Over-Analyzing The Crown: S4E2 The Balmoral Test
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
Screenshot from The Crown, Netflix
Since I had great fun over-analyzing every episode of Season 3 of The Crown last year, I’m doing the same thing this year! I’ll be /trying/ to write these posts up one episode at a time (although I may watch ahead a bit of my writing), so there won’t be spoilers for any main plot points of any episode except that which I’m covering in the post, although I may point out a little foreshadowing to later strife and such. So if you haven’t watched Season 4 Episode 2 of the Crown yet and don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading now. :)
This may be my favorite episode of The Crown literally ever, I laughed so hard at all the Thatcher/Royal Family shenanigans and loved the more extended introduction to Diana.
I kind of love episodes that start off with tiny characters we’ve never seen before and will never seen again. Here, it’s a short hunting scene with one of their Balmoral neighbors and his client. I love the way the neighbor says “That’s the line where our estate ends and the other begins. And we never cross that line.”)
Queen talks about how she has so many commitments for the day, but Philip just responds, "I've cancelled them.” The entire scene at the breakfast table where Philip and Anne argue over who ‘s going to get the stag is super funny. This family is so hilariously hunting crazy. Philip and Anne specifically joke about how the great stag head currently in their dining room NEEDS to have a rival to it. glowering at it across the room. Sure enough, at the end of the episode, the stag head is placed exactly where they said it should go.
Royal family members who notably do NOT hunt the stag in this episode: Princess Margaret, who goes out to meet the family for lunch but doesn’t go out with them earlier (In real life, Margaret apparently was NOT a fan of outdoor sports. However - note that later in the episode, she calls Thatcher’s suggestion that the stag was seen on the west shore of the loch “ridiculous,” as the land is low ground and too open, showing that she may not hunt herself, but she absolutely knows what it’s all about), and Prince Charles. Charles actually was and is still quite an enthusiastic hunter, but he is known these days as being quite interested in environmental issues and has spoken out several times about the need to reduce meat consumption. It’s an interesting contradiction. In the episode, I think it’s just to help Diana stand out and further set Charles apart from his family, in a way that hearkens back to the way he felt like an outsider in Season 3’s Imbroglio, at the funeral of his uncle.
Costume notes: Anne is in a navy shirt with a tan plaid vest and skirt that are similar, but not exactly like things she’s worn in real life. The Queen sports a plaid skirt and a matching shirt and sweater set, which conforms very much to her usual, plaid-eriffic, slightly more casual look at Balmoral. The entire family actually tends to wear a lot of plaid when they’re at balmoral. The queen mother is in a light shirt and sweater set, which matches with her generally pastel colored dress wardrobe at this time.
Erin Doherty as Princess Anne in the Crown; Princess Anne in real life (Credit: Mark Cuthbert / Getty).
The Queen (Credit: Ben Curtis / PA)
The Queen, Queen Mother, and Margaret Thatcher
I maintain again that it looks like they put Olivia Colman in a bit of padding to play this queen this season, which is an odd choice, because the queen did not look like that in 1980. I checked, Colman wasn’t pregnant during the shooting for The Crown, and she doesn’t look like this in real life (see, pictures from her instagram), and the queen herself stayed pretty damn trim throughout the 1980s. I’m not going to post pics of the queen in the 1980s next to the Queen in the Crown in the 1980s next to each other because that just feels like i’m buying into the fact that we should give a shit about anyone’s waist size, but it’s just…such a weird choice?
According to Diana: Her True Story in her Own Words, Diana’s grandmother Lady Fermoy really did chaperone an opera date with Prince Charles to a Verdi opera - Requiem in real life, although here, the music played is from La Traviata. In real life, they also had supper at the palace afterward with Lady Fermoy. Interestingly enough, she’s shown later in the episode pressuring Diana into being a suitable mate for Charles and emphasizing how important the weekend in Balmoral is, but in real life, her grandmother warned Diana that the royal family had an unusual sense of humor and they might not get along very well. Diana ignored her at the time.
