indicating her subtle support of Harold Wilson. Wilson would end up being one of the Queen’s favorite prime ministers; he’s the only one other than Winston Churchill who hosted her and Prince Philip at a dinner at Downing Street.
Heath is so awkward. When he’s with the Queen, he sits on the front of his chair the entire time, like he’s terrified to lean back.
The Queen is wearing blue when she tells Philip she’ll be going to France to charm Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou, who was prime minister of France from 1962-1968 and then president from 1969-1974. The French flag, naturally, is blue, white, and red.

Prince Philip reminds me so much of my husband, who also meets people several times and then somehow doesn’t remember them.
"I never see the other one anymore…where's the other one… the bald one?" “He retired. Three months ago. You gave him a clock!”
Philip-ism, on the Duke of Windsor and his visit from the Emperor and Empress of Japan: "He didn't cause them offense. He didn't abdicate the Japanese throne or kill the emperor's father. For the last time, no. That man, his shame - like the stench of livestock - it seeps into the woodwork and never goes away." What is philip doing during all of this - polishing a gun? That’s what it looks like.
As Charles is getting everything ready for his date with Camilla, The Four Seasons’ “Beggin” plays in the background, with the curiously applicable lyrics:
”Ridin' high when I was king,
Played it hard and fast cause I had everything
Walked away, wonderin' then
But easy come and easy go and it would end”

Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles in real life.

Andrew Parker Bowles and Anne in The Crown.

Camilla walks into Buckingham and just looks around shocked for a little bit, very in awe of the whole place, and then has to run to catch up to the footman. Charles looks pretty unhappy when Camilla keeps going on about him being prince during their date.
Charles says something very profound about his life right before he plays a prank on Camilla; he plays it off as a joke, but I’m not so sure: “I live not so much an existence but a predicament. I am both free and imprisoned. Utterly superfluous and quite indispensable. One can never fully invest in one thing or another, because at any moment, it could all change.”
“How can one be a good son even though [her dying] is the thing you most dread, it’s the thing you most, not desire, well yes, desire , because until she dies, I cannot be fully alive. Nor can I be the thing for which I have been born, so one is condemned to this frightful business of waiting.”
Charles refers to “Dangling Man” by Saul Bellow and describes it as being about “existing in a timeless and slightly ridiculous abyss. … an unemployed man from Chicago waiting to be drafted to go to a war. And he actually wants to be drafted because it will give his life meaning.”
Camilla wears a string of pearls on their date (with a really cute peach ruffled shirt, mini skirt, and black jacket). Most of her outfit doesn’t seem to have any deeper meaning, but the Queen wears a pearl necklace so often that I imagine it has to be an intentional callback to Charles’ mother, who is such a big part of their conversation.

Real life Prince Charles (Credit: Tim Graham / Getty).

Prince Charles playing polo in The Crown

During the Duke’s interview with the BBC, his grey suit appears to be too large for him. The Duke of Windsor was known for being quite a natty dresser, so I imagine this oversized suit is meant to indicate his weight loss from cancer. The Duchess is wearing a scarf that makes her look incredibly French.
The Crown is really good at showing the reach of media, how so many people are watching it. As the Duke talks about how he had wanted to change the role of the Prince of Wales when he was younger, the b-roll cuts to other people watching, namely, Lord Mountbatten petting his dog, the Queen Mother eating what appears to be strawberry ice cream, and the Queen and Prince Philip, before going back to Charles and Camilla.

Some of what the Duke is saying in his interview call back to a lot of what was said S3E2 Margaretology. She referred to the black and white men, Duke of Windsor refers to the “grey men".” “I soon discovered that any attempt to make even the most trifling change was met with hostility and suspicion [by whom] by the establishment, the grey men of the court, and by my family too.”
Just as in Margaretology, the reporters said that Margaret brought color to the black and white world for the royal family, Wallis describes David as a “colorful, dynamic”; he counters with “individualistic.”
Philip calls them ghastly and monstrous and kisses the queen very sweetly, subtly checking her expression to see how she’s doing before he goes off to bed.
Princess Anne shows up in the next scene wearing a kicky military style jacket and pants, with a striped shirt – all blue and white. I think this is meant to indicate both her close connection to her father and her approach to life. She knows her brother and knows he gets attached easily, so she checks in on him and warns him lightly about Camilla’s continuing attachment to Andrew.
”Yes. And you’re seeing her ex Andrew.
“Not sure you can call what we’re doing seeing. Not sure you can call him an ex either.”
“Camilla told me, he’s definitely an ex.”
“Just make sure things remain the right way around; us playing with Camilla and Andrew, not them playing with us.”
“What does that mean?”
/Anne scoffs and walks out/
I don’t see a specific color story in the Duke and Duchess’s clothing, but they do tend to match. When we see the Duke in his green and white robe after taking a turn for the worse, the Duchess is in a green dress.
The Queen visits President Pompidou in Paris in order to support Prime Minister Heath’s push for the UK to join the European Economic Community (the precursor to the EU, which didn’t go by that name until 1993) and laying poppies on a memorial for the allied fallen in World War I. She wears two outfits for this - both light purple/lavender. This may be to emphasize her royal position in contrast to her uncle, who gave up the throne.
She says: “Though we live through times of conflict, our two countries share an ancient relationship. Let us not forget our deeper bonds, our sense of common purpose, on which can be built a new partnership, a new entente. Joined together in this august European enterprise, a great adventure lies ahead.”

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip meeting President Georges Pompidou on their visit to Paris in 1972. — Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip meeting President Georges Pompidou on their visit to Paris in 1972 (Credit: Popperfoto / Getty).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown.

Olivia Colman is so brilliant. Her face changes ever so slightly when Martin tells her that the Duke is dying and she needs to visit him now, just a strange falling of her expression.
The moment the duke hears the queen is coming he struggles to get up. When his wife says “You can’t be serious,” he shouts “I’ve never been more serious!” and forces his way up and out so he can get dressed and at least sit in a wheelchair while talking with her.
He wears lots of green and red for his meeting with the queen. Wallis is also wearing green, matching him as usual. I didn’t figure out where the red was coming from until I realized that this likely is a callback to his red dispatch box as king, which is the first thing Queen Elizabeth focuses on when she enters their house.
In real life, the Duke was still in his bed when the Queen visited him ten days before his death, not in a wheelchair as shown on The Crown, but he still struggled to his feet to bow. In both real life and on the TV show, she seems to deeply appreciate this.
"There was no need for that.” “If the roles were reversed, you would do exactly the same.” She smiles because she knows it’s true. “Yes.”
In their meeting, the Duke says that he underestimated the Queen and works to reassure her about Charles’ fitness for the throne.
“We’ve had our disagreements but you’ve always been my favorite uncle.” “Dear Lillibet.” “Shirley temple.” “I underestimated you. We all did. But the crown always finds it way to the right head. My father, my brother, you, and one day, god willing your son.”
The Duke and Charles together have all the colors of the flag of the United Kingdom in their outfits. The Duke wears a bright coral suit, red pants, and a pink and blue tie. Charles is wearing a grey suit, light blue shirt, and dark blue tie. They’re not the same but they clearly coordinate.
The Queen, as she reads Charles letter, is wearing the same colors as Charles - grey with black lining.
Prince Charles’s letter to the Duke of Windsor: “I do recognize myself in you. Your progressiveness and flair, your individuality and imagination, what a king you would have made in a kinder world. What a king you were denied.” …”I will not be denied what you have been denied. The crown is not a static thing resting forever on one head. It is moving, alive, divine, the changing face of changing times, and if god willing, it has been ordained that I shall wear it, than I shall do so on my own terms, and hopefully make you proud.”
I thought it was so dreadfully sad that the Duke’s dog ran away from his door whimpering when he died. :(

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E7 Moondust

November 29, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in TV, English History, TV and Film

Prince Philip has a Very Special Episode dedicated to his midlife crisis and the moon. Also- astronauts, and corgis, and priests, oh my!

