S01.E03: Windsor

[Tara Ariano]

Quote

With Elizabeth in new role, Philip tries to assert some power. Churchill wants to delay the coronation. King George’s disgraced brother arrives.

 

[VCRTracking]

After watching Episode 3 I have to quote Tony Blair in Peter Morgan's The Queen:

"What a family!"

Edited November 4, 2016 by VCRTracking

[SeanC]

I really enjoyed the first two episodes, but I think this is the first great episode of the series, and the Duke of Windsor is a big part of it.  He's such a contradictory character, sympathetic and unsympathetic at the same time.  It's hard not to feel sad for him at the clear lack of affection his mother shows him, for instance (referring to George VI as "the perfect son").  And he's right enough about the family not wanting him to pursue commercial opportunities but trying to cut off his allowance at the same time.  Conversely, I believe the Duke's quote about the women in the family was actually "ice-veined bitches".

As a number of reviewers have noted, unlike so many Netflix dramas, episodes of The Crown have an individual dramatic structure rather than just being one huge story (a format that works for some programs, particularly shorter ones like Stranger Things, but which I find tiresome with the various Marvel series).  As here, the title "Windsor" refers to both the Duke, as well as the royal surname.

On to Philip's issue, this is a really interesting historical moment -- the Queen as the first career gal who keeps her own name (against her own wishes).  It's also notable in the sense that, despite what you might think from the way basically the entire Cabinet and the rest of the Royal Family is against it, this was actually without precedent in Britain.  All previous inheritances of the crown via the female line had resulted in a change of the name of the royal house.  E.g., Henry I's daughter Maud left the throne to Henry II, transitioning from the Angevins to the Plantagenets; when Elizabeth I died, the throne passed to the descendants of her grandfather's daughter, bringing the House of Stuart to power in place of the Tudors; the Stuarts themselves gave way to the Hanoverians; and Victoria, the last Hanoverian monarch, was succeeded by her son Edward VII, of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (which was changed to Windsor during World War I).  Effectively, this moment in history set the precedent that the British royal family will probably be called Windsor if and until there ceases to be a monarchy (though the next three people in line to inherit are all men, so it's at this point academic).

[millk]

There was a recent interview with the Duke of Kent who was just a teenager during the funeral events. He talks about how weird it was to be walking beside his uncle who he didn't know. it was in an Elizabeth at 90 documentary. 

I am glad it shows the Duke of Windsor being a jerk. i've long called him the idiot.

 

I am a Monarchist and Royal Watcher and royal collector focusing on 1952-1953 ephemera. I attach one of my prized possessions.

 

Edited November 5, 2016 by millk

[Archery]

Years ago, there was a TV movie about Edward and Wallis and the abdication. It aired maybe in the early eighties. And my elderly grandmother was STILL angry about it and would.not utter his name.

The same actor played Charles in The Queen, with almost the same mealy-mouthed victim characterization.

[Ariah]

When Philip said: "What kind of marriage is this, what kind of family? You've taken my career from me, you've taken my home, you've taken my name..." I thought - 'Well, it's been like this for a lot of women getting married'. Just a side though.

[zxy556575]

Even thought I find the real  Prince Philip distasteful, I would perhaps have felt some sympathy for the character except that HE SHITTING KNEW HIS WIFE WAS GOING TO BE QUEEN. Even if he assumed it wouldn't be for another 30 years, that's the bargain he made when he married her. Was that even done for love on his part, or pragmatic expediency?

I assume that every personal conversation on the show is pure fiction. Many of the ancillary royals are now deceased, certainly Elizabeth and Philip aren't blabbing, household staff sign confidentiality agreements, etc. Still, the characterization of Elizabeth and Philip's marriage doesn't seem far off the mark to me, with the latter acting out of opportunistic duty rather than any great feelings of love for his wife.

[VCRTracking]

Didn't know before the episode about Phillip's sister Cecilie who died in a plane crash while she was 8 months pregnant.. Her husband and two small children were also aboard and killed. Sad.

Edited November 5, 2016 by VCRTracking

[zxy556575]

4 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Didn't know before the episode about Phillip's sister Cecilie who died in a plane crash while she was 8 months pregnant.. Her husband and two small children were also aboard and killed. Sad.

