Over-Analyzing The Crown: S4E8 48:1
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
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! So if you haven’t watched Season 4 Episode 8 of the Crown yet and don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading now. :)
Content Warning: Some discussion of human rights violations, political violence, coup d’etats, murders, mass death. I’ll give a CW right before those portions of the post as well.
The episode starts off with a flashback to April 21, 1947, with a cameo by Claire Foy as Princess Elizabeth before she rose to the throne. It’s her 21st birthday, and from Capetown, South Africa, Elizabeth speaks to “all the peoples of the British Commonwealth and Empire, wherever they live, whatever race they come from, and whatever language they speak.”
Toward the end, she famously says, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” This speech is, I believe, a word for word rendition of her actual 21st birthday speech, which can be read in full here.
As she continues to speak, we pan away to people from all over the commonwealth listening to her voice on the radio while going about their day. It’s a short but very affecting montage. I really wish that they told us which towns/cities/countries we were seeing though.Fun fact: This is actually the earliest chronological appearance of the Queen (apart from some childhood flashbacks), as the first episode in The Crown started with her wedding on November 20, 1947. Claire Foy’s reappearance was much remarked upon when she was spotted filming these scene back in November 2019.
This speech was supposedly given from the garden of Government House in Cape Town. I guess they moved it to the porch in the show for dramatic purposes. At the time, Elizabeth was touring South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her parents and younger sister.
However, IT LOOKS LIKE there’s actually evidence that the 21st birthday speech was not delivered live or recorded in Cape Town at all, but may have been pre-recorded a week earlier at a hotel in Rhodesia.A new book, Queen of the World by biographer Robert Hardman, has suggested it was impossible for the speech to have been delivered at 7pm in Cape Town on the birthday, cross-referencing the sun-dappled photographs of the Princess reading it with the timings of April sunsets, and unpublished diary accounts.
One such diary, kept by the King’s press secretary Captain Lewis Ritchie and now locked in the Royal Archives, states that, on Sunday, April 13, 1947, at Victoria Falls Hotel in what was then Rhodesia: ‘At 6 pm, Princess Elizabeth recorded her speech for the BBC. It was afterwards played off for Her Royal Highness to hear and was a great triumph.’
It was later broadcast from Cape Town as if live.”
The scenes we see, which all include radios of some sort, from what I can tell (but most of these are like 4 second pans so it’s hard to tell): (No, I’m not even going to try to guess too much which of these places is which, I am not familiar enough with the culture and racial makeup of all the people in these places to even try. Plus, I’ve already done a lot of research on who was in the Commonwealth in 1985 and I don’t want to have to do it for 1947 too, lol. The time of day, plants, animals, and landscape in each scene are definite clues, so if anyone wants to take a crack at guessing which is which, go for it).
Men listening from a barbershop set up outside (appears to be night)
Men and a boy walking through a rural pond with goats in the background (daytime)
Various people putting up their equipment after fishing on a beach (looks like dusk)
Women wringing out and hanging out clothes (daytime)
Men with rifles sitting outside of tents with camels in the background and surrounded by desert plants (daytime)
A man lying on a bed and two women sitting by him (sun coming through the window)
Various people sitting and standing outside a house in the rain, one woman sorting some sort of green crop. Chiles also feature in a basket out front.
Men inside and outside of a pickup truck filled with sheep (daytime)
Women, maids, and ranchers gathered around a radio listening (daytime - looks like morning light to me), distinctive orange flowers in a vase in the back.
A group of women playing games and talking in a common room at Oxford - Margaret Roberts shushes those that are talking and then walks out under the Hertford Bridge in Oxford, England (a city landmark).
Top: The Crown; Bottom: The real life Princess Elizabeth on her 21st birthday (Credit: Topical Press Agency / Getty).
Left: Margaret Thatcher back when she was Margaret Roberts in college; Right: Margaret Roberts in The Crown.
The Commonwealth of Nations (usually just called the Commonwealth) is now a voluntary political association of 54 member states. Although the commonwealth members are not legally obligated to each other, the states basically work together to promote specific values. These core principles were outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration and the Lusaka Declaration of 1979 as: support for the United Nations and world peace, egalitarianism and individual liberty, the eradication of poverty, ignorance, disease, and economic inequality, opposition to racism and gender discrimination, free trade, institutional cooperation, multilateralism, and the rejection of international coercion.
The Head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II; although the position is not technically hereditary, Prince Charles was appointed her successor to this role in 2018. This is a largely symbolic role with no involvement in the day to day governance of any of the commonwealth member states.
As depicted in this episode, decisions involving the Commonwealth are generally made at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). The Commonwealth Secretariat is the Commonwealth’s central agency and institution and is in charge of basically all the administrative aspects of the Commonwealth: setting up meetings, helping countries implement policies and decisions of the Commonwealth, and assisting with the development of various policies. The secretariat is run by an elected Commonwealth Secretary-General.