Princess Anne (Erin Doherty) and two children (probably the actors playing her brothers Prince Andrew and Edward) during the rocket launch party scene. — Princess Anne (Erin Doherty) and two children (probably the actors playing her brothers Prince Andrew and Edward) during the rocket launch party scene in The Crown.

Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies), enchanted by the moon in The Crown.

This may be a particularly quote heavy blog post, as I find Philip absolutely hilarious (if sometimes ridiculously inappropriate). He’s one of my favorite characters and reminds me very much of my own husband, who often says hilariously inappropriate things and is also tall and slim like Philip.
At the start of the episode, Prince Philip is watching the astronauts talk on television while wearing blue and dull green. The queen (also in green) comes in to join him and mentions that she’s sending a message to the moon, which will be inscribed with other messages on a disc and left on the moon along with an olive branch “for the little green men to wave about.” I haven’t noticed much of a color story in this episode, but I do love that they’re both wearing some sort of green while she’s joking about the “little green men.”
Here’s the text of the note the Queen sent to the Moon. “On behalf of the British people, i salute the skill and courage that have brought man to the moon. May this endeavor increase the knowledge and well-being of mankind?
I love how grumpy Philip is when he’s walking up to the church with his wife.
Queen: “[The dean] has been with us for nearly 20 years.”
Philip: “That may make him loyal, but it does not make him interesting.”
“Shh.”
This exchange starts off a theme of Philip finding people or events in his life boring throughout the entire episode.
The queen wears a purple hat and just a ridiculously gorgeous coat to church. “They have ears, but they hear not” speech is hilariously on point for Philip. Anne, behind her father, shows a little more restraint and doesn’t cross her arms like he does, but her face still shows how annoying and boring she finds the Dean (like father, like daughter).
Philip-ism about the old Dean of Windsor, as he says that he’s not coming back to church again: “It’s not a sermon, it’s a general anesthetic.”
Queen: “Is it possible, do you think, the dean, might have reached, how can i put this kindly, the moment of his own obsolescence? I noticed one or two people struggling to stay awake.” (maybe the most British way of saying this ever)
Private Secretary Michael Adeane: “We could discreetly start the search for a replacement.”
”Yes, Good riddance. Someone with a bit of oomph, I think so.”
“Zest.” “That’s it.”
“Pep.” “Yes, thanks.”
“Vim.” “Yes, thank you.”
I enjoy how Michael Adeane ever so subtly pokes the driest of humor at the queen here in his use of many many synonyms to describe what she wants in the new dean. He’s been her private secretary for 16 years as of the time of this episode (which is partially why it’s so unbelievable/funny when Philip can’t remember Michael’s name in a few episodes after he retires) and they clearly known each other very well at this point.
The practice polo cage Philip uses in one scene to outrace His Demons is so fucking ridiculous looking.
I was curious as to why they seem to be at Windsor for most if not all of this episode and looked it up. As this Harper’s Bazaar article on the royal residences states, “Buckingham Palace is the Queen’s working residence during the week when she and the Duke of Edinburgh are based in London. However, they go to Windsor Castle most weekends, spend each August and September at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and head off to Sandringham House in Norfolk every Christmas.” So it makes sense that they’re at Windsor most of the time, since most of this episode seems to take place on Sundays (Apollo 11 launched on a Wednesday and the moon landing took place on a Sunday).

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth at church in The Crown

It looks like a really amazing rocket launch party. There’s a lunar module cake and they have like astronaut helmets and space banners and rocket party hats. I wish I could find ANY screenshots of it to share here. I particularly enjoy the little quick background scene where Anne carefully places multiple party hats on her sleeping grandmother, with Margaret’s help. Charles also appears to be present, if in the background, and he looks pretty happy to be hanging out with his family, so perhaps he and the Queen have mended things up a bit since the last episode.
Philip looks even more excited about the rocket lift off than any of the children and it’s pretty amazing.
Philip-ism, as he looks for his wife: “If I say She and we’re in Buckingham palace, who do you think I mean?”
I literally didn’t even realize Margaret and Tony came to the rocket launching party at first, because Margaret is wearing a dark brown dress that is just so damn toned down for her. We really don’t spend any time with them in this episode, but based on the Margaret and Tony episode we get at the end of the season, I’m guessing the dark brown might indicate the sad state of their marriage. It’s also barely ever mentioned in the series, but they have two children themselves, named David and Sarah. You can read all about them here.
As was hinted at in S2E7 Matrimonium, Tony did, in fact, have an illegitimate child with Camilla Fry, the wife of his friend Jeremy Fry (The Crown portrayed Tony and the Frys as having a three-way relationship, which is alleged in the 2008 book “Snowdon: The Biography” but hasn’t been fully substantiated). His daughter, Polly, was born a few weeks after he married Princess Margaret; his paternity was confirmed by a DNA test in 2004. “Snowdon: The Biography” also alleged that Jeremy Fry was actually intended to act as Tony’s best man at the wedding, but had to drop out due to illness.
As he sits up to watch the moon landing, there are American flags behind him and a toy astronaut in front of him.
I love that Philip asks the staff to wake up all the children to see the moon landing. We get a really quick montage of all the butlers and maids gently shaking Andrew and Edward awake and helping them put their robes on.
Anne’s dress in the moon landing scene is really cute – black, with multicolored lines on a slightly offset bit.
The newspapers Philip is reading when he’s ignoring his private secretary not only talk about the race to the moon, but also mention a few other things that seem to emphasize other men’s achievements, such as, “Man dies saving daughter.” He’s wearing a tie that’s dark blue with little white dots on it, vaguely reminiscent of the moon. He’s also wearing his military coat here, which seems to refer to his longing for his lost career. Basically, everything in this scene emphasizes Philip’s midlife crisis.
Philip-ism: “British Concrete Society, is that a joke?”
Sidenote: The concept of a “midlife crisis” was first named in 1965, so the concept is still relatively new when this episode takes place. Philip does admit at the end that he’s going through a crisis, but he avoids actually calling it a midlife crisis. Wikipedia defines a midlife crisis as “a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly shortcomings of accomplishments in life.” Plenty of people don’t have midlife crises, but of those who do, a death of a loved one is often a precipitating factor. “Moondust” almost unfolds like a mystery, in a way, as we don’t realize until the very end that Philip is experiencing these feelings primarily because of his mother’s death, which hadn’t previously been revealed.
Philip’s private secretary gives some choice knowing glances as the new priest discusses his priest sanctuary idea, seemingly realizing that this is exactly the situation Philip is in.
Philip-ism: “But If one of those buildings is free and you want to fill it with hot air and thought, be my guest.”
Tobias Menzies has the most ridiculously expressive eyes, which he uses to great effect as Philip. This is a much quieter, less dramatic role than his role as Jack Randall in Outlander, and although Philip is funny, he’s not as hapless or pathetic as Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones, but I think it may be the finest work he’s ever done.
Philip doesn’t have the anger that he did in the first two seasons and he definitely seems more “settled” (which was pretty much the Queen’s end goal in Season 2), but there’s kind of a new hopelessness, as he stays up late every night to watch all the space and moon reports, the lone holdout among his family. He even cries a little at the sight. As he goes through his various duties, at a textile mill, at a dental prosthetic lab, he’s smiling, but he just looks a little lost.
It seems like Philip’s wrinkles are much more emphasized than we’ve seen previously. This may be because we’re getting tighter shots on his face as he' focuses on the space mission, but the show also definitely uses makeup to subtly age the actors throughout the season. They definitely look older and look their character’s age, which supports the decision to replace the Season 1 and 2 actors with older actors for season 3. I feel like if Claire Foy had continued to act as the Queen, you’d have an “aging” look similar to how Clare and Jamie look in Season 3 of Outlander, after supposedly 20 years have passed. They both look older then they did, but they’re also the youngest looking 40-somethings I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s just hard to make really young actors look like they’re entering middle age.
Apparently most of the main actors also wear wigs in order to properly replicate their character’s hair color and period-accurate hair styles. Thinning hair, graying hair, and changing hairlines in the wigs also help age up the actors as the season progresses. I couldn’t find a definitive list anywhere (there’s a lot more info about Season 1-2 still than there is about 3), but the Queen, Prince Philip, and Princess Margaret definitely all wear wigs.
If you’d like to read more about how accurate the makeup on The Crown is to real life, Harpers Bazaar Australia did a pretty great article on the makeup seen in the first two seasons.
Then we get a shot of Philip flying for the first time this season; I’m pretty sure this is put in here not just to emphasize Philip’s discontent with his life but also to remind us of this part of his life before he later asks to meet the astronauts privately so they can talk “pilot to pilot.” I really enjoyed how the pilot frantically buckles his seatbelt back in as Philip takes over the controls and starts aiming the nose to the moon, going as high up as he can, much higher than the pilot would have taken it. When the pilot says that they need to get down from the elevation quickly, Philip replies, “But look, we’ve also lived. Just for a minute.”