That was news to me, as well! That she was eight months pregnant and the "remains of the baby" being found in the wreck is horrific to contemplate.

I'm about the same age as Prince Charles but didn't really pay much attention to the royal family until Charles and Diana's wedding, which was primarily curiosity about them as celebrities.

Just from growing up with Elizabeth as queen and her being in the news as background noise, I guess I absorbed more of her history than I thought, because most of the story is familiar to me.

[toodles]

I'm loving this series. I watch four or five episodes yesterday. This episode was my fav so far. The actor who plays the disgraced King who abdicated the throne is so well cast. He looks and sounds like the real Prince Charles to me.

[SeanC]

42 minutes ago, toodles said:

The actor who plays the disgraced King who abdicated the throne is so well cast. He looks and sounds like the real Prince Charles to me.

I don't know if you know this, but Alex Jennings in fact played Prince Charles in showrunner Peter Morgan's earlier film The Queen.

1 hour ago, VCRTracking said:

If the show does manage to go six seasons all the way to either the 90s or recent years, they should bring back Eileen Atkins to play older Elizabeth, since she resembles her grandmother IRL.

I expect there'll be people at Netflix fantasizing about getting Dame Helen Mirren to return for a third Morgan project as the Queen.

[toodles]

 I have the Queen on blu-ray.  I thought the actor looked familiar.  Thanks for the info.  Since I'm binging, I may watch the Queen again.

[Jeeves]

I think Alex Jennings very much physically resembles the Duke of Windsor, and does an excellent job in the role. I don't see such a resemblance between him and Prince Charles, but I thought he was also excellent as Charles in The Queen.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Jeeves

[SeanC]

2 minutes ago, Jeeves said:

I think Alex Jennings very much resembles the Duke of Windsor, and does an excellent job in the role. I don't see such a resemblance between him and Prince Charles, but I thought he was also excellent as Charles in The Queen.

Yeah, I didn't think he looked much like Charles (his performance was good, though I think the film is overly harsh on the character), but he's a very good fit for the Duke.

[Bec]

So, I don't know anything about how this royalty stuff works, but if Duke of Windsor wanted to get a job, could anybody really have stopped him? I'm sorry, but he just sounds to me like a whiner with a bunch of BS excuses for why he is a lazy ass who still somehow deserves to live like a king (but without any of the responsibilities, of course). 

It's not like he's some down-on-his-luck unfortunate person. He has resources and connections most people don't. And he's telling people "everyday is a struggle"? Dude really needs to be introduced to what actual hardship looks like. 

He's doing all this whining while other people are burying someone they loved! He didn't come across as all that broken up about his brother at all, he's just worried about getting more money for himself.

And he's mad that his "peaches" wasn't invited? It's a funeral, not a jolly fun time!

He's one of those characters that makes me want to reach into the screen and smack them in the face.

The way he kept going on about love strikes me as "protesting too much". If this really is a great love, they could live in a cardboard box and still feel like the luckiest people alive. I bet she wouldn't stick with him if he was a nobody with nothing. He knows that. That's why he "needs" that allowance so badly.

[millk]

Welcome to the Windsor dark side Bec. in my eyes, your analysis of him is spot on. In the 20s and early 30s he was the biggest rock star/reality show thing going. the people adored him. it really is a whole thing in royal history to try to get inside the guy. 

[dubbel zout]

On 11/5/2016 at 3:36 AM, Ariah said:

When Philip said: "What kind of marriage is this, what kind of family? You've taken my career from me, you've taken my home, you've taken my name..." I thought - 'Well, it's been like this for a lot of women getting married'. Just a side though.

I thought that, too, and I also thought, "Well, it's not as if you didn't know who you were marrying." Elizabeth was the heiress presumptive when they met.

On 11/5/2016 at 5:16 AM, VCRTracking said:

Didn't know before the episode about Phillip's sister Cecilie who died in a plane crash while she was 8 months pregnant.. Her husband and two small children were also aboard and killed. Sad.

Phillip's early life was rather tragic: his father was a bounder and left the family to live in Paris with various mistresses, the family had to flee Greece, they had very little money (in real terms, not just royal ones), his mother had a nervous breakdown, he lost his favorite sister in a plane crash, he was shuttled from family member to family member for most of his childhood. It made his remark about Clarence House—"This is my first real home"—all the more poignant.