Nearly all of the member countries of the commonwealth are former territories of the British Empire. (Source: The Commonwealth and the very helpful Wikipedia charts specifying the system of government of each state)
I should note that in 1985-1986, when the majority of this episode is set, South Africa was not part of the Commonwealth, as it was basically kicked out after it became a republic in 1961 due to its racial apartheid policies. It was readmitted in 1994 after its first multi-racial elections were held.The Commonwealth in 1985 (the list of commonwealth countries at the bottom of this 1985 document from The South African Institute of International Affairs reviewing the events at CHOGM in Nassau in 1985 was very helpful in compiling this last. This document also provides valuable contemporaneous background information from a supposedly neutral research source based in South Africa; I’ve skimmed this over and haven’t found anything terribly objectionable in it, but if I’ve missed something, please let me know.)
16 of the member states were also Commonwealth realms and had the Queen as their head of state. Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis (sometimes Saint Christopher and Nevis), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, *Tuvalu, and United Kingdom
*(Tuvalu was a special member and didn’t have a representative at CHOGM but appears to have been counted for the 48:1 episode and line purposes)28 of the member states were republics of various types: Bangladesh, Botswana, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji , The Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Malawi, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, *Nauru, Nigeria, Western Samoa (now known as Samoa), Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Since 1985, 6 other republics have joined - Cameroon, Mozambique, Namibia, Pakistan, Rwanda, and South Africa.
*[Nauru was a special member and didn’t have a representative at CHOGM but appears to have been counted for the 48:1 episode and line purposes]5 of the member states are monarchies that do not have Queen Elizabeth at the head: Brunei, Swaziland (known known as Eswatini), Lesotho, Malaysia, Tonga
The Commonwealth montage, still backed by the audio of Elizabeth’s speech, ends with baby Margaret Thatcher (Margaret Roberts at this point in her life) at Oxford, listening to the radio, walking joyfully across campus in full Oxford academic dress (which is still worn for examinations and on numerous other occasions), and then pursuing office in the conservative association at Oxford. Once again, Margaret is shown primarily in blue and is the only woman seen in the association pictures. She stands out quite emphatically from the others. This seems to call back to how she stood out among all the men in her cabinet photos in S4E1 The Balmoral Test.
We also get a shot of her working in a chemistry lab, which does reflect Margaret Thatcher’s real career as a research chemist after college.
Then we get a quick shot of her graduation from Oxford, with her parents at her side, posing for photographs.
Left: Press Secretary Michael Shea on The Crown; Right: the Real life Michael Shea (Credit: PA).
Top: Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal on The Crown; Bottom: Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal with the Queen in real life.
(Note: I have lightened the top image a bit just so the details can be seen. I have to do this with screenshots from The Crown pretty regularly, alas.)
Next we’re introduced to Michael Shea’s rather purple prose in his novel “Ixion's Wheel: A Threnody,” which is presented on the screen as its typed, to suit its….hilarious pretentiousness. After he finishes it on his typewriter, he submits it to his editor. She describes it as his “War and Peace,” and he jokingly asks that it be thought of as Ulysses instead. She dramatically jokes, “I shall set aside a year of my life,” and later says, “You deserve congratulations for being able to carry it up the stairs.”
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, is famously long and clocks in at over 500,000 words in most English translations. Although there’s more than one famous literature piece known as Ulysses, Shea is likely referring to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses here, which is around 265,000 words long. For reference, most novels these days are between 60,000-100,000 words long.
Text on the screen tells us that his editor’s office is in Bloomsbury, London. Bloomsbury is a very artsy and culturally important area in the city which features numerous museums and colleges and is also home to Bloomsbury publishing. Bloomsbury’s artsy-fartsy reputation actually began back in the early 1900s, when a group of English, writers, artists and intellectuals (including Virginia Woolf) lived in and around that neighborhood and became known as the Bloomsbury set.
The actual text on the screen:
”It was the volte-face of Eurydice except I was Aristaeus, driving her on towards the serpent. 'Malachi, Maalichi...' Twice she called me by my name, twice she beckoned me with her outstretched dactyl. I stood in darkness and she in light, and yet here i was the diurnal, and she was the crepuscular, if such a nugatory distinction pertain. The aurora was breaking, the island, sea-girt, was fast stirring. I looked at her again, her dermis pellucid in the lambent sunshine seemed as if a fish skin pulled taut. She gave me one last glancing look, and then stepped off, and plunged down into the waxing viridescence of the Ionian Waters below. Morus tua, vita mea. The End.”I am not going to bother trying to interpret this all but here are a few bits:
Eurydice, Aristaeus, serpant: In Greek Mythology, Eurydice was a nymph married to the legendary musician/poet Orpheus in Greek mythology. Aristaeus, a minor god, tried to pursue her one day and while escaping, she stepped on a snake. She was bitten and died.
After her death, the musician persuaded Hades to let her leave the underworld and come back with him. Hades agreed, on the condition that Orpheus that he had to walk in front of her and could not turn and look back at her until they were both completely in the daylight. Toward the end of the journey, after Orpheus had reached the light but Eurydice was still slightly behind, Orpheus turned to look at her. She was immediately whisked back to the underworld.Malachi traditionally is said to have written the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible. Very little is known about him, and he may not have actually existed.
