Quoting The Crown

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Philip: Bugger off!
Bertie: Yes, I'm not quite sure that's the correct address for the King of England.

Martin: It would help if we could decide here and now on your name.
Elizabeth: My name?
Martin: Yes, ma'am. Your regnal name. That is the name you'll take as queen. Your father took George. Obviously his name is - was Albert. And before he abdicated, your uncle took Edward, of course. His name was David.
Elizabeth: What's wrong with my name?
Philip: Nothing.
Elizabeth: Well then let's not overcomplicate matters unnecessarily. My name is Elizabeth.

Lascelles: You're probably telling yourself that because no one has confronted you about it that no one can know. Allow me to disabuse you of that delusion.

[PinkRibbons]

Tommy Lascelles is the most magnificently bitchy mustache man.

From "Smoke and Mirrors":

David: You know, Tommy, you're an embarrassment to the institution you serve, and to the country that institution serves in turn.

Tommy: And I will take a lecture on national embarrassment from many people, sir, but not from you.

[JessDVD]

Elizabeth: I have the sort of face where if I'm not smiling, people say "Well, isn't she cross".

(I'm fond of the phrase RBF, but I'm probably going to use this now instead. Too bad my fake British accent is so bad.)

[Inquisitionist]

As someone also afflicted by RBF, I loved that, too!

[Badger]

Edward VIII's first name actually was Edward, but he was always called David.

[roamyn]

On Friday, January 13, 2017 at 10:20 PM, Badger said:

Edward VIII's first name actually was Edward, but he was always called David.

Yes, but people forget that Edward VIIs name was Albert Edward, and he went by Bertie, but to piss off his deceased parents, chose Edward as a Regnal name.  (Which probably made QV turn in her grave, as she wanted a King Albert in British history.  At least Belgium has honored that name.)

On Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 0:24 PM, PinkRibbons said:

Tommy Lascelles is the most magnificently bitchy mustache man.

From "Smoke and Mirrors":

David: You know, Tommy, you're an embarrassment to the institution you serve, and to the country that institution serves in turn.

Tommy: And I will take a lecture on national embarrassment from many people, sir, but not from you.

I was going to quote that as well.  He had the most quotable lines!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

David: I wish to address my people. It's my right.
Mary: You have forfeited that right.
David: There are things I wish to say.
Mary: In which capacity? You're no longer their king.
David: As a private individual.
Mary: Oh, no one wants to hear from a private individual.

Elizabeth: Do sit down, Prime Minister. I've ordered tea. Or something stronger, perhaps.
Churchill: Oh, dear. Did no one explain? The Sovereign never offers a Prime Minister refreshment. Nor a chair. The precedent set by your great-great-grandmother was to keep us standing like Privy Councillors. To waste time is a grievous sin. And, if there is one thing I have learned in 52 years of public service, it is that there is no problem so complex, nor crisis so grave, that it cannot be satisfactorily resolved within 20 minutes.

David: With this family, when you're in, you're never quite sure that you're in. But when you're out, there's no doubt at all. You're out.

Elizabeth: Why pugs? What's the attraction? 
David: Well, they're childlike. Need a lot of loving. 
Elizabeth: They have a strange bark.
David: Yes. 
Elizabeth: More of a yap. And they're lazy. Spend all day sleeping. 
David: Yes. 
Elizabeth: They're awfully gassy.
David: Yes.
Elizabeth: I suppose one can always open the windows.

Philip: You're my wife. Taking my name is the law.
Elizabeth: It's the custom, not the law.
Philip: A custom practiced so universally it might as well be the law.

[Inquisitionist]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Philip: You're my wife. Taking my name is the law.
Elizabeth: It's the custom, not the law.
Philip: A custom practiced so universally it might as well be the law.

Blerg.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

20 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

Blerg.

I KNOW, RIGHT? But I loved that Elizabeth made sure to tell him that it's not actually the law.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Townsend: You sure about this, sir?
Philip: When I got married, my in-laws made me marshal of the Royal Air Force, as a result, I'm the most senior airman in the country and I can't bloody well fly. Yes, I'm sure.

Doctor: The air's a little stuffy, ma'am. It might help to open the window a crack?
Mary: Not while they're rehearsing.
Doctor: What are they rehearsing?
Mary: My funeral.

Clem: Mr. Atlee, I entered the civil service to serve the public and to serve government, any government. But I am also a responsible citizen and I cannot stand by while chaos reigns around me. This is not a government. Mr. Attlee, this is a collection of hesitant, frightened, old men unable to unseat a tyrannical, delusional even older one. Yours was the most radical, forward-thinking government this country has ever seen. How you lost the election escapes me.
Mr. Atlee: Escapes us all.