Dean Robin Woods with the Queen (Credit: Mirrorpix).

Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip with Tim McMullan as Dean Robin Woods in The Crown

Tim McMullan as Dean Robin Woods in The Crown

A scene set at St. George’s House in The Crown

I have a theory that the queen specifically asked Dean Woods to check in on Philip and help provide him some guidance through his current crisis and feelings of loss. Right before the rocket launch party when Prince Philip asks her about the new dean, she says cagily that he’ll be a good fit “for the job I’ve asked him to do.” She then looks at her husband with a knowing smile. And then Woods is extremely persistent in engaging with Philip, even after Philip makes it very plain that he doesn’t really want to spend time with him or any of the priests.
Dean Woods gives a sermon about exploration and space that would have been great for Philip to hear. The queen definitely seems to think this, as she looks next to her and misses him. But Philip is off trying to outrace his own demons by jogging through the grey-skied countryside because he has Feelings. As the audio of Dean Woods’ speech continues over his running though, we hear heavy breathing, like that of the astronauts' over their radios to space. Neither the scene immediately before or immediately after this one have any footage of the astronauts themselves, so this has to be Philip’s breath, intentionally laid over the audio to emulate space.
The bit of Woods’ speech we can hear before it trails off into Philip’s overwhelming ennui goes: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Those words by T.S. Eliot have never rung more true. We stand at the dawn of a new age of space exploration. The promise of space has never felt more real….”
The new dean of the church at Windsor wears a red shirt and cassock sometimes. This is apparently pretty normal in the Anglican church.
Philip-isms about Dean Woods’ spiritual retreat for priests: “Your concentration camp for spiritual defectives.” “Do I need to show symptoms of despair? Should I sigh and moan dramatically. One does like to fit in.”
Philip trying to pretend that he cares about the priests’ problems is pretty hilarious. They talk about their “sense of directionlessness and redundancy” and how they feel like they’re failing to connect with the people. Honestly, they’re pretty much summing up Philip’s issues and he’s just in total denial.
I love that Philip admits that his new religious faith is basically the moon and the space race. He at least knows himself!
Dean Woods quotes Keats in response to Philip’s observation that the space race and the moon have become some people’s religion: “What is there in thee, moon, that thou shouldst move my heart so potently?” He then continues on, “Now we know what the moon is - nothing. Just dust. Silence. Monochromatic void. We see no god beyond those rocks and space dust, simply an unknowable vastness.” Then he switches to Psalms 8:3: “When i consider the work of thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars that thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
The Keats quote is from a poem called Endymion, which you can read in full here. I’ll admit, I often am skeptical of characters just quoting a perfect poem at the perfect time in period dramas without rehearsal, as Dean Woods does here. We also see Margaret and Tony quote poetry at each other when they first meet at a party in Season 2. But I try to remind myself that people had a lot less entertainment in the past and read and memorized more than we do now, just as plenty of us can recite various quotes from our favorite movies, TV shows, and pop songs.
Though Philip had actually been trying to be tactful for once in his life, when Dean Woods actually asks for his opinions, he lets loose his vitriol pretty ferociously. “Me? You want my thoughts? Really. Okay, right. I’ve never heard such a load of pretentious self pitying nonsense. What you lot need to do is get off your backsides, get out into the world, and do something. That is why you are all so lost.” He then continues to wax philosophic about how action is what defines us, not suffering, and says that men need to make their mark on the world. These beliefs all hearken back to his schooling at Gordonstoun, which were examined pretty thoroughly in S2E9 Paterfamilias, and his young adulthood in the British Navy.
He also calls them all “navel-gazing underachievers infecting each other with gaseous doom” and tells them “If you want to start with action, clean up the floor.”
Another Philip-ism comes up when they’re eating dinner, as he jokes that he’s eating so much venison that he’s going to turn into a deer. “I’m listening, with brown furry ears.”
THE CORGIS WANT VENISON. Well of course they do. Good puppiessss (y’all, I want a corgi SO BADLY, you have no idea. But husband John says he’ll only agree to me having a dog when I get a New York Times bestseller).
By the way, the dogs playing the Queen’s corgis apparently eat just a boatload of cheese on set.

The Apollo 11 astronauts meeting the royal family at Buckingham Palace. In real life, Prince Philip was right there with his family meeting the astronauts. He also didn’t have a personal meeting with them (as the episode depicted). — The Apollo 11 astronauts meeting the royal family at Buckingham Palace. In real life, Prince Philip was right there with his family meeting the astronauts. He also didn’t have a personal meeting with them (as the episode depicted) (Credit: PA / Getty).

The actors playing the Apollo 11 astronauts and their wives at Buckingham Palace in The Crown.

Philip is obviously delighted when the Queen tells him that the astronauts are going to come visit the royal family. The Queen says, “I thought that would cheer you up.” “Do I need cheering up?” “A little.”
It’s sweet how she so obviously knows him better than he knows himself. Right before his meeting with the astronauts, the queen stares at Philip with obvious concern, like she’s not quite certain how he’s going to react to anything.
Various stray thoughts about the astronauts’ visit to Buckingham Palace: Philip is basically a kid on Christmas morning when the astronauts come; he is absolutely way too excited. And he’s not the only one. Even the BUTLERS and the maids and footmen are excited, racing to the windows to see them, even though as staff of the royal family, they’ve obviously seen a lot.
I laughed out loud at the background bit in which Margaret lights a cigarette and says “Please don’t tell me you want to talk about children” to one of the astronauts’ wives, who looks suitably flabbergasted.
We really get to see Anne and her little brothers interact with each other and other family members for the first time this season. Anne at one point shoves her little brother out from behind her to meet Neil Armstrong.
The Queen wears a blue dress with a white purse that’s very similar to what she wore in real life, but not identical. I always wonder why they made the little changes they do - like why this dress has sleeves added, but the dress Jackie Kennedy wore to Buckingham Palace in season 2 had its sleeves taken away.

Queen Elizabeth meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts at Buckingham Palace. — Queen Elizabeth meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts at Buckingham Palace (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

Olivia Colman as the Queen meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts. — Olivia Colman as the Queen meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts in The Crown.

In the episode, the astronauts all have colds and Prince Philip runs out of handkerchiefs to give them. In real life, only Neil Armstrong is known to have had a cold at the time of their meeting, but it apparently was bad enough that he considered backing out of the meeting. However, his wife had other ideas. “She told me that if I had to be embalmed, we were going to see the palace,” Neil Armstrong said. “She wanted to see the place.” He apparently coughed on the Queen and when he tried to apologize, coughed on her again. His illness was apparently memorable enough that the Queen later asked an acquaintance about Armstrong’s health.
Buzz Aldrin also revealed on Twitter in 2016 that "Mike Collins almost fell down the stairs trying not to turn his back on Queen Elizabeth II."
Historically, the queen had met space travelers before this visit and continued to show interest in space afterward. She met Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, in July 1961, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, in 1964. She also met an astronaut from Apollo 8 prior to the Apollo 11 astronauts’ visit. When Apollo 12 returned to the moon in November 1969, she woke up early to watch TV coverage of the event.
It appears that, for their meeting with Prince Philip, the astronauts are placed in the same big room that Princess Alice was exploring when the journalist found her there in S2E4 “Bubbikins.” Is that the big, grand room they use to impress visitors? This also ties the episode back to Philip’s mother, whose name has not actually been spoken as of this point in the episode.