“Ionian waters” - refers to the Ionian Sea, which is a bay of the Mediterranean Sea that stretches from Southern Italy to Western Greece.
Morus tua, vita mea - Latin for “your death, my life.”
Ixion's Wheel: A Threnody - In Greek mythology, Ixion was the king of the Lapiths. He had a habit of getting into trouble, to say the least. He eventually was thrown out of Olympus and bound to an “ever-spinning fiery wheel for eternity” by Hermes.
A Threnody is a song or poem to mourn the dead.
Michael arrives at work at Buckingham Palace and happily greets everyone he walks by. His colleague Sarah tells him that a newspaper is asking for confirmation of “an apparently open secret in Commonwealth government circles that the Queen is deeply frustrated by Thatcher’s refusal to back sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.” Shea scoffs at the question and says, “You should know better than to come to me with nonsense like that, Sarah. In the 33 years she’s been on the throne, the Queen has never once expressed a point of view about her prime ministers, positive or negative, and never will. Political impartiality and support of her prime minister is an article of faith to her.” This simple conversation basically previews all the plot points of this episode, in order.
We’ll see the press office throughout the episode and get to know its staff decently well. Pay attention to Sarah. She’ll be important in the next episode.
A TV in the background shows video footage of police in South Africa beating black protestors. A reporter notes that the brutality against protestors is causing increased international outrage.
Next, we see the Queen meeting with a man she refers to as “Sonny” to discuss the atrocities in South Africa and the need for economic sanctions from the Commonwealth. The episode never quite tells us this, but Sonny is, in fact Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal, also known as Sir Sonny Ramphal, who served as Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1975-1990. Sonny notes that 48 of the commonwealth countries are now committed to sanctions, but that there must be “total unanimity” to implement them. Thatcher remains opposed.
Note: The Crown can be pretty bad about telling us who specific people are sometimes, but this one seems pretty egregious. I genuinely had no idea who Sonny was and thought he was just an advisor for the queen. It’s not realistic to expect your viewers to come in with in-depth knowledge of who ran the Commonwealth in the 1980s or even to be able to intuit that he’s working /for/ the Commonwealth when we really only see Sonny in his interactions with the Queen and Margaret Thatcher throughout this episode. It would have taken five seconds to mention that he was the secretary-general; why was this step not taken?The Queen is wearing a green and orange plaid dress. This color combination is unusual enough that I feel like it probably symbolizes something? I can’t put an exact finger on it, but it may refer to the flag of QwaQwa, one of South Africa’s bantustans. Bantustans were territories that the ruling party pushed black South Africans into with the intention of segregating out the population; the Government stripped black citizens of their citizenship and most of their political and civil rights and declared them citizens of the bantustans instead.
Content Warning: Human rights violations, racism, political violence, coup d’etats, murders, mass death. [italicized text]
Apartheid was terrifically complicated and horrible and lasted for decades. I attempted to research it (because I was never actually taught about it in any class I ever took) and was quickly overwhelmed by the huge scope and destruction of it all. There’s no way I can encompass it all. Very briefly though, apartheid refers to the South African’s republic deliberate, systemic, society wide physical and economic discrimination against the majority population of the country, namely, black South Africans. It was the systemic and deliberate segregation. degradation, and abuse of millions of people. They were forced to live in specific areas, did not have freedom to move about their country, and were given inferior education systems and job opportunities. Many protestors against apartheid policy were beaten and killed. Tens of thousands of people were abducted and/or detained without trial for years. 21,000 people were killed in political violence during apartheid (including 14,000 deaths during the transition process from 1990-1994).(Source: Crime Against Humanity, Analyzing the Repression of the Apartheid State)
End Content Warning.
Margaret rants to her ministers, saying “Why do we allow our queen to fraternize with countries like Uganda, Malaysia, Nigeria, Swazi land?” She states that these countries have unelected dictators and despots with appalling human rights records. I find it really unintentionally funny that she says “I’ll give her a frank conversation about not wasting my time” while actually making dinner for her ministers (I mean, you’re the prime minister, you can probably hire someone to cook for you so you can spend your valuable time on like, running the country).
Thatcher can be difficult to relate to sometimes, but she actually makes some very good points in this episode. I’m /not/ an expert on any of the countries she’s mentioned, and am heavily heavily oversimplifying here, but I’ve researched them a bit and here’s just a small portion of what I discovered (I’m leaving out a LOT in every single case).
Content Warning: Human rights violations, political violence, coup d’etats, murders, mass death. [italicized text]Uganda: Only a few months before this episode takes place, President Milton Obote, who had led a government noted for huge human rights abuses throughout the Ugandan Bush War, had been overthrown in a coup d’etat. Amnesty International estimated at the time that Obote’s regime was responsible for more than 300,000 civilian deaths across Uganda.