They only play a short snippet of the opera they play, but according to the internet, the specific song snippet is from E strano! E strano! The translation of the lyrics is uh, extremely on point for the themes in this episode, as by the end, Charles decides to marry a woman he doesn’t love and give up the woman he does (although of course, that woman is already married to someone else, so like, maybe should have made that decision years before, yeah, Charlie boy?).
How strange it is … how strange!
Those words are carved upon my heart!
Would a true love bring me misfortune?
What do you think, o my troubled spirit?
No man before kindled a flame like this.
Oh, joy …I never knew …
To love and to be loved!
Can I disdain this for a life of sterile pleasure?
I do love that they put Diana in a green/blue dress on a date at an opera by Verdi. I couldn’t find any exact matches to this dress, but she did wear a lot of green and turquoise dresses in the 80s. Apparently while she was dating Charles, she actually borrowed a lot of clothes from her friends, as she had a pretty small wardrobe herself and needed more to wear.
Her conversation with Charles indicates their differences in viewpoint and age so intently: Diana says she loves Verdi because he’s so romantic. Charles said “to focus simply on romance diminishes Verdi’s legacy and musical influence. His music played such a key role in the Italian unification, too.” They see things very differently, and he lectures her like her teacher, not like her boyfriend.
Charles tells her he’ll be out of the country and in scotland for a while and won’t see her until the autumn, quite matter of factly; she says the time will drag by, indicating how much more interested she is in him than he is in her.
Emma Corrin just embodies Diana so well. I think it's the way she holds her head and neck and shoulders?
Was that curtsey to him like a sexy curtsey? It was sexy! But he didn’t kiss her and only shook her hand and CLEARLY DOES NOT DESERVE HER SEXY CURTSEY. Poor Diana.
”Was that very frigid?”
“Yes. but perfectly gentlemanly.”
“Princely.”
“Sorry. princely.”
This exchange indicates their gap in status. Diana actually did not refer to Charles by first name until after they were married; she called him “Sir” up until then.Apparently Charles wasn’t QUITE as standoffish and prudish with Diana in real life as he is shown to be in The Crown. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, Diana stated that when they met for the first time since he’d broken up with her sister at a friend’s house party, he began kissing her after she sympathized with him over Lord Mountbatten’s death.
The top photo was actually from the final cabinet picture in this episode of The Crown, not the first. In the first posed pic, she’s wearing a feminine floral, but by the end, she’s moved into her power color of blue.
The bottom photo is the real Margaret Thatcher with her cabinet. Notice how the portrait behind them in the TV series is a woman, not a man, and is less ornate than the real life picture.
The real life Margaret Thatcher and the Queen at Balmoral, vs. Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.
I will admit that I know almost nothing about Margaret Thatcher and her policies, so I can’t speak to the historical accuracy of any of her scenes with her cabinet. I’ll do some research and come back to this. : )
The first cabinet photo scene is so striking - Margaret Thatcher stands out in her floral dress so intensely from all the men in suits around her, in like an authoritative but also feminine way.
As shown in the cabinet photos at the beginning and end of this episode, Margaret Thatcher really was the only woman in her cabinet for most of her time as prime minister though; she only appointed one female minister, Janet Young, who served as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (which is a weird role, as it doesn’t actually have much to do with the running of the duchy and more allows the PM to appoint an additional minister to the cabinet), Leader of the House of Lords, and the Lord Privy Seal from 1981-1983.Thatcher bemoans how unimaginative and fearful some of her cabinet ministers are as she flies with her husband to Balmoral, referring to their “faint hearts.”
"Balmoral tests" refers to the royal family’s habit of subjecting their guests to secret tests. This apparently IS a thing that happens. I don’t know if the royal family INTENDS to put their guests through the wringer, but they do seem to have very specific traditions that they expect people to adhere to without necessarily bothering to tell them about it.
The Thatchers are bemused by having separate rooms at Balmoral and confused about how to tip the maids as well.
Margaret Thatcher’s strange contradictions of being the most powerful person in the country but also wanting to be super feminine and keep to traditional gender roles continues in this episode. When a maid starts to unpack her husband’s suitcase, she stops her, saying, "I like to do that myself, especially for my husband."