Nurse: I saw that.
Mary: Might it be possible for you to pretend that you haven't?
Nurse: And the Queen is here, Your Majesty. 
Mary: Could you be more specific? 
Nurse: Ma'am? 
Mary: Which queen? 
Nurse: Queen Elizabeth, ma'am. 
Mary: Which one? There are two. 
Nurse: The young one.
Mary: Oh, THE Queen.
Nurse: I thought you was all queens. They gave me a sheet.
Mary: We are. I was the queen so long as my husband the king was alive, but since he died, I am no longer THE queen, I am simply Queen Mary. My late son's widow was also THE queen, but upon the death of her husband, she became Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth, is now queen, so she is -
Nurse: THE Queen. 
Mary: Bravo.
Nurse: Nurses and nuns have the same problem.  We're all called Sister. 
Mary: So you are.
Nurse: Well, she's outside. THE Queen.
Mary: Then let her in, Sister.

Mary: I'm always happy to see you, and my mood will improve yet further if you promise me one thing. 
Elizabeth: Name it. 
Mary: Not to ask me how I am. It's all anyone ever does. Forget death by lung disease, it's death by bad conversation.

Elizabeth: In your letter that you sent me, you said, "Loyalty to the ideal you have inherited is your duty above everything else, because the calling comes from the highest source, from God himself."
Mary: Yes.
Elizabeth: Do you really believe that?
Mary: Monarchy is God's sacred mission to grace and dignify the earth, to give ordinary people an ideal to strive towards, an example of nobility and duty to raise them in their wretched lives. Monarchy is a calling from God. That is why you are crowned in an abbey, not a government building. Why you are anointed, not appointed. It's an archbishop that puts the crown on your head, not a minister or public servant. Which means that you are answerable to God in your duty, not the public.
Elizabeth: I'm not sure that my husband would agree with that. He would argue that in any equitable modern society, that church and state should be separated. That if God has servants they're priests not kings. He would also say that he watched his own family destroyed, because they were seen by the people to embody indefensible and unreasonable ideas.
Mary: Yes, but he represents a royal family of carpetbaggers and parvenus that goes back what? Ninety years? What would he know of Alfred the Great, the Rod of Equity and Mercy, Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror or Henry the Eighth? It's the Church of England, dear, not the Church of Denmark or Greece. Next question.

Elizabeth: It doesn't feel right, as head of state, to do nothing. 
Mary: It is exactly right. 
Elizabeth: Is it? But surely doing nothing is no job at all?
Mary: To do nothing is the hardest job of all. And it will take every ounce of energy that you have. To be impartial is not natural, not human. People will always want you to smile or agree or frown. And the minute you do, you will have declared a position, a point of view. And that is the one thing as sovereign that you are not entitled to do. The less you do, the less you say or agree or smile-
Elizabeth: Or think? Or feel? Or breathe? Or exist?
Mary: The better.
Elizabeth: Well, that's fine for the sovereign. But where does that leave me?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Elizabeth: Do you suppose I could borrow it for a couple of days? Just to practice.
Man: Borrow it, ma'am? From whom? If it's not yours, whose is it?

Elizabeth: I was just thinking how I'd like us to spend more time together.
Philip: What are you talking about? We spend all our time together.
Elizabeth: No, we don't. You're always off flying, or lunching with strange men.
Philip: A few hours a week, darling. Anyway, what else am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you while you're Queening? 
Elizabeth: Queening? 
Philip: Yes. Queening.
Elizabeth: Maybe I'd like your help with the Queening.

Philip: They won't listen to me. The grey, old men? The men with moustaches? They hate me.

Reporter: I believe our editor agreed as part of the deal that you would give our readers some tips for entertaining? 
Wallis: Did we agree that?
David: We did, darling, yes. They paid extra. 
Wallis: Hmmm.
David: But having had a naval background, I don't much care for fussy things or smells, but I do like a good, well-milled soap.
Reporter: What sartorial tips would you give the young men of today?
David: No matter what the fashion, a well-cut suit in a beautiful fabric will take you anywhere.

Lascelles: Let me know what you want me to do. 
QEQM: The same as always, Tommy. Exactly as I tell you.

David: The pusillanimity and vindictiveness knows no limits. Seventeen years have elapsed since the abdication. Shouldn't bygones be bygones?
Lascelles: Some things can never be forgotten. Which of us, for example, has forgotten the Somme?
David: You would compare the love and public commitment I made to my wife to slaughter in a world war? Why not use a celebration such as this, the investiture of a new sovereign, a beautiful young child, symbol of modernity, change and progress, to turn a page? Surely the sophistication of a society can be measured by its tolerance and ability to forgive.
Lascelles: Its weakness, too. Sometimes lines just need to be drawn.
David: You know, Tommy, you're an embarrassment to the institution you serve, and to the country that institution serves in turn.
Lascelles: And I will take a lecture on national embarrassment from many people, sir, but not from you.

Philip: What is the collective noun for a group of stuffy old Etonians? A herd? A pack? A school?