Malaysia: In 1984, a diplomatic situation arose between Britain and Malaysia when several British newspapers reported on Sultan Iskandar of Johor’s coronation with headlines such as “Killer becomes King” (the Sultan had killed a man a few years earlier and been quickly pardoned by his father); the Malaysian government demanded an apology from the British government, which refused to do so. In addition, numerous Malaysian laws of the time (and even now) posed serious human rights concerns; media content and news was heavily controlled and the government often arbitrarily arrested those that threatened “social order” (such as political activists, labour activists, academics, and religious groups) and detained them for long periods without trial, sometimes for years.
Nigeria: Between Nigeria’s independence in 1960 and the events of this episode, six separate coup d’etats had taken place. Several of these regimes silenced their critics by jailing and threatening journalists, closing down newspapers, and banning organizations (there are still serious human rights issues regarding freedom of expression there still today). The government that had just come to power a few months before the events of this episode was notoriously and openly corrupt.
Swaziland: Political activities and trade unions were banned in Swaziland (now known as Eswatini) in 1973 when King Sobhuza II repealed the constitution, dissolved parliament, and assumed all powers of government. Parliament would not be allowed to meet again until 1979. The press was highly constrained and the king can waive an individual’s freedom of speech or press at will. Criticism of the king may result in prosecution for sedition or treason.
End Content Warning.
Thatcher specifically makes her cabinet ministers kedgeree, which includes fish, rice, and eggs. It’s an Indian dish that was likely brought to the UK when India was a British colony, where it became a fashionable breakfast dish. This simple dish draws yet another line back to the UK’s former days as an empire and its connection to the Commonwealth.
Credit: Royal Collection Trust
Credit: WPA Pool / Getty
Credit: Royal Collection Trust
Next we get the Queen trying on outfits for CHOGM, particularly a “sunshine chiffon” outfit which her advisor notes will pick up the yellow in the Commonwealth flag. Her wardrobe advisor (who is not named) specifically shows him her porcupine brooch, which refers to the Queen’s real life porcupine brooch, given to her by King Otumfuo Opoku Ware of the Ashanti Tribe in Ghana in 1972 (Ghana is, of course, part of the Commonwealth). Her advisor also mentions a diamond necklace that had been given to the Queen on her 21st birthday by South Africa.
Prince Andrew comes in to talk to his mother and tells her that he’s going to ask his younger brother Edward to be his best man, and not his older brother Charles. He relates this gleefully, in a “I’ll show Charles” way, and calls his brother an insecure, jealous fool. The Queen comments that this decision will “raise some eyebrows.” We also get a super brief glimpse of Sarah Ferguson (who was a friend of Princess Diana’s). Andrew and Sarah did not actually get engaged until after CHOGM 1985, as he did not propose to her until Feb. 19, 1986 (his 26th birthday). They married on July 23, 1986. Edward was indeed Andrew’s best man, although Charles gave a reading.
Andrew also refers to Charles’s vision of a “slimmed down” role for the monarchy. In real life, Charles has been advocating for this for years. Under his plan, the monarchy would become more cost effective, with only royals at the top of the line of succession actually supported by the Sovereign Grant. This dream is now closer to reality then ever before, as Prince Andrew himself is no longer participating in royal duties due to the backlash over his association with Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle have left their official roles as working royals, and COVID-19 has tightened purse strings and dialed back everyone’s appearances and roles.
Prince Andrew also says “like other second sons I could mention, I’d be so obviously be better [at being the heir] than him. Here, he’s referring to the Queen’s own father, a second son who became king only after his older brother abdicated from the throne.
In this conversation, the Queen also refers to her two families - her direct blood relatives and the commonwealth of nation. This tying together of the Commonwealth with her family and the immediate reference to her father helps illustrate again why the Commonwealth is so important to the Queen.
As Andrew walks away to greet Fergie, the Queen’s advisor notes that a specific dress will go well with the diamond necklace the people of South Africa gave the queen on her 21st birthday (when she gave that speech at the top of the episode). This necklace was indeed given to her on that occasion; , she has shortened it since and used the remaining diamonds to create a bracelet as well. (Source: The Order of Sartorial Splendor). She still pulls out this diamond necklace and bracelet for diplomatic visits, including her most recent visit to South Africa. I can’t figure out whether she actually wore it at CHOGM in 1985, but it seems possible, given the topic at hand.
At the CHOGM meeting in the Bahamas, the Queen (wearing blue and red, picking up the blue in the Commonwealth flag but also representing the UK flag) addresses the meeting and says that the Commonwealth of Nations is her second family. Next, she fulfills her pledge to talk to Margaret Thatcher about sanctions against South Africa. The conversation doesn’t leave either woman vey happy.
Thatcher states that sanctions against apartheid won’t help and will just hurt and devastate both South Africa and the UK. She notes that the United Kingdom has three billion pounds of trade in South Africa. To put this in context, in 1985, the UK did about 105.9 billion in export trade and 101.4 billion in import trade. (Source: UK Trade, 1948-2019: Statistics)
Although this character of Margaret Thatcher definitely has some points to make about the commonwealth, her views are also clearly influenced by an intense feeling of superiority and racism. Margaret is clearly just annoyed by the commonwealth’s existence– “There are ways of Britain being great again. And that is through a revitalized economy, not through association with unreliable tribal leaders in eccentric costumes.”