Maid: “I can't help but notice, ma'am, but you didn't bring any outdoor shoes."
Margaret: “No.”
Denis: "What a strange thing to say."HAH. This apparently was a thing that actually consistently happened every time Margaret Thatcher visited Balmoral - she never once had the correct shoes for outdoor events.
Fun fact, immediately after this scene, we transition to a close up shot on Queen’s shoes in the next scene, which are very outdoor and appropriate and brown.
Margaret Thatcher: "Are we allowed to sleep in one bed?"
Denis Thatcher: "I will check the protocol sheet."
I don’t know about the Thatchers, but the Queen and Prince Philip definitely have separate bedrooms. This is pretty common in the British upper class actually, even now.
THE ROYAL FAMILY IS ALL SO brown so rustic and dirty and talking about stags in heat and omg. AND THEN MARGARET THATCHER AND THER HUSBAND WALK IN IN TUXEDO AND LONG EVENING DRESS. Thatcher’s dress in the series is pretty similar to some of her real life outfits.
They really are so rude to her, it’s hilarious but honestly, i feel terrible for her. If there was a protocol sheet laid out in the room, it SHOULD have included details about the schedule and dress code for every event, not just leaving them to assume that because dinner was black tie, the drinks before dinner must be black tie.
Philip: “But it’s TEA TIME.” Is it? It’s 6 pm. What? Everything I’ve read online says that tea time generally is 3:30-5 pm, but I’m not the British royal family so uhh, what do I know?
Corgi appearance: on the queen’s lap and also trying to get food off the plates.
Philip-ism: “Christ, do you think they’ll come to lunch tomorrow in their pajamas?”
Top: the cast of the Crown. Bottom: The queen stalking about at Balmoral (Credit: Central Press / Getty).
Top, Gillian Anderson and Stephen Boxer playing Margaret and Denis Thatcher in The Crown.
Bottom Left, the real life Margaret Thatcher (Credit: Peter Brooker / Shutterstock).
Bottom Right: Margaret Thatcher and Japan’s Crown Prince Akihito (Credit: The Asahi Shimbun / Getty).
A screenshot from the hilarious Ibble Dibble scene from The Crown.
Princess Anne and then her husband doing stag bellows at the dinner table while everyone's wearing super formal evening wear, I’m dying.
Queen Mother talking about conservation of stags while Mr. Thatcher tries to tout it as a business proposition. The Royal Family really does have a strange relationship with animals, where hunting is a regular activity and tradition, but several members of the family tout conservation and environmentalism. In real life, the queen mother and Denis Thatcher apparently got on quite well and apparently had similar tastes in drinks.
Ibble Dibble looks like just the most fun game ever. The Independent has the rules online now if you want to play! They clearly are trying to pull Margaret Thatcher into their circle, and she just refuses to let down her guard and risk getting a cork mark on her face, as she says the silly rhyme in the slowest manner possible, somewhat ruining the whole vibe.
The queen once again demonstrates how much more empathetic she is and how much more understanding of the weirdness of being around the royal family than Philip is, who has no patience for that.
Philip: “What was she doing”
Queen: “Yes, she was rather hopeless. but i’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was probably just nerves.”
P “Of what?”
Q “Of the situation in which she finds herself. “
P “We were playing parlor games, having fun.”
Q “Perhaps her idea of fun is something else entirely.”
P “or she’s incapable of it and wouldn’t know fun of it bit her on the backside.”
Husband John and I have decided that we will now say “tippity toppity down with the nazis" every time we drink, just like the Queen Mother right before she drank her whiskey during the drinking game.
Margaret Thatcher refers to the parlor games as a waste of a whole evening, and pulls out documents to work on in bed. Her husband complains and suggests he sleep in the other room assigned to them. Margaret says, “Don’t you dare! We don’t want to catch any upper-class habits. Those that sleep apart grow apart.” She points out a book on the bedside table for him to read. He notes that it’s “Hunting Memoirs of Balmoral Castle” and starts reading a letter from Prince Albert (Queen Victoria’s husband) from September 5, 1848 in a German accent, which is hilarious.