Philip: I merely asked the question, whether it was right in this day and age that the Queen's consort, her husband, should kneel to her rather than stand beside her.
Elizabeth: You won't be kneeling to me.
Philip: That's not how it will look. That's not how it will feel. It will feel like a eunuch, an amoeba, is kneeling before his wife.
Elizabeth: You'll be kneeling before God and the Crown as we all do.
Philip: I don't see you kneeling before anyone.
Elizabeth: Because I'm already flattened under the weight of this thing.
Philip: Oh, spare me the false humility. Doesn't look like that to me. 
Elizabeth: How does it look to you? 
Philip: Looks to me like you're enjoying it. It's released an unattractive sense of authority and entitlement that I have never seen before.
Elizabeth: In you, it's released a weakness and insecurity I've never seen before. Philip: Are you my wife or my Queen? 
Elizabeth: I'm both.
Philip: I want to be married to my wife.
Elizabeth: I am both, and a strong man would be able to kneel to both. 
Philip: I will not kneel before my wife. 
Elizabeth: Your wife is not asking you to. 
Philip: But my Queen commands me? 
Elizabeth: Yes.
Philip: I beg you make an exception for me.
Elizabeth: No.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Newspaper editor: Snifter? 
Bill: I shouldn't.
Newspaper editor: Oh, go on. It's nearly lunchtime.

Bill: It's Princess Margaret. 
Newspaper editor: What about her?
Bill: Leaving the Abbey on the day of the coronation, I saw her picking a piece of fluff off a man's uniform. 
Newspaper editor: Fluff? 
Bill: Yes. Fluff.
Newspaper editor: Jesus, Bill, I thought we did serious reporting here.
Bill: This is serious because the man in question, her father's former equerry, Group Captain Peter Townsend, is a commoner, and wait for it, a divorced commoner. Historically, when this lot brush up against divorce you end up with either reformation or abdication.

Elizabeth: Where were you today? 
Philip: Nowhere. Well, clearly somewhere. But nowhere that would interest you. It's a lunch club. 
Elizabeth: Where? 
Philip: Soho.
Elizabeth: Oh.
Philip: With just men.
Elizabeth: Talking about women.
Philip: No. Talking about Egypt if you must know. And the revolution that's just taken place there. Along with the unrest in Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Italy. Please take note. Yes, a little bit about the fairer sex over coffee and the odd brandy. What do you expect? It's a gentlemen's lunch club.

Margaret: Oh, Lilibet, you've known for a while about Peter and I. This can't really be a terrible shock to you.
Elizabeth: No, not at all. It's wonderful. 
Margaret: Is there anything you'd like to ask us? 
Philip: Does your wife know?

Philip: Has everyone forgotten the catastrophe that was your uncle already? 
Elizabeth: The situation's different. 
Philip: One party divorced? The other royal? Sounds pretty similar to me.
Elizabeth: That was 17 years ago. The world has changed.
Philip: The rest of the world has. Nothing changes in the Court of St. James.

Elizabeth: And one can see the attraction. 
Philip: In Peter?
Elizabeth: Yes. He's a handsome war hero.
Philip: Divorced war hero.
Elizabeth: And blameless in that divorce.
Philip: No. There's no such thing as a blameless party in a divorce.
Elizabeth: His wife had an affair with another man.
Philip: Because he was always around here, sniffing around your sister. 
Elizabeth: He was looking after my father. 
Philip: And sniffing around your sister.

Dickie: This is not just inflammatory, it breaks all the rules.
Newspaper editor: What rules, sir?
Dickie: The unspoken rules of deference and respect shown by the media to the royal family.

Lascelles: I imagine it must be difficult being dictated to like that by an employee.
Dickie: I wasn't dictated to. 
Lascelles: Am I missing something? You said this editor was telling you what he was going to print in your newspaper.
Dickie: He is. But I can't keep telling him what to write.
Lascelles: I thought that was the point of owning a newspaper.

Lascelles: Ma'am, what do you know about the Royal Marriages Act of 1772?
Elizabeth: George II? 
Lascelles: Third, ma'am. He had two younger brothers, William and Henry. Both of whom, I'm assuming, made undesirable marriages. One to an illegitimate shrew, the other to a disreputable jade, which caused an outrage in parliament and the church.

Elizabeth: You've never cared for [Townsend], Tommy.
Lascelles: No, I cared for him as long as he did his job and knew his place.
Elizabeth: My father held him in high regard.
Lascelles: As a member of staff, not as a member of the family.
Elizabeth: He has been a good friend to us all.
Lascelles: Too good, I would argue.