Margaret’s phrasing about making Britain great again was a common theme throughout her political career, dating back to a 1950 speech. Yup, she beat out Trump to the slogan by over 60 years.
The Queen’s rejoinder is that in some ways, she is herself, a tribal leader in eccentric costume, which points out Thatcher’s rather racist point of view. “To me all these countries are great countries with great histories….To you, the commonwealth is a distraction, a waste of time. It was the pledge I made forty years ago, on the wireless.” Margaret acknowledges that she remembers the speech and listened to it at the time, but continues on to say, “We cannot let the values of the past distract us from the realities of the present.” The Queen, clearly not too happy with Thatcher, says crisply, “48 countries of the commonwealth are now preparing a statement condemning south Africa and recommending sanctions, I am recommending you sign it.”
Above: The Crown’s Britannia. Below: The real HMY Britannia. I believe the views are switched in the pictures (look for the big wooden doors as a reference point).
Left: PM Thatcher wears a blue dress in The Crown in her power color.
Top Right: I couldn’t find many pics of her wearing a blue dress like this (as she usually wore suits) but I did find this one picture from after her time as PM (Credit: Mario Testino).
Bottom Right: A reference photo of the Queen herself in a similar outfit (Credit: Joan Williams / Shutterstock).
We get another fun appearance by Denis Thatcher (who I personally find endlessly entertaining). After Margaret refers to the HMY Britannia as a big boat, Denis Thatcher insists that the ship is called a yacht when the queen is on it.
A yacht is generally thought of as a medium sized pleasure boat, at least 33 feet in length. The large commercial yacht code of Great Britain defines a large yacht as one that is 79 feet long or more. Superyachts are defined as yachts longer than 130 feet. The Britannia however, was 412 feet long!
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen HMY Britannia on the series (HMY stands for “Her Majesty’s Yacht”). It also popped up in S2’s Lisbon scenes. The real royal yacht was retired from service in the 90s and now (in non covid times) serves as a floating ship museum. The Crown didn’t film on the boat, but staff of the show apparently toured the actual yacht, took lots of photos, and built their own version. You can see photos and the layout of the ship over on the ship museum’s website.
Margaret Thatcher ends her phone conversation with her husband by calling him a know it all and affectionately calling him “DT.” This really was PM Thatcher’s nickname for her husband, as was noted in numerous articles about the two and his own obituary in The Independent.
In Margaret Thatcher’s own lodging in the Bahamas during CHOGM, we see her crossing out lots of statements with a red pen in a montage that shows a similar scene repeated over and over again. More and more people watch every time to see if Thatcher will approve of the statement. She rejects numerous words to refer to the actions against South Africa throughout the sequence: sanctions, proposals, measures, actions, and controls.
The queen ultimately states that they need a writer to solve the problem, not a “useless politician[],” and looks to Michael Shea. And then Michael Shea’s story from the beginning of the episode is brought full circle and he finally comes up with the word that will satisfy Thatcher - signals. Sonny later notes that among the signals she accepted were several actions that she would never have agreed to if they were actually called sanctions.
At the end of it all, when the Queen was feeling quite triumphant, Thatcher challenged her and the other CHOGM' leader’s view by noting: “Did one person move to the 48 or did the 48 move to the one? Yes, I agreed to signals, but as you may now, with one simple turn, signals can point to an entirely different direction.”A 1985 article in The Times said “there were many differing interpretations on the extent to which Mrs Margaret Thatcher had had to compromise to make agreement possible.” Thatcher herself claimed that she persuaded the other Commonwealth leaders that her approach was correct, stating “They joined me.” However, the Prime Minister of New Zealand disagreed, saying that she had made significant concessions and that Britain had “surrendered its position as to its literal interpretation of sanctions. ”
So it does appear that this level of nitpicking about words really did occur. The Times article described the final seven-page article as containing sanctions, threats, and inducement to encourage South Africa’s government to begin a dialogue with representative black leaders about replacing apartheid with a non-racial governmental system. Mrs. Thatcher said the document contained “psychological signals” to South Africa that the international community was losing patience with them. However, the word “signals” does not actually appear in the text at all.
The actual accord included the following items:
We, therefore, call on the authorities in Pretoria [the administrative capital of South Africa at the time] for the following steps to be taken in a genuine manner and as a matter of urgency:
Declare that the system of apartheid will be dismantled and specific and meaningful action taken in fulfilment of that intent.
Terminate the existing state of emergency.
Release immediately and unconditionally Nelson Mandela and all others imprisoned and detained for their opposition to apartheid.
Establish political freedom and specifically lift the existing ban on the African National Congress and other political parties.
Initiate, in the context of a suspension of violence on all sides, a process of dialogue across lines of colour, politics and religion, with a view to establishing a non-racial and representative government.