7 hours ago, Bec said:

if Duke of Windsor wanted to get a job, could anybody really have stopped him?

Depends on where he got the job. No one in England would have dared, and I think enough pressure could have been put on people elsewhere that it was very unlikely. And let's face it, he would have been very difficult to work with, wanting all the perks of royal status. That's one reason he was so disliked: He gave up the throne yet expected to stay involved and live as he was accustomed. He wanted it both ways as far as that goes. Plus his obsession with getting Wallis the HRH. He truly couldn't understand why that would never, ever happen.

[tennisgurl]

I remember watching that shitty Madonna directed movie about the Edward and Wallis and their romance, and I remember being really...shitty. They tried so HARD to make them sympathetic, and it just failed completely. I cant say I know much about the royal family beyond what is common knowledge, but Edward has pretty much always come off as a lazy asshole, and this show is pretty consistent with that. His constant whining about him needing more money and how they're hardly making ends meat pretty while his brother has just died and his family is still clearly devastated just makes me want to follow him around playing a very small violin. Yeah, we all feel really sorry for you. I mean, you did have a job and money and prestige back when he had a job. Remember that job? You were a King of something or another? Then you quit when things got tough to run off with your girlfriend. Loser.

I am really enjoying this so far. What can I say, I`m a sucker for a period piece, and it gives me an excuse to cruise Wikipedia to find out actual information about the peoplem involved.  

[SeanC]

7 hours ago, Bec said:

So, I don't know anything about how this royalty stuff works, but if Duke of Windsor wanted to get a job, could anybody really have stopped him?

No.  But the issue is that the royal family didn't want him to take a job because the optics would be bad, and he more or less agreed.  It's not like he would have been working 9-to-5.  There would have been plenty of corporations who would have paid him to sit on their board and attend a few meetings a year, paid speaking engagements, commercial endorsements, etc.

Edited November 6, 2016 by SeanC

[WatchrTina]

I've just started my re-watch of episode 3 and I'm confused.  They didn't really shoot at Buckingham Palace did they?  But if they did not, where are those scenes of the Queen arriving at the palace from Clarence House filmed?  It sure looks like Buckingham Palace.  They must have shot the car driving through a set version of the gates with green screen in the foreground and then they must drop in an image of the palace via CGI (which, come to think of it, must be how that did the shots involving an enraged bull elephant in episode 2).  If that's what they are doing, it is flawless.

Movie-making is magic (and the budget on this TV-show must be MASSIVE.)

Edited November 6, 2016 by WatchrTina

[stcroix]

I've always read that Phillip was dirt poor, having to always sponge off people for the very clothes on his back.  Lord Montbatten hatched the scheme that he'd marry into the Windsor family, especially when the young Elizabeth fell in love with him and wrote letters to him when he was in the war.  I've read he wished he'd waited for 'the better looking one'--Margaret.  Montbatten wanted an in with the royal family and Phillip wanted an easy life.  (correct me if I'm wrong in any of this)  Therefore, I don't feel any sympathy for Phillip since he knew what he was getting into.  Although he may have thought he'd have a more glamorous life, more parties and such and felt restricted by Elizabeth being so tied to her role. He was an uncouth man from everything I've read. 

[SeanC]

1 hour ago, WatchrTina said:

Movie-making is magic (and the budget on this TV-show must be MASSIVE.)

In excess of £100 million, reportedly.

[MissLucas]

44 minutes ago, stcroix said:

I've always read that Phillip was dirt poor, having to always sponge off people for the very clothes on his back.  Lord Montbatten hatched the scheme that he'd marry into the Windsor family, especially when the young Elizabeth fell in love with him and wrote letters to him when he was in the war.  I've read he wished he'd waited for 'the better looking one'--Margaret.  Montbatten wanted an in with the royal family and Phillip wanted an easy life.  (correct me if I'm wrong in any of this)  Therefore, I don't feel any sympathy for Phillip since he knew what he was getting into.  Although he may have thought he'd have a more glamorous life, more parties and such and felt restricted by Elizabeth being so tied to her role. He was an uncouth man from everything I've read. 