OH MY GOD MARGARET THATCHER'S DELAYED ENTRANCE OUT STALKING - so you finally see what she's wearing and it's like a full bright blue business suit with heels.
The Queen strikes up a conversation with the prime minister but noting that her father taught her how to stalk. Margaret reminisced about how she connected with her father by working with him and listening to him practice his alderman speeches. You can tell the queen is really trying to connect with her (“how lovely for you both”) and just like….not…getting there.
Queen: “When stalking, the trick really, is to disappear into nature, to preserve the element of surprise. So next time, you might not wear bright blue. It means the stag can see you. Or wear scent. It means he can smell you.” /Thatcher almost falls/ “And now he can hear you too.” Thatcher then offers to go back and change. I just adore the Queen’s passive aggressive away of getting her point across, lol.
Margaret Thatcher really did use the term “wet” and associated upper class folks with being "wet, weak, and chinless.” She thought they weren’t brave enough to really do what needed to be done to fix the country.
In her usual straightforward way, Princess Margaret calls out thatcher, for 1., calling Elizabeth her sister instead of the queen, 2., sitting in Queen Victoria’s chair, which no one sits in, and 3. working on a bank holiday.
The “don’t sit in queen Victoria’s chair” thing is real, according to “Diana: Her true story in her own words.”
Battle of the Margarets:
Prime Minister Margaret: ”It is hard to have a holiday when the country is in its current state.”
Princess Margaret: "The country has been a state before, it will doubtless be in a state again. One learns, when one has the benefit of experience, that sometimes time off is the most sensible course of action.”
Prime Minister Margaret: “Time off gives me no pleasure.”
Princess Margaret: “It might give you something more important than that. Perspective."
Charles arrives at Balmoral and promptly calls Camilla to whine about her having a husband and children of her own and not being able to drop everything and come with him to Balmoral. Camilla tells Charles that he needs a young women who's free to follow him around and is willing to give up her life for him, straight up encouraging him to continue seeing Diana.
In real life, both Camilla and her husband Andrew were at Balmoral when Diana visited for the first time and met the family.
The hopelessness of their relationship is illustrated when Camilla suggests Diana as a possible wife for Charles. Charles: “Don’t say that. i’d much rather hear how jealous you are.”
Camilla: “I would be, but it’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
The royal family at a Scottish festival in The Crown.
Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, having anti-royalist, anti-haggis, and anti-Ibble Dibble thoughts.
The royals attend a super fun looking Scottish festival that Margaret Thatcher does not even slightly appreciate, as she’s in a terrible mood after seeing several of her cabinet members criticize her publicly on the news. While there, watching a haggis throwing contest, she wonders why she’s in “a half-Germanic half-Scottish cuckoo-land,” as her husband calls it, and calls the royals boring, snobbish and rude, comparing them to her upper-class critics in her cabinet. She then says the country needs a change from top to bottom and makes an excuse to leave Balmoral early.
In real life, although Margaret Thatcher didn’t like the upper class very much, she seemed to get along rather well with the Queen and never even once suggested the abolition of the monarchy, despite the ominous undertones of this scene.
I really enjoy the royals’ conversation reaction to this.
Princess Margaret: "Life in post war-Britain is one uninterrupted crisis. and yet none of the other prime ministers left early." …..
Queen: "Perhaps we weren't very friendly."
Princess Margaret: "What are you talking about? I was incredibly friendly. I positively gushed." (Margaret has the best passive aggressive lines.)
The juxtaposition of the Thatcher’s failure of a Balmoral visit vs. Diana’s success there is emphasized by the fact that Diana literally drives up as Thatcher leaves. I enjoy that the queen doesn’t even know who she is at first.
The maid, still fresh from dealing with Margaret Thatcher, asks Diana if she brought outdoor shoes. Diana responds that she ONLY brought outdoor shoes.