The accord also discussed numerous other continuing measures and efforts, including an arms embargo, avoiding any sports contacts with South Africa, and numerous economic measures against the country. Those economic measures included:
a ban on all new government loans to the Government of South Africa and its agencies..
a readiness to take unilaterally what action may be possible to preclude the import of Krugerrands;
no Government funding for trade missions to South Africa or for participation in exhibitions and trade fairs in South Africa;
a ban on the sale and export of computer equipment capable of use by South African military forces, police or security forces;
a ban on new contracts for the sale and export of nuclear goods, materials and technology to South Africa;
a ban on the sale and export of oil to South Africa;
a strict and rigorously controlled embargo on imports of arms, ammunition, military vehicles and paramilitary equipment from South Africa.,
an embargo on all military co-operation with South Africa. and
discouragement of all cultural and scientific events except where these contribute towards the ending of apartheid or have no possible role in promoting it.
A History Extra article about this episode pointed out that according to recently released records from PM Thatcher’s time, she was actually much more active in fighting against apartheid than previously thought. “‘Mrs Thatcher was much more critical of South Africa in private than people thought,’ says historian Dominic Sandbrook. ‘She gave the country’s leaders quite a lot of grief behind the scenes, including telling them to release Nelson Mandela. She told the South Africans that Britain didn’t like the system and that it had to change. But because she refused to condemn it publicly, people assumed it must be because she secretly supported them.’”
Above: The Crown. Below: The real life CHOGM 1985 picture (Credit: John Shelly Collection / Getty).
I collected pics of PM Thatcher’s various power blue suits and had nowhere else to put it, please enjoy.
Credit:
Top L to R: Tim Graham / Getty; Shutterstock; John Stillwell
Middle L to R: Jean Guichard / Getty; Mondadori Portfolio / Getty
Bottom Middle: Keystone / Getty; Bottom Right: David Montgomery / Getty
For the formal CHOGM picture, the Queen and Margaret Thatcher wear very similar outfits to what they wore in real life. However, Thatcher’s real dress in real life was blue, not red. The change in colors seems to really signify her opposition to the queen in this episode.
From close inspection of the pictures, I believe that Queen Elizabeth both in real life and in The Crown wore The Grand Duchess of Vladimir Tiara. This tiara was first given to Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a German princess who married a son of Emperor Alexander II, on the occasion of her wedding in 1874. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Maria hid her jewels, including this tiara, in a bedroom the palace. Her son and a friend eventually disguised themselves as workmen, got into the palace, and snuck out the jewels, which were taken to safety. Her daughter Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna sold several of her mother’s jewels, including this tiara, to Queen Mary of the United Kingdom in 1921. The piece can be worn with pearls and pendants or without (a tiara worn without its pendant stones is described as “widowed”). (Source: The Court Jeweller)
The Queen is also wearing a diamond necklace and earrings, but I’m not as familiar with her non-tiara jewelry and am not sure of their identity. They aren’t the South African diamonds though, as those look very different than what is represented here.
Michael talks to his agent friend. She suggests he write a political thriller about White Hall. However, Michael, shocked, says that he’s old fashioned and “would never betray those confidences or the people I am sworn to serve.”
White Hall was a residence of the English monarchs from 1530-1698 until it burned down. After, a street was built on the former location of the palace and named Whitehall. A number of government buildings sit on that street and thus, it’s common to hear “White Hall” used as a reference to the government overall.
Discouraged, Michael goes to work at Buckingham Palace, where he is warned that the newspaper “Today” is planning to write a story about the tensions between Thatcher and the queen over the apartheid sanction discussions at CHOGM.
This is a big enough issue, that Michael Shea goes to the queen with her private secretary to report on the article to her. He says that the actual article will have little impact, but that it won’t be long before “bigger, more influential newspapers realize this warrants further scrutiny.” Shea advises that the Queen give some preemptive statement of support for the prime minister which would kill the gossip. Instead, the Queen asks, “What if on this occasion, I’d be happy to let the people know the displeasure is real?…You know how seriously I take my constitutional duty….to remain silent, but one has to draw a line in the sand.”
Here, they’re all talking about the sovereign’s traditional silence on all political issues in the UK’s constitutional monarchy. As CNN put it when reports of the queen’s views on Brexit became news in 2016, “Ever since her ancestor King Charles I lost his head in 1649 following the English Civil War with Parliament, British monarchs’ constitutional role has gradually distilled to this: representing the whole country – and steering clear of politics….The royal family’s position requires the support of parliamentarians – on either side of the political divide. To support one party – or cause – will only lead to trouble further down the line.”
There have been a few times where the Queen’s political views have slipped out, although she has never given a press interview and does not vote in elections. (Source: The Independent) Her views have emerged on the Scottish referendum, the delay in arresting a radical Islamist cleric, why the UK lost the American colonies, Turkey entering the EU, and of course, as shown in this episode, PM Thatcher’s approach to proposed sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. These views have pretty much all emerged due to leaks and people talking about their private conversations with her; she never speaks publicly on any political issues.