Tommy: Following consultation with the government, the Foreign Office, and Her Majesty's press secretary, the decision has been taken to move forward your posting to Brussels with immediate effect. A car is waiting to take you first to your apartment, where you will pack, and then directly to the airfield. The plane for Brussels leaves in just under three hours. There was some concern that that might not give you enough time, but I felt sure that as a military man packing quickly and unsentimentally would come as second nature to you.
Peter: But that isn't what was agreed. The agreement between Margaret and Her Majesty the Queen, with the certain knowledge of Her Majesty the Queen Mother, was that Margaret and I were to spend some time together upon her return from Rhodesia before I travelled to Brussels - forty-eight hours at least. Your proposal is a direct contravention of that agreement.
Lascelles: Well, I cannot, nor would I ever presume, to know the intimate details of whatever agreements have or have not been made within the family. What I can tell you is that the position of air attaché at the embassy fell vacant unexpectedly early and needs filling right away.
Peter: Of course, a crucial position like the air attaché to the embassy at Brussels cannot be left vacant for very long. I ask only that it remain so until after the Princess returns, as I was promised.
Lascelles: I'm afraid that will not be possible.
Peter: Tommy, I understand you're only trying to do your job. But one thing the trip to Northern Ireland has made very clear to me is that the romance between Margaret and myself has caught the public eye. There is a momentum for us, a sense of joy and celebration which you would be wise to acknowledge. The people can clearly see the sincerity of the love between Margaret and me, and I would advise you not to reprehend us for that. Such an act could backfire.
Lascelles: And now, if I may give you some advice in turn, Peter. That when referring to a member of the Royal family, you use the appropriate title. In this case, Her Royal Highness.
Peter: When referring to the woman I love, and who loves me, and who is soon to be my wife, I'll call her what I damn well like. Her name is Margaret.
Lascelles: Car, Townsend. Waiting. Tick, tick, tick. Bon voyage.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Vice-Provost: "There are two elements of the Constitution," wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867. "The efficient and the dignified. " Which is the monarch? Your Royal Highness? 
Elizabeth: The dignified? 
VP: Very good. The efficient has the power to make and execute policy and is answerable to the electorate. What touches all should be approved by all. The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient and is answerable only? 
Elizabeth: To God. 
VP: Precisely. Two institutions, crown and government, dignified and the efficient, only work when they support each other, when they trust one another. You can underline that. 
Elizabeth: Do you teach this to your other pupils? 
VP: No, just you. This is what I teach them. These are exam papers. 
Elizabeth: Shouldn't I know all of this, too? 
VP: No, Ma'am. All very undignified.

Elizabeth: At the time of my education, I asked the Vice-Provost if we shouldn't spend a bit of time on literature, philosophy, science. He felt I had enough on my plate as it was. But don't you think I should have learned about it?
QEQM: Why?
Elizabeth: Well, doesn't one have a duty to know certain things?
QEQM: You have a great many other virtues. You can't be expected to know everything.
Elizabeth: Well, no, that's the point, Mummy. I know almost nothing.
QEQM: You know when to keep your mouth shut. That's more important than anything.
Elizabeth: And that would've been fine if I'd gone on to live a normal life. But now I spend so much time with politicians and statesmen. You know, I live in dread of being left alone with them.
QEQM: Your dear papa was just the same.
Elizabeth: Be nice to think that one could, if not hold one's own, then at least not have to steer the conversation away to dogs and horses every time.
Lascelles: The Prime Minister's on his way, ma'am.
QEQM: Well, one good thing about this one is you never have to open your mouth at all.
Elizabeth: That's true.
QEQM: Just smile politely while he drones on and on.

Elizabeth: I was hoping it might be possible for me to make my own decision just once.

Anthony: I'm no stranger to pain, Winston, but this has become intolerable. I must have corrective surgery.
Winston: And this corrective surgery, must it really be Boston?
Anthony: That's where the best man is. The only man. They're better equipped to deal with gall bladder problems in America - due to the high fat diets they have here.

Elizabeth: I came because I wanted to ask you a question about my education.
QEQM: What about it?
Elizabeth: The fact that I didn't receive one.
QEQM: You did.
Elizabeth: Sewing, needlework, and saying poems with Crawfie. That is not an education.
QEQM: Darling, you also spent years one-on-one with the Vice-Provost of Eton College.
Elizabeth: Being drilled in the Constitution.
QEQM: Which is far more than your sister ever got.
Elizabeth: Mummy! I'm talking about a normal education in normal subjects.
QEQM: You received an entirely appropriate education for a woman of your background.
Elizabeth: Which has entirely failed to prepare me for the life I lead now.
QEQM: We taught you how to be a lady, a princess. What do you want? A degree? No one wants a bluestocking or a college lecturer as sovereign. They want a queen.
Elizabeth: Yes, a queen who is hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the people that she has to meet.
QEQM: What has this to do with me?
Elizabeth: How could you have let me down like this?
QEQM: Is this a criticism of my motherhood? I would've thought you'd think twice before throwing stones on that score.
Elizabeth: What's that supposed to mean?
QEQM: I hardly see you blazing a trail in that department.
Elizabeth: That's not fair.
QEQM: Besides, I thought we were past the age now where we take cheap shots at our parents. I educated you as your father and I saw fit. Why didn't we push harder? No one advised that we should. That includes the Vice-Provost. Oh, don't force something that doesn't come naturally, dear. That's what I've learned. We all have to accept our limitations in life.

Bobbety: Good God.
Winston: A stroke, Bobbety, that's all, a minor stroke. But I'm on the mend, bouncing back.
Bobbety: Well, you don't look very bouncy to me.