Neil Armstrong (Henry Pettigrew), Buzz Aldrin (Felix Scott) and Michael Collins (Andrew Lee Potts) in a scene with Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies)

Jane Lapotaire as Princess Alice in The Crown.

Philip’s meeting with the astronauts is super awkward, with lots of long silences, and disappoints him. He tries to ask the astronauts big profound questions about how they felt up in space, e.g., what their thoughts were out there about humans’ place in the universe, but the astronauts respond that they really didn’t have time for thinking of that, as they were constantly busy performing different procedures and checking items off the list. This is exactly how he guessed it would be earlier in the episode, when he told off the priests at St. George’s house. “Action is what defines us, Action, not suffering - all this sitting around, thinking and talking. Let me ask you this, do you think those astronauts up there are catatonic like you lot. Of course not, they are too busy achieving something spectacular. And as a result, they are at one with the world. At one with their god. And happy.”
He was terribly disappointed when the astronauts’ most profound observation to him was that their water cooler in space sucked and kept them awake with noise. They then took the opportunity to ask him lots of mundane questions about his life - how many rooms are in the palace, how long the hallways are, and how many staff they had, before the audio trails off.
Philip later comments to the queen: “I don’t know what I was thinking. I expected them to be giants, gods. But in reality they’re just three little men, pale-faced with colds.”
The Queen notes in response that the very qualities that make one a good astronaut (their sense of duty, reliability, modesty) and perfect in a crisis are not necessarily those that make for a really interesting person (originality or inventiveness). It almost seems like she’s talking about herself and Margaret again, hearkening back to her discussion with Philip at the end of S3E2 Margaretology about the dull, trustworthy people vs. the interesting, unreliable people of her family. “They never wanted to be public but because of one event, they will be forever.” (They must have known what they were getting into though, right?) “They delivered as astronauts but they disappointed as human beings.”
Philip-ism: “Good job there were no little green men. They could be forgiven for thinking, ‘if that’s all planet Earth has got to offer, let’s give the place a miss.’”
After the astronauts disappoint him terribly, he pauses by the staircase leading up to his mother’s empty room and walks up to look around at it sadly. He then goes to St. George’s again and finally admits that something’s been wrong with him lately; although he’s generally a cantankerous person, he’s been over-exercising, over-zealously following the space race. He talks about his mother’s death and his own lack of faith for the first time in the episode, says straight out that he’s desperate and lost, and asks the priests for help.
Sidenote: He says something slightly mysterious while talking about his crisis. “Just like other people hitting that crisis, you resort to all the usual things to try to make yourself feel better. Some of which I can admit in this room and others which I probably shouldn’t.” This seems to imply that he may have committed some big sin he can’t talk about with the priests. Just like in the second season, where Philip never actually denies that he’s cheated, it’s left really ambiguous as to whether Philip has had affairs or not.
As the end of the episode notes, St. George’s House is a real organization that Prince Philip helped found (although in real life, it was started a few years before the moon landing occurred). He also was apparently quite a bit more enthusiastic about the concept from the get-go than is portrayed here. You can find out more information about the founding of St. George’s House here.
Wonderfully, the entire episode seems to fulfill the T.S. Eliot quote from Dean Woods’ sermon. “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” After meeting the astronauts and trying to find meaning in the space race, he finally comes back to the priests and admits that he’s been lost since his mother’s death; he is coming back to where he started and now knows himself better.

Over-Analyzing the Crown: S3E6 Tywysog Cymru

November 27, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in English History, TV and Film

Prince Charles learns Welsh from a Welsh nationalist and becomes a Wale himself when he’s invested as Prince of Wales. (Clearly, my summaries of these episodes are not going to be very in-depth or serious, as I’m assuming you’ve watched the episode already if you’re reading my post overanalyzing it. :D )

The name of the episode translates to “Leader of Wales” in Welsh, or in this context, “Prince of Wales.” This ties back into the entire Prince Charles in Wales plot line and particularly, his discussion with Professor Milward about Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last Welsh Prince of Wales, who was killed in battle by Edward I in 1282. Edward’s son (also Edward because, English royals have no creativity when it comes to naming) , was invested as the first English Prince of Wales in 1301.

Professor Edward Millward and Prince Charles

Mark Lewis Jones as Professor Edward Millward in The Crown

The episode starts off with the Cabinet meeting in which the investiture of the Prince of Wales is discussed. The previous investiture in 1911 was of the eventual Edward VII. We know him as David, Duke of Windsor, who abdicated within a year of becoming King in order to marry Wallis Simpson. He was invested at age 17; Charles was not invested until he was 20.
In case you were wondering, a formal investiture ceremony is not necessary to become the Prince of Wales; the actual title is conveyed via letters patent. It is not a hereditary title, so the sovereign does have to create and bestow the title on his/her eldest living son (When Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, the then-3-years-old Charles automatically became the Duke of Cornwall).
Edward/David was made Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, over a year before the formal investiture; Charles was actually declared Prince of Wales when he turned 9. The 1911 one was made public for political reasons; the Prime Minister at the time, David Lloyd George, thought that the event would calm down the growing swell of Welsh Nationalism and increase his own popularity. Apparently previous investitures were quite a bit more private and less ceremonial. As was mentioned in the episode in the Cabinet meeting, the 1911 investiture included a deployment of 15,000 troops, a Devonshire-class cruiser, 21 gun salutes, a battery of Royal Field Artillery, a landing party supplied by the blue jackets and the royal marines, two squadrons of cavalry of the line. During this meeting, Wilson is flanked on either side by female members of his cabinet in Orange and Green; when he’s talking to the Queen about the investiture, she herself is wearing green. You’ll see a LOT of green and pinks/oranges in this episode, which seems to signal “Wales” without coming off too Christmassy.
Sidenote that I just love: at the 1911 investiture, Queen Mary wore several pieces given to her by a group of women who were all named “Mary.”

Prince Edward (David)’s 1911 investiture as Prince of Wales

Prince Edward (David)’s investiture as Prince of Wales

Additional Note: Elizabeth was never given the title “Princess of Wales.” At the time, the line of succession was determined by male preference primogeniture, so she became “the heiress presumptive” when her father became King. If her father had had a legitimate son, that son would have taken precedence, and would have been the “heir apparent”; thus, named the “Prince of Wales.”
“Princess of Wales” has only been used to refer to the Prince of Wales’ wife in the past (Though Prince Charles’ wife Diana went by the Princess of Wales, his second wife Camilla uses the title “Duchess of Cornwall” instead, due to the title’s strong association with Diana). Technically though, “Princess FIRSTNAME” is only the correct title to use when the Princess of Wales is a princess in her own right, e.g., she herself is the daughter of a sovereign of another country (so neither “Princess Diana” or “Princess Kate” are correct).
It’s a bit unclear whether that tradition will continue now that male preference primogeniture has been abolished in the UK (the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 replace this system with absolute primogeniture, making it so the eldest child of the sovereign is always the heir to the throne, regardless of sex. This act also removed the requirement to get the sovereign’s permission to marry and changed the rules so that royals marrying Roman Catholics can still remain in the line of succession).
Fun Fact: A whole new set of Welsh honours (coronet, rod, ring, sword, and a robe with doublet and sash) were made for Prince Edward in 1911. The rod, ring, and sword all feature the Welsh dragon. The rod, ring, and sword were reused for Prince Charles’s investiture in 1969, but a new coronet had to be made, as Edward/David had actually illegally taken his coronet with him when he went into exile. After his death, it was retrieved and taken back to the UK. This coronet is now part of the Crown Jewels, along with the 1728 coronet of Frederick, the eldest son of George II. Charles’s own coronet is part of the honours of Wales.
This article from Town & Country talks a lot more about all the design of Charles’s coronet and is super interesting.