When the queen suggests that she would be okay with confirming the rift between her and the PM to the press, Michael , looking aghast, advises strongly against it, saying that it “would risk doing serious and irreparable harm to the relationship between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street.” When the Queen insists on this course of action, Michael says that he would not go with the newspaper “Today,” but with a different one, with more heft and “a clear sense of the unprecedent nature of this, where they understood the rules of the game.” Shea insists on the private secretary (played here as Martin Charteris, although Charteris had retired years earlier) noting his objection, but then goes up to meet a few reporters from the Sunday Times at the pub.
Michael protests to the private secretary, saying the decision was reckless and irresponsible, and stated specifically that he wanted his objection noted. Eventually though, we see that he meets a few people at the pub, presumably reporters from the Sunday Times.
Later, after the PM is tipped off about The Sunday Times piece, we get a fantastic scene in which the Buckingham Palace staff and the Downing Street staff both walk into Victoria station to get the newspapers fresh off the presses from opposite directions. There’s almost a West Side Story face-off feel about it all. The staff quickly distributes the paper and then we get a fun montage of shocked characters reading the paper: everyone in downing street, then Princess Margaret with her dog, Princess Anne with HER two dogs, Sonny reading it with several others, then we see Charles and Andrew reading it. Finally, we get to see Philip reading it to the queen, then to Denis, reading it to Margaret.
This framing of both powerful women being read the article by their husbands underlines their essential similarities, even as they’re facing off on such a polarizing issue. In addition, they’re both wearing grey prints at the time - the queen in a grey plaid and the PM in blue and grey print checks
The editor of the Sunday Times at the time actually wrote an article on the episode reminiscing about it all recently - you can read that over here.
Later, right before their audience, we get another look at one of my favorite settings in the series - the Queen’s office in Buckingham Palace, which is bright yellow and COVERED in horse pictures.
This room is actually also briefly used in the recently released Bridgerton, as the Duke of Hastings’ office. This room is specifically the Large Smoking Room in Wilton House, which contains 55 gouache paintings of horses dating back to 1755. The yellow silk was only added to the walls in the last few years, so it’s possible that the room has appeared in other period dramas without my recognizing it (as it’s far more distinctive now with that yellow).
The building, a former abbey, was actually originally granted to the forbears of its current owners by Henry VIII, although of course the house has gone through numerous renovations since then.
Wilton House was a filming location for The Crown, Bridgerton, Pride and Prejudice (2004), Emma (2019), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Outlander (series 2), The Young Victoria (2007), and NUMEROUS other TV shows and films, so if you like period dramas, it may look familiar!We get a very intense musical theme here which honestly reminds me so much of one of the Battlestar Galactica themes that it drives me NUTS. Like - similar chords and pounding beats and such.
Thatcher walks into her meeting to confront the queen with purpose. She notes that over the past 7 years, they’ve had 164 meetings. She states, “The editors told the Downing Street press secretary that the sources were unimpeachable, unprecedentedly close.”
A lot of this scene is just pure speculation and not based on facts that I can analyze, but it is an incredibly impressive one, in which Thatcher notes that of the two women, she is the one from a small street in a small town, not the Queen, thus implying that she is better able to judge the needs of the common man.
Their mutual Christian faiths are alluded to when Thatcher notes “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. You see, he had money as well.” This line was plucked from a real life interview with Margaret Thatcher. I’m having trouble tracking down the exact source, but this specific quote is all over the place, so I believe it’s accurate. I’ll keep looking for a source and update this.
As they part, Margaret congratulates the queen on Andrew’s upcoming marriage, and points out that her son is getting married soon too. She then drops the bombshell that her son is now a busiessman, with significant interests in South Africa. This doesn’t exactly explain /everything/ she does throughout this episode, but it does illustrate how personal the issue actually is to her as well; she does not wish to ruin her son financially.
Mark Thatcher did indeed do business with South Africa and continued to be a shady ass dude and embarrassment to his family. He was a tax exile in Switzerland, then moved to the US, then had to move to South Africa to get away from tax evasion charges in the US, was investigated for loan sharking in South Africa, and then later was actually arrested for getting involved with a 2004 coup d’etat attempt in Equatorial Guinea. He is so shady, that it’s actually hilarious. The Guardian wrote an article about him at one point that said, “When Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher's blunt-speaking press secretary at Downing Street, was asked by the troublesome son how he could best help his mum win the 1987 general election, he reputedly answered: ‘Leave the country.’”
Top: Screenshot from The Crown, Netflix
Bottom: PA Images / Getty
Credit: Tim Graham / Getty
The scene of the royal siblings hanging out, drinking, and bitching about their mother together right before Andrew’s wedding has become a fan favorite of the season, and it’s clear to see why. It’s rather iconic, particularly as it ends with Charles’s devastating put down of Andrew (noting that he’s a fringe member of the royal family who will never be king, so why would the press care about his wedding anyway?) and Edward’s final “That was impressively cunty.”
Charles said that the queen did what she had told him never ever to do - speak. This seems to be a pretty clear callback to the events of Season 3’s “Tywysog Cymru.”
Charles’s put down of Andrew circles back to Andrew’s earlier claims that he’d be a better heir then Charles and that Charles is just jealous of him and…squashes them very thoroughly. His pointing out that William is now in line to the throne also points out the flaw in Andrew’s “i’m the second son” reasoning; if anything happens to Charles, it’s certainly not going to be Andrew who’s next in line to the throne.