Adeane: It seems that Martin Charteris is to replace you as Her Majesty's Private Secretary, not me.
Lascelle: What? Says who?
Adeane: Says Margaret Colville, Jock Colville's wife, who plays bridge with Alice Jameson, lady-in-waiting, who as you may know, plays tennis with Mary Charteris.
Lascelles: Why on earth would I know that?

Elizabeth: I know you were going to prepare some tutorials of a more general nature, but it seems I'm going to need some more specific knowledge first.
Hogg: On which subject?
Elizabeth: President Eisenhower. He'll be coming here in a matter of days and I'll be expected to sit next to him and make conversation with him so I need to know all about him and what interests him.
Hogg: The military industrial complex, ma'am.
Elizabeth: What?
Hogg: And its threat to democratic government. It's what most concerns him. 
Elizabeth: Something lighter, perhaps? 
Hogg: Golf? 
Elizabeth: Anything else? 
Hogg: Oil painting. I'm told he paints landscapes.
Elizabeth: Oh, don't they all?

Elizabeth: [Eisenhower] was baptized, wasn't he? Just six months ago.
Hogg: Yes, I think I read about that. A Presbyterian. 
Elizabeth: Did they dunk him, do you think? 
Hogg: Dunk? 
Elizabeth: A full immersion. In some river. 
Hogg: If I were a gambling man, I'd say yes.
Elizabeth: Are you?
Hogg: Occasionally. The Derby, ma'am, and the Grand National.
Elizabeth: Oh, how did you get on this year?
Hogg: At the National, rather well. I had Early Mist on an each-way bet.
Elizabeth: Oh, well done, you. You won by 20 lengths. I share your admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and everything he's doing at Ballydoyle Stables. 
Hogg: Who? 
Elizabeth: The trainer. That's not why you backed him? 
Hogg: No. I just liked the name.

Martin: Your Majesty, I've had the opportunity to think about your very kind offer to become your private secretary. And I'm afraid I must decline.
Elizabeth: Why?
Martin: In this instance, I really do believe you'll be better served by Michael.
Elizabeth: No, you don't.
Martin: Ma'am? 
Elizabeeth: You don't think that. Nor could you ever think that. For the very good reason that it's not true. Have you been spoken to by Tommy Lascelles?
Martin: Ma'am?
Elizabeth: You have. And what did he have to say?
Martin: That I should've refused the offer in the room. That I obviously have no respect or understanding for palace tradition and protocol, and that it must be Michael Adeane.
Elizabeth: Did he now?

Elizabeth: Look, Tommy. There's no pretty way of saying this. I would prefer Martin.
Lascelles: And that is your right, ma'am. 
Elizabeth: Yes. I rather thought so, too.
Lascelles: But it would be a mistake. 
Elizabeth: And why is that? 
Lascelles: There's a way of doing things here, an order developed over time, generations. And individuality in the House of Windsor, any departure from that way of doing things, is not to be encouraged. It results in catastrophes like the abdication.
Elizabeth: Abdicating the throne and choosing my private secretary is hardly comparing like with like. 
Lascelles: I disagree.

Elizabeth: You were my private secretary for two years before Martin Charteris. I was. And it was my impression that we always had a good understanding and we were able to speak openly with one another. 
Colville: Yes, of course. 
Elizabeth: And trust one another, speak plainly when matters of real importance came up.
Colville: And before Her Majesty says anything else, let me just say how sorry I am. It's been agony. I tried to stop them, I told them my opinion, but they were so insistent we keep it from you. After the second one, I really was of a mind to let you know the truth. 
Elizabeth: Second what? 
Colville: Stroke, Ma'am. But they insisted again, everyone keep it quiet, say nothing.
Elizabeth: I see. And who was it that was doing the insisting?
Colville: Lord Salisbury, ma'am. And the Prime Minister himself. On the rare occasions he was conscious. I see. That is what you asked me here to discuss?
Elizabeth: No. I asked you here to discuss whether I should take Michael Adeane for my private secretary rather than Martin Charteris. But what you've just told me is far more important.

Hogg: No!
Elizabeth: Yes!
Hogg: The slippery old so-and-so's.
Elizabeth: It's rather worse than slippery, wouldn't you say? Somewhat unconstitutional. 
Hogg: What are you going to do? 
Elizabeth: Nothing, of course. That's my job. Do nothing and stay silent at all times.
Hogg: Is it? From memory, and forgive me, ma'am, it's been a while since I read Bagehot, but in circumstances such as these, is it not also your duty to act? 
Elizabeth: I doubt it. I'd have to check. 
Hogg: I think you know precisely.
Elizabeth: Yes, it is. But I can't just summon the brightest, most formidable men in the country and give them a dressing down, like children.
Hogg: Why? You are in the right, they in the wrong.
Elizabeth: Yes, but they're far more intelligent than I am. Any confrontation, they'd out-debate me, out-think me and out-maneuver me.
Hogg: But this isn't about education or intelligence. This is about integrity and principle. Ma'am, you say you don't have what it takes to do battle with these people. You do. You were drilled for years in the finer points of our Constitution. You know it better than me, better than all of us. You have the only education that matters.
Elizabeth: So what would you have me do?
Hogg: Summon them and give them a good dressing down like children.
Elizabeth: Why would they stand for that?
Hogg: Because they're English, male, and upper class. A good dressing down from nanny is what they most want in life.