Mountbatten definitely championed the match. And Philip had everything but an easy upbringing. His family history before he met Elizabeth would make for a very interesting tv show in itself. I've never come across any speculation that he was more interested in Margaret. His financial situation was dire for someone with a royal pedigree and so was his family situation. But he was also a 'stud' (not my words but Prince Harry's) and a Prince so I do think he had options. Options that would have allowed him to be the alpha male in ways he could never be as Prince consort. The one thing I don't like about this show is the portrayal of Philip who had to fill an extremely difficult part. Prince consort was never a piece of cake, even Saint Albert was struggling. While we do know some of the problems Elizabeth and Philip faced not everything went down as shown here. And if you think a man struggling with his part as prince consort must be a thing of the past you better not Google Prince Henrik of Denmark.

Edited November 7, 2016 by MissLucas

[millk]

1 hour ago, MissLucas said:

And if you think a man struggling with his part as prince consort must be a thing of the past you better not Google Prince Henrik of Denmark.

But please Google image Prince Henrik unicorn because it's awesome.

[Badger]

On 11/5/2016 at 4:16 AM, VCRTracking said:

Didn't know before the episode about Phillip's sister Cecilie who died in a plane crash while she was 8 months pregnant.. Her husband and two small children were also aboard and killed. Sad.

 

There was also a third child, Princess Johanna who did not go on the flight because she was still a baby.  Sadly, she died of meningitis a couple years later.

[Daisy]

I do like it Elizabeth was trying to make it so Phillip could be equal (or at least matter), ie: keep the last name, etc. but I find it really kind of douchey for Phillip to be all "Hey dad, yah it's totally going to be the house of Mountbatten, ain't that cool!" before Elizabeth said it was finalized. I did feel for him (sort of) that he at that moment felt he was 'losing' everything because I suppose they both thought they'd have time for them to be "normal" before she'd have to become The Queen. everything is happening faster than he thought, but at this point, dude, suck it up. It's not about you, especially now. 

Wow about the amount of hate everyone flung towards the Duke of Windsor. It's interesting that people feel that Albert/King George becoming King is what ultimately killed him (coupled with the whole "My brother murdered Albert Windsor when he Abdicated." that the King stated the last episode. DO they think the Cancer came because of this, or just the stress, and what not. He (Windsor) was also seriously entitled, like I need more money, I need her to have a title I was a King, etc, and it's seriously like "so not the time." Elizabeth saying "Well, don't you think I deserve an apology." was kind of heart breaking, because she's only in this position now, because David needed to have Wallis Simpson. 

Kind of shady that the coronation was put off for a year so that Windsor Churchill could try to keep his power. shame on you Winston. 

[vibeology]

1 hour ago, Daisy said:

Wow about the amount of hate everyone flung towards the Duke of Windsor. It's interesting that people feel that Albert/King George becoming King is what ultimately killed him (coupled with the whole "My brother murdered Albert Windsor when he Abdicated." that the King stated the last episode. DO they think the Cancer came because of this, or just the stress, and what not. He (Windsor) was also seriously entitled, like I need more money, I need her to have a title I was a King, etc, and it's seriously like "so not the time." Elizabeth saying "Well, don't you think I deserve an apology." was kind of heart breaking, because she's only in this position now, because David needed to have Wallis Simpson. 

It's a bit of both. Bertie had a horrible stammer which didn't matter too much when he was the spare but was a very big deal once he was king. The expectations on him to speak publicly both in terms of entertaining and in terms of speeches in person and on the radio made the stammer a very serious problem. One piece of advice to help deal with it was to smoke pretty much constantly. He went from someone who smoked socially to someone who smoked 40 cigarettes a day. That's pretty clearly what caused the cancer. Would be have gotten lung cancer if he hadn't become king? Maybe. He was a smoker before but its hard to imagine he would have died so young. The stress of the role certainly didn't help. It meant that he wasn't getting proper medical treatment (not that anything could have stopped lung cancer back then but certainly he could have had a more open treatment and gotten some medical care) and also likely caused him to die sooner.