These events really did happen pretty closely together. The Sunday Times story “Queen dismayed by ‘uncaring’ Thatcher” came out on July 20, 1986 and Andrew and Sarah married on July 23, 1986. And stories of the time really did note that the controversy over the article was somewhat threatening the good news of Andrew’s wedding. The LA Times said on July 22, 1986, “The growing political controversy that enveloped the traditionally neutral Buckingham Palace threatened to add a sour note to Wednesday’s royal wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.”
In The Crown, after the press kerfuffle over the story continues even after the palace denied the story, the palace ends up betraying Michael Shea (who never wanted to talk to the press about the queen’s views in the first place, remember), blames him for the leak, and fires him. This is really not accurate to real life.
One unfortunate consequence of the denial of the story – editor of the Sunday times has gone out guns blazing. The Private Secretary tells the Queen that the palace will have to give the press something to put out the fire - a culprit to deflect blame from the queen. He ultimately asks s Michael Shea to step down and be the culprit, even though Michael had strenuously advised against the plan from the beginning and objected to it.
Shea did ultimately admit that he spoke to a Times reporter but denied the specifics of it and said his statements were misrepresented. A New York Times article from July 29, 1986 discussed this more in depth, (I had to access this article through a library database, so I can’t actually link it directly, alas - the original Heseltine Times letter is behind a paywall.):
“The letter [written by Queen’s private secretary Sir William Heseltine and sent to the Times of London] confirmed what had generally been suspected when it conceded that Michael Shea, the Queen's press secretary, was the so-called ‘palace mole’ who had a series of conversations with a Sunday Times reporter before the newspaper proclaimed to the world last week that the Queen found Mrs. Thatcher's policies 'uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive.’ But having conceded that much, Sir William went on to belittle Mr. Shea as a plausible source for the sort of disclosures The Sunday Times was purporting to make. It was the press secretary's job to speak to reporters and answer their questions, the letter said, but a press secretary ‘certainly does not'‘ know the Queen's views on political issues.
With the palace press secretary finally revealed as the newspaper's main source, two related questions were left open to debate. One was whether The Sunday Times had broken or merely strained the ground rules for what was supposed to be a nonattributable background interview. The other was whether Mr. Shea had been using the conventions of a background interview, which would normally protect him from identification, to spread concern that Mrs. Thatcher's adamant stand in opposition to sanctions against South Africa was proving to be an embarrassment to the Queen in her role as Head of the Commonwealth.”
Shea actually stayed on as the Queen’s press secretary through June 1987 (so for almost a year after his role in the leak became public knowledge) and gave his notice in March of that year. (Source: AP, March 3 1987). At the time, when he was asked if he’d been fired, Shea said bluntly, “That’s ridiculous. I have held the post twice as long as any other press secretary, and I have had an offer that I cannot refuse.” He became head of public affairs for Hanson Trust afterward. He eventually wrote and published over 20 books, including a memoir which I have been desperately searching for and can’t find anywhere.
Shea had been the queen’s press secretary since 1978 and had actually managed several media crises that we’ve seen depicted throughout the show - including the eventual exposure of Sir Anthony Blunt (the royals’ art curator) as a former Soviet Spy (Seen in S3E1 Olding - in which his identity was revealed to the queen, but not exposed to the press at that time), the press frenzy around Charles and Diana’s wedding (S4E3 Fairytale), Michael Fagan’s break-in (S4E5 Fagan), and rumors of Charles and Diana’s rocky marriage (seen in S4E6 Terra Nullius).
Queen watches as Shea takes his box out of the front gate, clearly very upset. The queen herself looks upset. Then she goes back and sits down, pulls out stuff from her red box, looks at a photo of her father. As the episode closes out, we get audio from the 21st birthday speech at the beginning of the episode, noting - “My whole life, whether it be long or short, will be devoted to your service, and the service of the whole imperial family to which we all belong.”
Julian Jarrold, who directed 48:1, said in The Crown’s official podcast that he really thought the Queen’s dedication to the Commonwealth and her work with CHOGM was in huge part a tribute to her late father. George VI was the first head of the commonwealth. I haven’t been able to find sources talking about his specific dedication to the Commonwealth, but since he was willing to let India and other republics enter the commonwealth (initially all commonwealth members were countries who recognized George VI as king) and took on the title of “head of the commonwealth” instead of king in the organization, it seems that he considered it important enough to compromise on his role within the organization.
Eventually, in the Autumn of 1986, PM Thatcher did agree to join the rest of the European Community countries in imposing limited economic sanctions on South Africa. (Source: New York Times, Sept. 17, 1986) That August, after extreme pressure from other Commonwealth countries, Thatcher reluctantly said she’d agree to sanctions if all other 11 community members agreed to them. (Source: New York Times, Aug, 5, 1986) The countries agreed to ban imports of iron, steel, and gold coins from South Africa and also prohibited new investment there by European companies.