Elizabeth: It has come to my attention that for a period of time last week, my Prime Minister was incapacitated. And the foreign secretary, too. And that you colluded in keeping that information from me.
Salisbury: Your Maj -
Elizabeth: No, it is not my job to govern. But it is my job to ensure proper governance. But how can I do that if my ministers lie and plot and hide the truth from me? You have prevented me from doing my duty. You have hampered and bamboozled the proper functioning of the Crown. How could you? My own late father valued you greatly. He believed the phrase, "History teaches never trust a Cecil" deeply unfair. Perhaps not. [rings bell] You may go.

Elizabeth: I would ask you to consider your response in light of the respect that my rank and my office deserve, not that which my age and gender might suggest.

Elizabeth: Where have you been?
Philip: Oh, charity cricket match for the National Playing Fields Association. Spent some time at the airfield, doing some rolls. No cabinet approval. Don't tell anyone.
Elizabeth: What are you dressed for?
Philip: Haven't you heard? We've a state banquet this evening.
Elizabeth: Haven't you heard? It's been cancelled.
Philip: Oh, Christ, why doesn't anybody tell me anything?
Elizabeth: Well, perhaps if you were here more.
Philip: I've read two books on Eisenhower especially. 
Elizabeth: Have you really? 
Philip: No. You look nice. 
Elizabeth: Do I? 
Philip: Something's different. 
Elizabeth: What? 
Philip: I don't know. You seem-
Elizabeth: I advise you to choose your next words very carefully.

Edited December 21, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo
My fingers automatically put a period at the end of the quotation mark!

[Rinaldo]

How wonderful to have all these great exchanges recorded here by @ElectricBoogaloo. But I humbly suggest that one of them needs a slight repunctuation to make its point:

Quote

My own late father valued you greatly. He believed the phrase "History teaches never trust a Cecil" deeply unfair. Perhaps not.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Winston: What is it you would have the Queen do? Stay at home in the wake of minor incidents prosecuted by an insurgent rabble? What kind of signal would that send? The Crown does not back down. If Britain had made a habit of backing down, the world would already be living under the yoke of fascist tyranny and we wouldn't have an empire at all.

Adeane: She's not ready for something on this scale. She's not yet up to it. Especially with so many of our dominions demanding independence. We must be considerate of her. 
Winston: Patronize her. 
Adeane: No, that's not what I'm saying, sir. 
Winston: Yes, it is.

Philip: It is an absurd pantomime, the whole thing. I don't know why anyone can't see beyond it.
Anthony: Actually, I thought the old ostrich feathers rather suited you. You should wear those more often.
Philip: Twenty years ago, Britain had influence and control over one-fifth of the world's population. You look where we are now in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Iraq, Jordan, Burma, Ceylon: all independent. But nobody wants to face it or deal with it, so they send us out on the Commonwealth roadshow. Like giving a lick of paint to a rusty old banger to make everyone think it's all still fine. But it's not. The rust has eaten away at the engine and the structure. The banger is falling apart. But no one wants to see it. That's our job, that's who we are. The coat of paint. If the costumes are grand enough, if the tiara's sparkly enough, if the titles are preposterous enough, the mythology incomprehensible enough, then all must still be fine. Are we nearly finished yet? 
Tailor: Not quite, sir.
Philip: Four hours we've been here already for a costume fitting.
Tailor: Uniform, sir, not costume.
Philip: You wear uniforms to battle. This is a costume fitting.

Townsend: The office is tucked away in a remote part of the embassy where no one will see me. 
Margaret: So what do you do all day? 
Townsend: Oh, nothing!
Margaret: They can't keep you there and give you nothing to do. 
Townsend: I beg to differ, nothing is all I do. 
Margaret: Are you at least alone in the office?
Townsend: Oh, no, Sergeant Hewitt is here. He's just walked in. 
Margaret: Can he hear you? 
Townsend: Oh, yes. 
Margaret: Does he watch you? 
Townsend: Oh, yes. 
Margaret: Is that the point of Sergeant Hewitt? 
Townsend: It is the only point.

Elizabeth: That's the end of the earth.
QEQM: Yes. A chance to really get away from it all. Have a good think. 
Elizabeth: About what?
QEQM: Everything.
Elizabeth: Well, don't think too much or too deeply. It just gets one in a muddle.

QEQM: By the way, I've arranged for Margaret to deputize for me while I'm gone, as head of state. 
Elizabeth: Why? 
QEQM: Well, someone needs to do it. Can't have people turning up for knighthoods and some civil servant handing them out. 
Elizabeth: Well, if you think she's up to it. 
QEQM: Up to what? Standing still, looking pretty, and putting a sword on a few people's shoulders?