Prince Edward/David’s Coronet (Credit: Royal Collection Trust).

Prince Charles’ Coronet (Credit: Royal Collection Trust).

Josh O’Connor vs. Prince Charles. MATCHING EARS. — Josh O’Connor vs. Prince Charles (Credit: Tim Graham / Getty). MATCHING EARS.

When the Queen gathers the family to tell Prince Charles that he has to go to study in Wales, the Queen is wearing green and Anne is wearing red, the colors of the Welsh flag, while everyone else is in blues and blacks. It’s a little hard to see, but Charles is actually wearing a green and orange tie and a matching pocket square.
I know that dramatically it makes sense to have the entire family on one side and then poor Charles alone on the opposite, as it makes him look very alone as he’s feeling upset about being sent off away from everyone, but in real life, it’s a bit odd and impractical. This set up also seems to evoke a vague military feel, possibly referring to the “feudal invasion” of military members participating in the previous investiture of the prince of Wales that Prime Minister Wilson joked about earlier.
This actor (Josh O’Connor) doesn’t look much like Charles from the front, but from the back, they’re really similar. It’s the ears!

The prince’s safety in Wales is never discussed in the episode (although we do see his ever-present body guards), but historically, there were actual threats made against his life. Two members of a small secret group called Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (The Movement for the Defence of Wales) were actually killed in Abergele when the bomb they were carrying to a railway line (along which the royal train would run) exploded. A few days later, a bomb left in the town exploded and hurt a young boy.
I learned while researching this episode that many supporters of Plaid Cymru actually backed the monarchy; they wanted Wales to become a dominion, like Canada or Australia. If this happened the Queen would still be the head of state. It was the younger branch of Plaid Cymru that was really anti-monarchy and against the investiture. This anti-monarchy branch was highly motivated by the destruction of Capel Celyn, one of the last Welsh-only speaking communities, which was flooded to build a reservoir to provide water to Liverpool (which is discussed later in the episode).
The tiny little facial expressions of Milward and the students around them when Charles first attempts to pronounce Welsh and mangles it terribly tell just so much about their feelings toward Charles, the English, and their presence in Wales.
Later, Millward righteously reams out Charles for his indifference to Welsh culture and the meaning of his role to both Wales and the university. Though this is probably deserved, Milward’s barb about how previous Prince of Wales never visited is actually misplaced when you look at the historical evidence. King George V was actually considered a very good prince of Wales while he held the title, and had taken a personal interest in Wales. In addition, Edward/David was a hugely popular Prince of Wales who definitely did visit. He served with distinction in World War One and, during the Depression years, toured the badly hit parts of Britain and the Welsh mining valleys in particular.
When Charles comes in to show Milward that he’s been to the library and learned about Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, there’s a family tree on the chalkboard behind him that of Llewellyn’s actual family, indicating that Milward really did plan to teach him about it that day. In that embarrassing staff dinner scene, Millward had joked to everyone “we’ll go over that this week.”
Poor Charles. His line “It’s alright, I’m incredibly used to it.” about being alone and having no friends makes me so sad.
I hadn’t realized that Mrs. Milward is literally on the phone with someone talking about how she can’t understand how her husband can even stand to be in the same room with Charles while Charles is bringing groceries in. It’s sweet how he actually is carrying the groceries in and tries to help.
Milward is wearing light green at his house, is often lit with green light, and there are often paintings or decorations around him that are green, green folders. This is a WELSH man! His pregnant wife is also wearing a pink, white and green dress (with some orange too), like a pale version of the Welsh flag. Later that night, she literally wears a pink, white, and green nightgown.
The scene where Elizabeth and Philip reminisce over the time their parents kept them apart for four months to try to get her to stop loving him is so cute (although I hate that Philip says his son shouldn’t be trusted with editing his own speech and Elizabeth just goes along with it). They seem like such a happy, healthy couple this season. This conversation will be echoed a few episodes later when Camilla Shand comes into the picture and other members of Charles’ family come up with a similar plot to separate the two.
They don’t emphasize Charles’ security team as much as they did in the S2E9 episode Paterfamilias, probably because he’s 20 now and not a child, but they are always around, just around the corner. It’s subtle, but you do see a quick glimpse of his security team going through people’s bags and such right before the ceremony.
The filming style of this episode really emphasize the green hills of Wales as the royal train goes through the countryside. Although the Queen, Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret all wear clothes that are almost exactly what they wore in real life, they are indeed in pink, cream, and green, which echo the Welsh flag. Anne is in blue, which also is historically accurate, but seems also to indicate her close ties to Charles. All of these hats are accurate (and some of them are just ridiculous). The queen’s hat kind of makes her look like a pearl beaded volleyball.
Sidenote: Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Princess Margaret in Season 3, is 6 inches shorter than Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in Season 1 and 2. However, Bonham Carter is significantly closer to Princess Margaret’s actual height; Margaret was 5’2”. Queen Elizabeth herself is 5’4”; Claire Foy (who played her in season 1 and 2) is 5’4” and Olivia Colman (who plays her in Season 3) is 5’7”.

Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, and the Queen Mother Elizabeth at Prince Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales (Credit: Anwar Hussein / Getty).

Erin Doherty as Princess Anne, Marion Bailey as the Queen Mother, and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret in The Crown.

Prince Charles always seems to be wearing blue or grey (maybe because he’s sad?). I’m happy that this season shows Charles’s continued close connection with his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten; I loved seeing Dickie advocate for Charles in the S2 episode Paterfamilias.
Millward wears a blue paisley tie when watching Charles’ investiture in the pub, matching Charles’s standard color scheme. I think this symbolizes their connection and friendship. He’s surrounded by lots of friends wearing various shades of green and red. Mrs. Milward and her son are in blue, plus green, showing their connection to both Charles and Welsh pride.
Milward looks SO PROUD when Charles pronounces atmosphere correctly-ish in Welsh.
There are several interesting things about Charles’ investiture that aren’t mentioned in the episode. The actual ceremony of the investiture sounds very old, but was in fact only created for the 1911 occasion. Lord Snowdon (Tony Armstrong-Jones, Princess Margaret’s husband), who himself was Welsh, designed the event and the simple slate dais for the ceremony.
A lot of the insignia used in the investiture is really symbolic and you could go down a very deep rabbit hole in learning about it all. The College of Arms has some great photographs and scans of programs explaining the meaning of all the insignia here, if you’d like to learn more.
You can actually watch some of the 1911 ceremony on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31P5ES45fw . Prince Charles’s 1969 investiture is on YouTube in full at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zaLuA_DGI.
It is really wonderful that Charles actually went on a tour around Wales to meet people after his investiture. It was a really successful tour and BBC actually has a lot of footage of it up on their website.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government also built an entire year-long campaign called Croeso 69 (Welcome ‘69). They wanted to use it to show a modern Wales, promote tourism, and demonstrate British interest while Welsh nationalism was on the rise.

Queen Elizabeth, Princess Anne, and Prince Charles at Charles’ Investiture as Prince of Wales. — Queen Elizabeth, Princess Anne, and Prince Charles at Charles’ Investiture as Prince of Wales (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II and Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles in The Crown.