How much of that his family understood at the time is not clear. In the 50s people hadn't figured out the smoking=cancer thing. It was clear that George didn't have the opportunity to take care of himself even a little while his brother did nothing but lounge around and entertain. It's easy to see why the rest of the family was bitter and angry considering.

[MissLucas]

The smoking-cancer link was only about to become known at the time the king died. 'Call the Midwife' had a good plot about that last season. People were reluctant to believe medical findings especially with heavy smokers around who reached old age like Churchill.

Edited November 7, 2016 by MissLucas

[dubbel zout]

24 minutes ago, vibeology said:

How much of that his family understood at the time is not clear.

They could barely even whisper the word cancer, so they were using all sorts of euphemisms for what ailed the king.

[Daisy]

57 minutes ago, vibeology said:

It's a bit of both. Bertie had a horrible stammer which didn't matter too much when he was the spare but was a very big deal once he was king. The expectations on him to speak publicly both in terms of entertaining and in terms of speeches in person and on the radio made the stammer a very serious problem. One piece of advice to help deal with it was to smoke pretty much constantly. He went from someone who smoked socially to someone who smoked 40 cigarettes a day. That's pretty clearly what caused the cancer. Would be have gotten lung cancer if he hadn't become king? Maybe. He was a smoker before but its hard to imagine he would have died so young. The stress of the role certainly didn't help. It meant that he wasn't getting proper medical treatment (not that anything could have stopped lung cancer back then but certainly he could have had a more open treatment and gotten some medical care) and also likely caused him to die sooner.

How much of that his family understood at the time is not clear. In the 50s people hadn't figured out the smoking=cancer thing. It was clear that George didn't have the opportunity to take care of himself even a little while his brother did nothing but lounge around and entertain. It's easy to see why the rest of the family was bitter and angry considering.

thanks for all of this. (I do remember the stammer - this is from the Kings Speech). but yah, that stress and the prescribed "help" didn't help the cause at all. I don't blame them for being mad at all either. 

[Bec]

On 11/6/2016 at 9:26 AM, SeanC said:

No.  But the issue is that the royal family didn't want him to take a job because the optics would be bad, and he more or less agreed.  It's not like he would have been working 9-to-5.  There would have been plenty of corporations who would have paid him to sit on their board and attend a few meetings a year, paid speaking engagements, commercial endorsements, etc.

Yeah, that's the thing, he doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who cares whether he makes his family look bad. So what's stopping him is probably because he thinks it would be beneath him to have to work in any capacity. In the show, he's a character who's very adamant that he's not just some commoner.

The only version I vaguely heard before about this guy was this romantic notion that he gave everything up for love. But apparently, he didn't really give up much. He gave up the responsibilities, that's about it. He still demanded the money and the prestige. "Love" is, actually, not enough for them. Really takes the shine off the "romance" of it all.

Who paid his allowance, anyway? If it came out of money that was already allotted to the royals, I guess that's their business. But if this is something extra that their taxpayers had to pay for... I would have been pissed if I were one of their taxpayers. Hee!

Edited November 7, 2016 by Bec

[SeanC]

Just now, Bec said:

Who's actually paid his allowance, anyway? If it comes out of money that's already allotted to the royals, I guess that's their business. But if this is something extra that their taxpayers had to pay for... I would have been pissed if I were one of their taxpayers. Hee!

I believe it was paid out of George VI's own incomes, which is why the Queen Mother was eager to cut it off.

George also had to buy him out of various private possessions of the monarch, like Sandringham, which aren't automatically owned by whoever wears the crown.

[dubbel zout]

The horror of "He wants to sell Sandringham!" cracked me up. Well, a) the royal family doesn't want him in Britain, and b) he could probably use the cash.

[Primetimer]

Sarah D. Bunting ranks the E03 players from most to least Googleable.

View the full article

[Jeeves]

Oh, someone else who appreciates Harriet Walter! I'm trying to imagine her as the Queen Mother because I too would like to see more of her.

[EricJ]

  2 hours ago, Bec said:

Who's actually paid his allowance, anyway? If it comes out of money that's already allotted to the royals, I guess that's their business. But if this is something extra that their taxpayers had to pay for... I would have been pissed if I were one of their taxpayers. Hee!

I believe it was paid out of George VI's own incomes, which is why the Queen Mother was eager to cut it off.