Winston: The last time you departed on this tour, it was cruelly cut short by the death of your dear father. In his final months, the King told me many times that he could feel it all slipping away. The Empire, our place in the world. He saw this tour as a chance to keep each dominion close, preserving that Empire. So take him with you in spirit. Let his example guide you, his thoughts influence you. And, if I may, never let them see the real Elizabeth Windsor. The cameras, the television. Never let them see that carrying the crown is often a burden. Let them look at you but let them see only the eternal.

Adeane: I thought that went well, ma'am.
Philip: Message delivered loud and clear, I'd say: "Stay loyal or die."

Margaret: I was wondering if I might make one or two minor adjustments to the text? 
Martin: Ma'am?
Margaret: Give it a bit more colour. Make it feel a bit more like me. And breathe a little life into it.
Martin: I'm sure Her Royal Highness appreciates there'll be important people at the reception tonight. Different backgrounds, different sensibilities. The speech has been carefully calibrated to avoid giving offence.
Margaret: And I'd suggest to avoid entertaining too.
Martin: It's not the sovereign's place to entertain.
Margaret: And I'm not the sovereign.

Philip: What's the matter?
Elizabeth: There was an ambassadors' reception in London last week. Apparently, Margaret was dazzling and brilliant.
Philip: Would you have preferred she make a mess of it?
Elizabeth: No. Perhaps. Is that awful of me? 
Philip: Yes.
Elizabeth: Well, now you know, you didn't marry a saint.
Philip: I knew that. But I wouldn't worry, I have great faith in her. 
Elizabeth: In Margaret? 
Philip: In her ability to mess things up. In the long run. 
Elizabeth: Or outshine me. 
Philip: And mess things up. 
Elizabeth: And outshine me.

Imbert-Terry: Well, if you were to be interested in the property, I'm going to be entirely honest. The roof does need a does need a bit of work. One or two windows might need replacing and the the electricity does need, well, installing. And there's no dining room to speak of. Nor bathrooms. And I've sold off most of the good shooting and fishing.
QEQM: Oh, dear. You're really not a salesman.

Elizabeth: The trouble is, I have the sort of face that if I'm not smiling then everyone says, "Oh, isn't she cross?"

Philip: Forty a day your father smoked and now I know why. Poor bastard. Yeah, he probably took one look at this tour and thought, "D'you know what? I'd be better off with cancer."
Elizabeth: Shut up!
Philip: What is it you're trying to prove? What is it you want to hear him say? "Bravo, Lilibet. Manage the whole tour." "Lilibet never lets you down. Ticked every box. Never put a foot wrong." "Now, finally, I love you more than I love Margaret."

Winston: Your Royal Highness, when you appear in public performing official duties, you are not you.
Margaret: Of course I'm me.
Winston: Expressing political opinions about working conditions in mines, that business at Sadler's Wells. And no one wants you to be you, they want you to be it.
Margaret: A statue? A thing?
Winston: The crown. That's what they've come to see. Not you. The minute you become yourself, you shatter the illusion, break the spell.
Margaret: What people want is someone to inhabit it. Not be frightened of it. Make it flesh and blood. Bring it to life.
Winston: Your uncle, Edward VIII, threatened to do just that, impose his individuality on the institution. Bring it to life! And he almost destroyed it in the process!
Margaret: You can't seriously be comparing this to the abdication.

QEQM: It seems I must go.
Imbert-Terry: Oh, my gosh.
QEQM: It's finally come to you.
Imbert-Terry: Why on earth didn't you say, ma'am?
QEQM: Because people always make such a fuss. And stop being themselves. And you would have doubled the price.
Imbert-Terry: Spoken like a true Scotswoman.

Elizabeth: I am aware that I am surrounded by people who feel that they could do the job better. Strong people with powerful characters, more natural leaders, perhaps better-suited to leading from the front, making a mark. But, for better or worse, the crown has landed on my head.