The last scene between the Queen and Prince Charles, as she’s getting ready for bed, is shot to indicate the great distance between the queen and her son while they’re talking. She is barely repressing her fury at her son for changing up his speech.
The queen refers to her grandmother telling her that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do of all. We saw that conversation in S1E4 episode Act of God, when Queen Elizabeth goes to Queen Mary for advice about whether she should talk to Winston Churchill during the Great Smog.
We see how angry the queen is with her son in this scene, but we also saw how protective she was of him earlier, both when she advocated him for staying at Cambridge to Wilson and when she suggested he be allowed to make changes to his speech (which he ends up doing on his own). She also is wearing blue in this scene, signifying her sympathies with her son, even when they’re disagreeing most stridently with each other. Charles himself is wearing the same green and orange tie and pocket square that he wore when he was told he was going to Wales, although his suit appears to have more of a greenish tinge now. There’s a subtle checked square pattern (with each square containing a circle) in both his tie and his mother’s robe, further illustrating their bond as sovereign and heir.

“I have a voice.” “Let me let you into a secret. No one wants to hear it.” “Are you talking about you or the country?” “No one.” This is one of the saddest moments ever to happen in The Crown.
If you want to learn more about the Queen and Prince Philip’s approach to parenting, this article gets into it a bit.
If we’re going off of Prince Philip’s earlier observation from S3E2 Margaretology about how the royal family tends to have a lot of dull people and sparkling people (Lillibets and Margarets), Charles seems to be a bit more the Margaret of this generation and Anne seems to be a bit more the Lillibet, resigned to her place and willing to do her duty (despite how similar her personality is to her father’s).

Prince Charles with the Dryden Society at Cambridge (Credit: PA / Getty).

Prince Charles with the Dryden Society (Credit: Bettman / Getty).

Though Charles did perform with a drama society while at Cambridge, it looks like they did more comedic sketches rather than Shakespearean drama. Some of the photographs of him rehearsing with the Dryden Society (as it was called) are just hilarious.
At the very end of the episode, Charles performs the hollow crown speech from Shakespeare’s play Richard II. Both Charles and Richard II were given the title Prince of Wales at age 9, the former in 1958 and the latter in 1376. The text is specifically from Richard II Act 3, Scene II, when Richard has pretty much reached his lowest point. Most of his supporters are dead and he feels terribly alone and very vulnerable. It is a good echo for Prince Charles’s own feelings of despair about his role as heir to the throne and a dramatic, if terribly sad, way to end the episode.

For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E5 Coup

November 23, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in English History, TV and Film

Prime Minister Harold Wilson is unpopular due to all the economic troubles in England, so, pushed by his Cabinet, he fires Lord Mountbatten in an effort to improve things, who then joins an attempt to launch a coup of the government. Queen Elizabeth takes a break from it all to go hang out with horses in France and Kentucky (good for her!).

So that front page of the newspaper shown in the show totally happened, y’all. Here’s the actual one.

There’s a really intense music at the beginning of this episode (that vaguely reminds me of the “previously on Battlestar Galactica” music? If you’ve watched it, you’ll know what i mean) as we follow Cecil King from the street into the newsroom, where he crosses out the headline and makes it harsher. This is the second episode in a row where the episode starts by following a minor character’s walk from a vehicle into a building to spew harsh truths; in “Bubbikins,” the episode started off with Princess Alice’s accountant getting out of a motorcycle sidecar and walking into the convent to talk to her. I think they’re both even wearing tan jackets. How odd.
It’s ironic that Cecil King’s own harsh coverage of Labour government is what pushes the Cabinet to urge Wilson to fire Lord Mountbatten from his job as Chief of the Defence Staff. Cecil LOVES Lord Mountbatten and thinks his firing is the worst. They emphasize both in the newsroom and in the cabinet that the Mirror is a Labour-supporting newspaper, and yet they’re STILL criticizing the government really harshly. And then King starts to launch a coup (because his name was just foreshadowing I guess???).
Can I just say that I love that this show kept everyone’s names, no matter how many of them there were? In this episode, we have a Cecil King and a Cecil who serves as Elizabeth’s racing manager (his surname wasn’t given in the episode but IMDB says it’s Boyd-Rochfort). In the second season, we saw Cecile Beaton the royal photographer (he was in the first season too, i think, but I don’t know if we ever got his name).
It may seem like a small thing for which to applaud them, but OTHER English “period” dramas haven’t done that. The Tudors notoriously erased one of Henry VIII’s sisters, changed the other one’s name from Mary to Margaret to avoid confusion with Henry’s daughter Mary, and then married her off to the king of Portugal (it was FRANCE, y’all. /sigh/).
I marathoned season 1 and 2 of the Crown recently, so I enjoy seeing the ways in which the cabinet meetings change over time. This Labour cabinet seems a little more combative then the previous Prime Ministers’, plus I think this is the first one we’ve seen women sit in? Even if there were women in the previous seasons’ cabinets, they definitely weren’t as outspoken or comfortable in the room as the ones we see in Harold Wilson’s cabinet. They’re both pretty fabulous. We’ve got Wilson’s private secretary, Marcia Williams/Falkender (played by Sinead Matthew), who previously yelled “Grow some balls!” at Wilson in the Aberfan episode. We also have Barbara Castle ( played by Lorraine Ashbourne), who served many different roles under Wilson, including as the first-ever Minister for Overseas Development, Minister of Transport, Secretary of State for Employment and Secretary of State for Social Services.
In this scene, Wilson is back to his pipe in front of a single green lantern that’s lit in the dark, while all the others are off. The women in the meeting wear green. This seems to point to the money focus of the current meeting and crisis. Conveniently, as they talk about how pompous and proud Lord Mountbatten is, we see a scene of him wearing the grandest military uniform ever, in front of a huge number of soldiers. Wilson fights against the suggestion of firing him very briefly, but not too hard, not like when he fought against blaming the queen for Aberfan.

Harold Wilson with Marcia Williams/Falkender (Credit: PA)

Marcia Williams/Falkender (played by Sinead Matthew) in The Crown

Wilson kicks him out while sitting in the cabinet room at the gigantic table; they both look very tiny in that large space at that large table. I’ve noticed that Mountbatten basically wears the colors of the Union Jack in every shot in this episode—a blue tie when Wilson fires him and a red, white, and blue tie when his office is being cleaned out.

Mountbatten sits in his office forlornly as people clean out his office around him and receives a very sad cake with the haphazardly written “Farewell” on it. A bunch of soldiers serenade him with “Auld Lang Syne” as he leaves. HIS PAINTING is literally is being carried out right behind him; that’s a beautiful and dramatic shot, as all the singing military men look down to watch him pass. I’m not positive, but I think the painting is actually of Lord Mountbatten in real life rather than Charles Dance?
Sidenote: The Aberfan villagers have these soldiers beat when it comes to three-part harmony.
That dog is looking up at Mountbatten’s son very intently while waiting for Mountbatten to drive home. Mountbatten also has statues of all his dogs? Huh. The guy really likes his dogs I guess. Also, if I ever get fired in the future, I definitely want to recover from it by dramatically bathing in a gorgeous tub while petting a dog and drinking liquor from a crystal decanter.

Lord Mountbatten with his dog Kimberley (Credit: David Montgomery / Getty)

Lord Mountbatten in The Crown Season 1 ?, portrayed by Greg Wise

We next see the Queen on the train, wearing a business-like white floral dress and hat and signing various acts. When Michael Deane says “Pens down, your majesty, ten minutes to Newmarket,” she instantly smiles and looks so much lighter and brighter. She then changes into the clothes she’d wear all the time if she could, more sensible clothing, in blues and a plaid skirt. There’s a very lovely small moment where she picks a hair off the clothes of the woman dressing her, indicating their close, friendly relationship, even if we haven’t actually met this woman in the story itself.
At the ascot races, with Porchie, the Queen is in a ridiculously pink and grey floral dress with a very loud matching hat, while her mom is in a similar purple and white floral. Porchie and Dickie are both in the traditional ascot race men’s uniform, top hats and tails. Mountbatten calls her father’s horse training methods obsolete, quite obviously talking about himself and how he was fired. The Queen notably looks over at Queen mother as Porchie mentions she can deputize people to serve in her absence.

Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten in The Crown

When the Queen meets with Wilson, she is noticeably distracted by a large painting of her horse (this seems to tie back to the previous episode, in which a shot at the end showed that her office was positively full of horse paintings). When Wilson says he has to devalue the pound and feels totally humiliated by it all, the queen barely reacts and is just like, eh, that sucks, I’m off to France to hang with horses now.
Cecil King is in a black pin striped jacket, red tie, and has a gold clock on a chain. His outfit is the first indication we’ve really seen that he’s actually a rich banker. He quotes Hamlet, saying “there is special Providence in a fall. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.”
Cecil’s mention of Mountbatten’s war hero credentials brings something to mind; it wasn’t mentioned very much in the first two seasons, but it’s a good reminder that pretty much all the adults older than 30 at this point in the show lived through World War II, and a good portion of them are also war heroes.
As Wilson explains devaluing on tv, all the cabinet wears red, red ties and red dresses, continuing the apparent “Union Jack” costuming with all the people involved in the government and coup plot. Perhaps this indicate that all of them really are trying to act in the country’s best interest?
This continues at the Bank of England coup meeting with Mountbatten in a blue tie and Cecil King in a red tie.
Then we watch a dramatic montage of Mountbatten researching coups, history and law, while wearing red white and blue tie. I gotta say, if you’re going to launch a coup, researching what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t is pretty smart. The shot of the cars approaching mountbatten’s house all at once is almost military invasion-like.

As talks about ways to do a coup, we see b-roll of the Queen looking very happy while doing horse things and wearing various tans and light green outfits and scarfs (pink, light blue, brown). Basically, throughout her horse holiday, she’s wearing very non-Union Jack colors because she’s on holiday and trying not to think about being Queen right now, thank you very much. She and Porchie also seem to match at times, indicating their friendship. Porchie does look at her a little too long at one point, bringing back the Season 1 plotline about how he’s secretly in love with her.

“Porchie” and the Queen (Credit: Roger Jackson / Getty)

The Queen (Claire Foy) and “Porchie” (Joseph Kloska) in The Crown

“Porchie” (John Hollingworth) and the Queen (Olivia Colman) in The Crown

The conversation in which the Queen says that “this,” namely, being involved with horses, was what she was really meant to do full time, not being Queen. There’s so much sadness and regret in her voice as she talks about how she only is in this position because her uncle didn’t do his own job.
Wilson is again wearing a red tie when he calls the Queen and tells her about the coup and Mountbatten’s involvement in it. As she walks back up the stairs afterwards, she looks terribly defeated, but tightens her lips and gets down to the business of being Queen again, the job she never wanted and the job she can never leave.
When the Queen meets with Mountbatten, she’s wearing a somber brown skirt suit and starts out the conversation facing away from him at her desk, quite clearly curious. Mountbatten, in a blue and red tie, quickly realizes that she knows exactly what he’s been plotting.
I love her fierce response to his “how can you protect Wilson?” “I am protecting the prime minister. I am protecting the constitution. I am protecting democracy.” She may not like being Queen, but she clearly has grown into her role and is very good at it. She knows what she’s doing now and understands that her role as head of the family is to stop this madness immediately, before Mountbatten’s actions result in the entire royal family being …de-royaled? What would the term be here, I wonder?
She also is very specifically posed at center of the screen looking straight out at Mountbatten, full of righteous anger. He took her away from the things she loved and brought her back to reality in the most unthinkable way possible. She icily reminds him that there are other things he could be doing right now, such as looking in on his sister.
Mountbatten then does have a really lovely and sweet scene with his sister, who apparently now is bedridden. They laugh over how little children now lecture them.
This is such an interesting episode. During Seasons 1 and 2, Lord Mountbatten or “Uncle Dickie” as we’ve heard him called, was always presented as an essentially likeable and good character. Not perfect (he exchanged some nasty barbs with his wife, if I recall), but good. He comforted the young Philip at his sister’s funeral and served as a father figure for him, he gently communicated some concerns from the Conservative party about Winston Churchill to Elizabeth in a way that didn’t seem pushy, he was a confidant to Prince Charles and advocated for the boy when he was being bullied. Yet, the first time we see him in Season 3, he’s introduced in a commander role we’ve never seen him in and described as a pompous man. He’s played by an actor notorious for playing villainous roles. And he tries to stage a coup, which obviously, is terrible. It’s such a huge change . But then strangely enough, the rest of the season, he’s portrayed as pretty much a genuinely well-intentioned guy who’s trying to do good for his family and a hero in almost every storyline (except possibly the Camilla storyline in S3E9, which we’ll discuss later).
At the end of the episode, we see Prince Philip for the first time all episode, when he delightedly realizes that his wife is finally home. They talk a little about Porchie being made the new racing manager, but all the old rancor is gone now; they seem happily comfortable with each other and their relationship at this point. He then gives her a very passionate kiss, at which she promises “I’ll be up in a minute.” He has just the cutest, happiest smile on his face as he walks away.

Rupert Vansittartas as Cecil King in The Crown

So. How much of the coup plot in this episode really happened? Here’s what we know. Cecil King was Chairman of the huge International Publishing Corporation, which owned the Daily Mirror, and a director at the Bank of England. According to a memoir by Hugh Cudlipp, a newspaper editor and publisher [who worked with king?], King was convinced that Britain was headed for ruin and Wilson and the rest of the Labour government in charge needed to be kicked out before they pushed the country over the edge.
King and his allies did try to get Lord Mountbatten on board with their plans, and even approached him at the Burma Star Association annual reunion (although it wasn’t King who talked to Mountbatten). King, Cudlipp, and Mountbatten did meet in 1968 to discuss King’s plans (Mountbatten brought a friend of his along). At the end, King did actually ask Mountbatten to be a titular head of government in the event of their coup. However, both Mountbatten and his friend left, saying the plan was rank treachery and they could not possibly be involved in it. A few days later, King decided to go ahead even without Mountbatten on board and published a Daily Mirror front page calling for Wilson to be brought down. He was dismissed as chairman of his publishing group three weeks later.
The Queen and Porchie did go on a fact-finding tour of various stables in 1969. However, it was a much shorter trip just to France. Porchie was appointed her racing manager and stayed in that position until his death.
Lord Mountbatten recites a poem at his Burma veterans meeting to great effect. It’s the last verse of a poem by Rudyard Kipling called “Mandalay,” which is all about how a veteran is looking back on his time in Mandalay, in Burma, and wishing he was back there. It was very popular at the time and a version of it was even set to music and sung by Frank Sinatra. It’s less popular these days, as it’s got an outdated imperialist point of view. But it works perfectly for a meeting of people who were in the Burma campaign in World War II. It apparently is sometimes still read at World War II veterans events in the United Kingdom. You can find the full poem here.
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown

November 22, 2019 by Rachael Dickson in English History, TV and Film

All My Posts on The Crown
S3: 1 & 2: “Olding” & “Margaretology” 3: “Aberfan” 4: “Bubbikins, 5: “Coup” 6: “Tywysog Cymru” 7: “Moondust" 8: “Dangling Man” 9: “Imbroglio” 10: “Cri de Coeur”
S4: 1: “Gold Stick” 2: “The Balmoral Test” 3: “Fairytale” 4: “Favourites” 5: “Fagan” 6: “Terra Nullius” 7: ”The Hereditary Principle” 8: “48:1”
Season 1 Tiaras and Crowns of “The Crown”; The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown
Visual Cinderella References in The Crown S4E3 Fairytale

Every time a state banquet or occasion happens in the show, the actors’ costumes are positively covered in medals, sashes, necklaces, and ribbons. But what do they all mean? Let’s find out. :) =

Claire Foy as Elizabeth II in Season 1 of The Crown, wearing a a blue riband representing the Order of the Garter, several Royal Family orders, and a recreation of the George IV State Diadem.

Olivia Colman as Elizabeth II in Season 3 of The Crown, wearing a a blue riband representing the Order of the Garter, and a recreation of the George IV State Diadem.