Queen, about Charles and Diana: "i can't keep up, is this one a friend friend or a girl friend"
In real life, on her weekend trip at Balmoral, Diana stayed at a grace and favour cottage on the estate with her sister Jane, who was married to Robert Fellowes, an assistant private secretary to the queen. It seems that she IS staying in a separate cottage on the estate, but her sister and husband aren’t mentioned and it’s not really commented upon; i missed that she wasn’t staying in the castle proper on the first watch actually. As I mentioned earlier, Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles were also at Balmoral that weekend in real life.
Top left: Emma Corrin in the Crown, bottom left: Princess Diana and Prince Charles in real life (Credit: Anwar Hussein / Getty). Top Right: The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh with tiny Prince Charles and Princess Anne at Balmoral (Credit: PA / Getty). Bottom Right: The whole royal fam in plaid (Credit: Lichfield / Getty).
Top: Emma Corrin and Tobias Menzies in The Crown. Bottom Right: Princess Diana and Prince Charles at Balmoral (Credit: Anwar Hussein / Getty).
She debuts well at the dinner in a lovely plaid dress that looks very much like a few outfits she wore in real life. She also blends in very well with the family, who wears a LOT of plaid when they’re at Balmoral. She also looks like part of the family when she goes off hunting the next morning with Prince Philip, as she’s dressed almost exactly like him.
Diana to Philip: "The muckier the better, I'm a country girl at heart." Philip smiles very broadly at this, seemingly delighted.
In real life, Diana really didn’t like hunting, but she had been around it and knew how to talk about it and deal with it. She knew how to impress people. And she did grow up in the country, so she’s comfortable with that sort of thing.
The whole stag story line feels incredibly familiar, and reminds me very much of another famous stag scene, namely, a significant scene in the 2006 film The Queen. That film, about the aftermath of Diana’s death, shows the queen connecting with a prize stag her husband is hunting and shoos it away. Later, the stag dies, and the queen is terribly affected by it, even shedding a hidden tear over it. People have argued about these scenes a lot, as the Queen has hunted her entire life and would likely not have felt that much emotion over a stag, but it’s very symbolic and meant to show someone beautiful and lovely being captured and destroyed, just like Diana. It has to be a purposeful tribute to that film, as Peter Morgan, the creator and writer of The Crown, ALSO wrote The Queen (and the Audience, a brilliant play about the queen’s meetings with her prime ministers. He’s made a LOT of money off writing about the royal family).
Throughout the episode, there’ve been little moments where we see the stag in various bits of scenery. After they catch him and bring it to the castle, there’s a moment where all those pieces of scenery are revisited, only now they’re empty, no stag to be seen.
Diana leaves Balmoral wearing a distinctive striped sweater that’s almost identical to one Diana wore in real life. The photos we have of Diana in that sweater actually look SO much like Emma Corrin, who plays her in The Crown, that I had to look at them several times to check.
She’s now spent the weekend with his family but Charles still doesn’t touch her as they say goodbye, not even for a hug or a kiss on the cheek. He says, very romantically, “You’ve been a great sport.”
Charles talking to Camilla. They continue to talk in a very negative way about a lot of people, as was shown in Season 3, imitating the way that Wallis Simpson and Edward spoke about the royal family. Charles notes that Diana got "rave reviews from the whole ghastly politburo." “In the history of Balmoral, no one has ever passed the test with such flying colors.” Camilla looks beautifully sad as Charles tells her that his family wants him to marry Diana.
Charles complains to Camilla that Diana’s a child. She was 20 when she married Charles, who was nearly 13 years older than her. There have been reports that Charles actually did refer to Diana as a child in real life, noting that she was “exquisitely pretty, a perfect poppy,” but that “she does not look old enough to be out of school, much less married.”
This entire conversation also foreshadows how often Charles and Camilla are really talking and in how much detail about his life with Diana. The show leaves it a little bit ambiguous as to whether Charles is actually having a physical relationship with Camilla at this point in his life, but there’s definitely a huge emotional attachment.
Philip tells Charles that the family wants him to marry Diana. This scene takes place in the hanging room with the stag all strung up, dead and trapped. The symbolism is a bit on the nose here, yes? But fortunately, Charles points it out in the dialogue, saying that her father was “oblivious to the grotesque symbolism. It might as well have been me strung up and skinned.”