George also had to buy him out of various private possessions of the monarch, like Sandringham, which aren't automatically owned by whoever wears the crown.

As a recent Outlander binge-er every mention of Sandringham is amusing.

[Daisy]

1 minute ago, EricJ said:

As a recent Outlander binge-er every mention of Sandringham is amusing.

(laugh) right? Everytime they mention Sandringham, i'm like. "Where? I don't see  him."

[teddysmom]

The actor who played the Duke of Windsor in this also played Prince Charles in "The Queen". It's interesting how most of the other actors in that movie look somewhat like the person they're playing, except for him.

[VCRTracking]

The actor playing Peter Townsend is practically a clone of the real one(pictured below):

[dubbel zout]

Greg Wise is outstanding physical casting for Lord Mountbatten.

[Calamity Jane]

I always wonder why these dramas don't mention that part of the issue with the Duke of Windsor was that he was a flat-out traitor during WWII.  He made a deal with the Nazis that they would bring him back as king if/when they conquered Britain.  I believe he was in Portugal at the time, and when somehow it was found out, he was shipped off to the Bahamas for the remainder of the war years, and the matter was kept completely hush-hush.  There was a really engrossing documentary about it made after the Wall came down and a lot of papers came to light in the former East Germany. So far as I know, the story has not been disproven.   

The Duke and Duchess lived in Paris when my family lived there in the 50s-60s, quite near where I went to school in Neuilly.  They dined frequently at Chez Maxim, and my parents occasionally saw them there when they were showing out-of-town bigwigs around.  My mother always had a certain affection for the Duchess because the rule at Maxim in those days was that women  must wear black one certain night a week.  Some dignitaries were in town and the plan was to go to La Tour d'Argent, so my mom wore a gorgeous emerald-green dress, but they ended up at Maxim for reasons I've forgotten.  You could be admitted wearing color, but it was considered massively gauche.  To my mom's relief, there in the dining room sat the Duchess, also in a bright colored dress, so the spotlight was not trained solely on Mom.  

One other thing from those days - the French gossip papers had the Queen pregnant just about every month.  She'd have easily had ten kids if they'd been right a tenth of the time.  The excitement when she had Andrew and then - gasp! - Edward was HUGE.  

I'm enjoying the series, but it does not quite match some of the things we always heard over the years, such as that Elizabeth remained very fond of her Uncle David even after everything.  Doesn't seem that way from this account.  Also I always believed that they were all extremely fond of uncle Mountbatten and

Spoiler

were devastated when the IRA blew him up

- again, doesn't seem so in this story.  

Edited November 20, 2016 by saoirse
Please spoiler tag future history information

[WatchrTina]

8 hours ago, Daisy said:

Everytime they mention Sandringham, i'm like. "Where? I don't see  him."

I'm almost positive that the great house that is standing in for Sandringham in "The Crown" is the same one that played the home of the fictional Duke of Sandringham in "Outlander."

[Bec]

On 11/7/2016 at 9:33 AM, SeanC said:

George also had to buy him out of various private possessions of the monarch

Man! Sounds like he left with the kind of money that would last most people several lifetimes. If he and his "true love" went and lived a quiet life in Nowheresville, they could have lived out the rest of their days without worrying about money.

But I imagine she would quickly get bored with him if they did that.

It didn't really mean anything to me while watching the episode, but the recap highlighted the pug name "Disraeli", so I had to look that up. Disraeli was a Jewish Prime Minister? Wow, so there is something to that thing in Edward VIII's wiki page about how he might have been a Nazi sympathizer.

On 11/7/2016 at 4:11 PM, Calamity Jane said:

I always wonder why these dramas don't mention that part of the issue with the Duke of Windsor was that he was a flat-out traitor during WWII.  He made a deal with the Nazis that they would bring him back as king if/when they conquered Britain.

Yeah, I just found a few articles about this when I was googling around!

The more I learn about him, the more awful he seems.

It does seem QE is fond of her uncle in the show, though, despite ribbing him a little about his gassy pugs. She's not outright hostile to him like her mother is (not that I blame the Queen Mother for her hostility at all). QE was giving him a little bit of a hard time, but doing it cordially. Heh. And she was willing to take his advice. I'm not sure that's wise, considering he's such an asshat, but in real life QE is still going strong, so I guess it didn't hurt.