The Queen wears the George IV State Diadem, made in 1820. It’s been worn by four queens so far, Victoria, Alexandra, Mary, and Elizabeth II.

Elizabeth’s Pink and Blue Ribbons with medallions: As you can see in the photos of Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, for state occasions, the Queen often wears medallions with portraits on them on some raw silk. These are Royal Family Orders, which are awarded to female members of the British royal family by the monarch (since women don’t get the commemorative medals that the men do). These badges include a small portrait of the monarch in a diamond frame placed over a ribbon; each monarch has a different color silk ribbon. Elizabeth’s pink ribbon badge is from George VI (her father) and her pale blue ribbon badge is from George V (her grandfather). Her own royal family badge is yellow. These awards are given out privately and not announced, so they only way you know whether a family member has received one is if you see them wearing them in public. These are only worn at formal events, like state dinners.

Elizabeth’s and Philip’s Blue Sashes: The sashes are actually called ribands, a fellow Crown fan helpfully informed me on Facebook (thank you Eric Hufford!). These are sashes worn over the left shoulder. A member will only wear one riband at a time, even if they belong to several orders. However, since some of the orders also come with badges, people may wear a riband from one order, and badges from several other, so they’re all represented. The orders of highest rank get the most prominent positions on a uniform and then are arranged in descending order of importance.

These blue sashes featured in the series look like the blue sashes of the Order of the Garter. The Royal Victorian Order actually is blue bordered by red and appears to be worn from the right shoulder instead of the left. (Thank you to the brilliant Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor blog for lots of info!)

Many different countries give out order sashes, and the ribands often come with additional insignia. The Order of the Garter riband is also worn with a Badge and a Star. A Knight of the Order of the Garter (a male member, as opposed to a Lady, a female member) also receives a mantle, feathered cap, and a blue garter with the order’s motto.

Apparently, the rules for giving out orders vary widely from country to country. Queen Elizabeth herself awards British orders fairly rarely. Orders are generally worn with men’s military uniforms or white tie dress code and with women’s gowns and tiaras.

By the way, although it’s not required for the Queen to wear white on state occasions, it appears that she generally does favor white or other light colored dresses, as those colors show off the ribbons and sashes very well.

Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown Seasons 1-2, wearing a blue sash representing The Order of the Garter, several royal family badges, and a recreation of Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara.

Queen Elizabeth II wearing Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara. — Queen Elizabeth II wearing Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara (Credit: Time Graham / Getty).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown Season 3, wearing a blue sash representing The Order of the Garter, several royal family badges, and a recreation of Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara.

Queen Elizabeth II wearing Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara. — Queen Elizabeth II wearing Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara (Credit: Popperfoto / Getty).

The Tiaras: UPDATE 3/4/2021: I’ve started doing quick roundups identifying every crown and tiara featured in The Crown! Go check out the posts on Season 1 and Season 2!

In the photos at the top of this post, both Queens are wearing the George IV State Diadem. This diadem is traditionally worn by queens and queens consort in procession to coronations and state openings of Parliament. The Queen must like this one, as she has worn it on numerous other occasions as well

The photos directly above this Tiaras section show Claire Foy wearing a recreation of Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara, dating back to 1888, (left, Claire Foy), and Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara (Olivia Colman, right). Elizabeth also wore the Fringe Tiara on her wedding day. All of her tiaras are gorgeous and have fascinating histories; if you want to learn more, Harpers Bazaar Australia has a great round up of the tiaras here.

The Queen has so many tiaras, y’all! The Court Jeweller has a fantastic Tiarapedia which methodically lists all of the United Kingdom tiaras that you should definitely check out for more information. I’ve included pics of a few of my favorite ones that I don’t really discuss much in this post below this tiaras section.

Anne wears the Meander Tiara, which was originally owned by Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark. The Queen wears the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara. The red and white ribands are for the order of Austria. When visiting a foreign country, … — Anne wears the Meander Tiara, which was originally owned by Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark. The Queen wears the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara. The red and white ribands are for the order of Austria. When visiting a foreign country, that country’s order insignia takes precedence over your native country’s (Credit: Fox Photos / Getty).

Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Brazilian Aquamarine Parure Tiara, along with the matching necklace and earrings. (Parure refers to a set of jewelry and tiara) — Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Brazilian Aquamarine Parure Tiara, along with the matching necklace and earrings (Credit: Anwar Hussein / Getty). (Parure refers to a set of jewelry and tiara)

The Queen wears the Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara in its “widowed” setting to meet President Obama. This tiara can be worn with emerald or pearl drops and without; it’s described as “widowed” when worn without drops. — The Queen wears the Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara in its “widowed” setting to meet President Obama. This tiara can be worn with emerald or pearl drops and without; it’s described as “widowed” when worn without drops (Credit: Chris Jackson / Getty).

Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Burmese Ruby Tiara. — Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Burmese Ruby Tiara (Credit: Terry O’Neill).

Matt Smith as Prince Philip in The Crown Season 2.

Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip in The Crown Season 3.

Prince Philip with Betty Ford (Credit: Historical / Getty).

Prince Philip at a state dinner for the President of Mexico (Credit: Justin Tallis / Getty).

Philip has a TON of medals, mostly earned for his wartime service in World War II. Many many thanks to the Daily Mail for the medal descriptions below, because good lord, it would have taken me a long time to look these all up on my own.

He is, of course, wearing his Order of the Garter blue sash and the accompanying badge and star.

1939-1945 Star: A campaign medal of the British Commonwealth awarded for service during the Second World War.

Atlantic Star: Awarded this in 1945 for service in the Atlantic during the Second World War

Africa Star: Awarded in 1945 for service in Africa during the Second World War

Burma Star (with Pacific Rosette): Awarded for service in the Burma Campaign in the Second World War

Italy Star: Awarded for service in Italy and surrounding areas in the Second World War

War Medal 1939-1945, with Mention in Dispatches: Awarded to those who served in the Armed Forces or Merchant Navy for at least 28 days between 1939-45. The oak leaf on the ribbon denotes the Mention in Despatches

King George VI Coronation Medal, 1937: These medals were made to commemorate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, 1953: A commemorative medal made to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

Greek War Cross, 1950: This is awarded for heroism in wartime to both Greeks and foreign allies. The Duke earned his for his bravery in fighting the Italians when they invaded Greece in 1941.

Croix de Guerre (France) with Palm, 1948: A French military decoration to honour people who fought with the Allies against Axis nations in the Second World War.

Philip’s Uniform: Occasionally, you’ll see Prince Philip wear his Naval uniform. This uniform is basically the same but there are slightly different details if you look. Matt Smith’s uniform when Philip was made a Prince had epaulettes at the top.
I’m not great at reading military uniform ranks, but I’m fairly positive that the yellow lines with the circle at the top seen on the sleeves of Matt Smith’s uniform at the far left and Prince Philip’s sleeves on the far right indicate his rank as a commander.

Philip’s Military Service: Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy at 18 , graduating from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth at the top of his class. He served on several British battleships during World War II, despite the fact that two of his brothers-in-law fought on the opposing German side. He did very well, becoming one of the youngest first lieutenants at age 21. He was present in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrender was signed.

Philip actually met his future wife Elizabeth because of his time in the Navy. Elizabeth’s parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth came to tour the college and asked Philip to escort the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret around. Although she was only 13 and he was 18, they began to exchange letters. Seven years later, after the war, Philip asked the King for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The King approved, but requested that any formal engagement be delayed until after she turned 21. In order to marry Elizabeth, Philip abandoned his own Greek and Danish royal titles, adopted the surname Mountbatten from his mother’s family, became a naturalized citizen of the UK, and officially joined the Church of England.

After their honeymoon, Philip returned to the navy, working in a desk job at the Admiralty, then at Greenwich, and finally being stationed in Malta. He was promoted to lieutenant commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie. Although his active naval career ended in 1951 when his wife became Queen, he was promoted to the rank of commander in 1952.