Queen Elizabeth has tried, with mixed success, to mind the gap (sorry) between evolving public opinion and traditional royal standards, either by responding to criticism, as she did in season two when Lord Altrincham attacked her public image, or taking action, as she did in season three by overcoming her initial reluctance to express her condolences in person after that deadly and disastrous mining disaster in Aberfan. Then there’s the more politically significant distance that Elizabeth is constantly grappling with: the one between the monarchy and its subjects in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. So is Margaret’s interest in serving a more important royal role, which is again sabotaged in season four by those pesky rules related to birthright and lines of succession. Philip’s frustration with playing second fiddle to Elizabeth on the world stage is one example of that. Other times the space between ambition and reality provokes resentment. Often that has manifested itself in romantic relationships that were thwarted - see the marriage between Margaret and Peter Townsend, or the affair that refuses to go away between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles - or in actual marriages that have soured, the one between Charles and Diana being the most high profile. Over the decades The Crown has covered so far, those distances have caused distress, over and over, for members of the royal family.
#Prince charles and diana series
But they also allude to a central theme that has run through this entire series and takes center stage in season four: the stubbornness of distance, between people, entities, or simply what one wants and what is actually possible. The words Anne chooses in that assessment - gap, chasm, different planets - describe where history’s most dissected royal couple stands as the 1980s and this season of The Crown approach their conclusion. She cites the age gap between the two: “Charles is older than his years and Diana is younger than hers, which makes it not an age gap but an age chasm.” Despite their similar aristocratic backgrounds, Anne says, “their personalities come from different planets.” She adds that “he doesn’t understand her, she doesn’t understand him,” and that this seems like something they are unlikely to overcome. In the penultimate episode of The Crown’s fourth season, Queen Elizabeth asks her daughter, Princess Anne, to level with her about the state of the marriage between Prince Charles and Princess Diana.Īnne, in her usual clipped, blunt fashion, says the marriage has no future. Season four uses many visual and verbal cues to emphasize Diana’s struggle to connect, both personally and publicly, with her new role.
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