On 11/7/2016 at 8:30 PM, WatchrTina said:

I'm almost positive that the great house that is standing in for Sandringham in "The Crown" is the same one that played the home of the fictional Duke of Sandringham in "Outlander."

I had to keep reminding myself that Sandringham in Outlander probably wasn't a real person... right?

Edited 'cause typo.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Bec

[dubbel zout]

7 hours ago, Bec said:

But I imagine she would quickly get bored with him if they did that.

She got bored anyway. Both of them did, as they lived a shallow life of parties, trips, and general idleness. What a colossal waste.

[fredfreddy44]

• Quote

  Years ago, there was a TV movie about Edward and Wallis and the abdication. It aired maybe in the early eighties

  There was a Masterpiece Theatre series called "Edward and Mrs Simpson" that aired around 1982.  I think it was 8 or 10 episodes.  It was quite good.  I remember watching it with my dad and still remember the theme song: "I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the princes of wales..."

[Jeeves]

2 minutes ago, fredfreddy44 said:

• There was a Masterpiece Theatre series called "Edward and Mrs Simpson" that aired around 1982.  I think it was 8 or 10 episodes.  It was quite good.  I remember watching it with my dad and still remember the theme song: "I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the princes of wales..."

That was Edward & Mrs. Simpson, which IIRC put the old "romance of the century" gloss on it. A 2005 made for TV film, Wallis & Edward, was IMO better and more insightful. 

[formerlyfreedom]

A reminder to please take conversation that is not about the episode to the History Talk topic. Thanks.

[MrsR]

About where the money that David demanded came from.

 

It comes from the Crown Estate. That is the properties owned by the Crown managed by the government and dolled out to the royals.

Once upon a time George III owned a great deal of land but owed a great deal of money, (Thanks to us Americans) and the royal estates were transferred to the Government in trust and called the Crown Estate. There was a Civil List and every ten years the list was revised as to who could get some cash. People died, people were born and people came of age. David wanted to be on the Civil List but it wasn't in the ten year cycle. So David's money came directly from George V's personal coffers which were now the Queen Mother's and Elizabeth's personal coffers. If David was on the Civil List he would have to work for it, make personal appearances, do charity, live in England and that would facilitate Wallis' being styled as HRH. They were having none of that. The show wasn't really clear on how that all worked.

There is no more Civil List.  The Royals get a strict 15 percent and decide between the family how it is divied up. And the Royal fortunes have flourished, Elizabeth is the woman with the largest land holdings in the world. 

And if the Monarchy was abolished the Crown Estate would probably have to revert back to the Windsors. 

Edited November 8, 2016 by MrsR

[dubbel zout]

On 11/8/2016 at 2:47 PM, MrsR said:

And if the Monarchy was abolished the Crown Estate would probably have to revert back to the Windsors. 

Not necessarily:

Quote

Who owns The Crown Estate?

The Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch 'in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch.

The Government also does not own The Crown Estate. It is managed by an independent organisation - established by statute - headed by a Board (also known as The Crown Estate Commissioners), and the surplus revenue from the estate is paid each year to the Treasury for the benefit of all UK taxpayers.

See here for more info.

More on topic, when he abdicated, Edward also lost the income from the duchy of Lancaster, so he really was dependent on his family for his livelihood. He might have had some private inheritances, but the probably wouldn't have been enough to support him in what he considered proper style. I doubt he would have ever been satisfied with what the family gave him. 

[MrsR]

There is an argument that because the Crown Estate was given in trust/contract originally to the government with the proviso that it would support the royal family/monarch that should the monarchy be abolished it could be legally argued that the CE should revert back to them. In other words, if the CE doesn't fulfill their end of the contract that the Royals can demand it back. Both ends of the deal need to be upheld for the contract to be honored. Yes, I know it's very complicated as UK trusts are maddening legal wise. Just imagine the estate taxes. A great deal of it is in London properties, not Royal residences as some folks imagine.

 

Staying on topic. I found David to be an amusing character here and Alex Jennings rocked this role. I didn't realize he was this good an actor.