Emma Corrin on the left, real life Diana on the right (Credit: Tim Graham / Getty). (She looks INCREDIBLY like Emma Corrin here, doesn’t she? It’s bizarre).
Real Life Diana on the left (Credit: Jacob Sutton / Getty), Emma Corrin in the Crown on the right.
Margaret Thatcher puts on a formidable purple suit, pulls out a symbolically shaped sword letter opener, makes a list of the ministers who are making problems for her, and then fires them one after another in a marvelous sequence. I disagree with Thatcherism on probably every single point, but it’s hard not to love some of her scenes in this season; she’s just so determined.
The queen passive aggressively notes at the beginning of her meeting with Thatcher: “I’m always mystified by those who don’t feel at home at Balmoral. Some just don’t. They come and are bewildered by it, by the weather and traditions. They see only cruelty in the blood sports, instead of kindness or necessity. But there have been blood sports here too, I see, you have a brand new cabinet.”
Thatcher specifically says that she fired her ministers because they were from a background that made them privileged, entitled, and lacking grit. The queen mildly questions this choice, noting that Thatcher is playing "A dangerous game, making enemies left right and center.” Thatcher says, "Not if someone is unafraid of having enemies." “Are you?” “Oh yes” - and then Thatcher recites a long quotation, suggesting that perhaps she was prepared for this criticism.
The poem she recites to the queen is by Scottish author Charles McKay: ““You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.”"
In 1981, Thatcher really did fire three government ministers who were critical of her economic policies and transferred a fourth to Northern Ireland. The dismissed ministers were the deputy foreign minister, the education minister, and majority leader of the House of Lords. Employment Secretary James Prior was transferred to the position of secretary of state for Northern Ireland against his wishes.
She looks so incredibly triumphant
Anne tells Charles to get on with it and marry Diana even though they barely know each other, calling him Eeyore in the process (which is basically a perfect description of his constant hangdog looks this season, although I can’t find any indication that he actually was called that in real life). She spouts out a couple wonderful Anne-isms, saying “After a selection process that involved half of Britain, you’ve somehow stumbled on the perfect one in age, looks, and breeding. Or have you managed to find fault even in perfection?” “Don't fight it. She's perfect. She even got the stag, damn her." and “Those legs. Cow.” These admiringly positive but petty statements would transform in a few episodes to outright jealousy.
Anne is two years younger than Charles and at the time of this episode, has already been married almost 7 years (marrying at age 23) and had two children. Their parents married when Elizabeth was 21 and Philip was 26. So yeah, they all seem to be pretty desperate for the 31 year old Charles to get on with it already.
Charles expresses the concern that he and Diana barely know each other. This is a inner voice he really should have listened to. Diana said in her life that they had only met in person 13 times before he asked her to marry him.
Anne KNOWS that Charles still speaks to Camilla all the time. She says, "Time to close this chapter. Time to put the whole Parker Bowles saga behind us all for good." HAHAHAHAHA.
The show ends with trading visuals of the stag head being brought to Balmoral and mounted, Thatcher posing happily with her new cabinet for a photo, and Diana walking down the street with her head down, surrounded by photographers, which is both a happy and foreboding scene. In real life, before they even got engaged, Diana sometimes had as many as 30 journalists following her around. A news media organization rented the flat opposite hers so they could look in at her bedroom. I’ll get into this more in the next episode, but it’s clear that this season is going to focus a lot on the media sensation around Diana, which was wholly unexpected and unprecedented.
Music note: These scenes take place with the Overture from La Traviata playing in the background, bringing back the opera’s sad themes. La Traviata tells the story of a courtesan dying of tuberculosis who leaves her lifestyle to be with the man she loves, but ultimately leaves him behind at his father’s request in order to avoid ruining his and his family’s reputation. There’s lots of strife, but her lover ultimately comes back to her and forgives her right before she dies. (and uh, yeah, it’s very similar to the plot line of Moulin Rouge). The story doesn’t align with Charles and Diana’s, but the elements of love, duty, and family pressure all strike a chord here.