Elizabeth: The brief was simple. Perform minor ceremonial tasks with a minimum of fuss. Not end up all over the newspapers.
Margaret: I can't help it if they want to write about me.
Elizabeth: Well, it would help if you didn't give them what they crave.
Margaret: Character and excitement. 
Elizabeth: Instability and drama.
Margaret: Well, at least I give them something. You give them nothing. 
Elizabeth: I give them silence. 
Margaret: Silence is nothing. 
Elizabeth: It's the absence of noise. 
Margaret: Emptiness. Blank page. 
Elizabeth: Which allows others to shine. 
Margaret: But the monarchy should shine.
Elizabeth: The monarchy, yes. Not the monarch. Reparations will need to be made.
Margaret: To whom?
Elizabeth: To the people you offended. A general, to whom, when asked if you'd like to dance, you replied, "Yes, but not with you. " I believe there was also a debutante you managed to make cry, and the dancers of Sadler's Wells, whom you refused to meet after arriving late for the performance. You showed individuality. And that made people panic. They don't want individuality. The last person who showed "character" almost took the ship down.
Margaret: You are enjoying this. 
Elizabeth: Not a bit. 
Margaret: Yes, you are. Admonishing your unruly young sister. Have you ever thought how it must be for me?
Elizabeth: Many times. At great length. Wistfully.
Margaret: You have a role, a clear set of rules. All you have to do is follow them.
Elizabeth: Margaret, you have freedom. All you have to do is enjoy it.
Margaret: You think that I am free? To be constantly in your shadow. Constantly the overlooked one. 
Elizabeth: It looks like heaven to me. 
What you have looks like heaven to me. Two sisters who envy one another. Elizabeth: We wouldn't be the first.
Margaret: Pride and Joy. Remember? What Papa called us.
Elizabeth: Yes. "Elizabeth is my pride and Margaret is my joy."
Margaret: "BUT Margaret is my joy."

Margaret: There's a cruel truth to it, isn't there? When there are two sisters so close in age, the more one becomes one thing, the more the other necessarily becomes the opposite and vice versa. It's the way of things. If one is the queen, must be the source of honour and all that is good, the other necessarily becomes the focus of the most creative malice. Evil sister. 
Elizabeth: No one says you're evil. 
Margaret: Next to you, I will always be evil. Feckless lost lesser thing.
Elizabeth: And yet you spend so much time telling me that I'm a lesser thing.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Porchester: Is it just me, or is this place faintly ridiculous? Two of my great hates in life - fine dining and central London. I just thought it's the kind of special occasion place one came if one had a special question to ask. At this moment I wish I were a poet, not a horse-breeder. Will you marry me?
Jean: Oh, Porchey.
Porchester: That sounds like a no.
Jean: No, it's not a no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.
Porchester: That's twelve nos.

Clementine: It's going to be Graham Sutherland. 
Winston: Who? 
Clementine: The painter. To paint your portrait.
Winston: What portrait?
Clementine: It's the official portrait commissioned by both Houses. It's your present.
Winston: Sutherland? Never heard of him.
Clementine: He's got quite the reputation. He's a modernist. Oh. Not sure I can trust a modernist with an English name. Give me a German modernist. Or an Italian. They're the ones who have to start all over again. Whatever would an Englishman want to change?

Winston: So will we be engaged in flattery or reality? Are you going to paint me as a cherub or a bulldog? Perhaps I can implore you not to feel the need to be too accurate.
Sutherland: Why? Accuracy is truth. 
Winston: No. For accuracy, we have the camera. Painting is the higher art. I paint a bit myself, you know.
Sutherland: Yes, sir, I know.
Winston: And I never let accuracy get in the way of truth if I don't want it to. If I see some landscape I like, and I wish there wasn't a factory in the background, I leave the factory out.

Clementine: I liked him. 
Winston: Yes, I could tell. You were smitten, blushing like a little girl. 
Clementine; Well, he is rather a wow. 
Winston: A "wow"?
Clementine: Tall and handsome, saturnine. A bit of a Heathcliff.
Winston: He wants total control.
Clementine: Well, any artist worth anything would insist on that. You don't really want a flatterer. 
Winston: Yes, I do.
Clementine: No, you don't. Besides, it's manifestly clear he's a fan.
Winston: Oh, no, don't be silly. You can smell the socialism on him.
Clementine: Even the socialists acknowledge you saved the country.
Winston: Through gritted teeth.
Clementine: I have the protective instincts of a loving wife and I can tell you this one is not an assassin.

Elizabeth: I'm surprised to hear you turning down the opportunity of going to America.
Porchey: Why?
Elizabeth: Well, that's where your girlfriend's from, isn't it? 
Porchey: Fiancé.
Elizabeth: Fiancé? Goodness. Who is she? Money, I hope. So you can keep up the stables. 
Porchey: Actually, she's a Portsmouth. 
Elizabeth: Oh, dear. So no money.
Porchey: Some money. But horse mad.
Elizabeth: Well, she'd have to be.
Porchey: You'd approve, I think. 
Elizabeth: Well, can I meet her? 
Porchey: If you promise you won't scare her. 
Elizabeth: Why would I scare her? 
Porchey: You're the queen! 
Elizabeth: Only some of the time. 
Porchey: All the time. And that makes you terrifying.

Margaret: Oh, the one you let get away. 
Elizabeth: What? 
Margaret: He's always carried a torch for you.
Elizabeth: Porchey? Utter nonsense.
Margaret: He told me himself. One night while in his cups.
Elizabeth: That doesn't count.
Margaret: When a man's had a drink, that's when the truth comes out.
Elizabeth: No. That's when the nonsense comes out. Besides, we have interests in common.
Margaret: Horses aren't an interest to you. They're a passion - a passion your husband doesn't share. 
Elizabeth: He has other passions.
Margaret: So I hear. 

Porchey: What a palaver. 
Elizabeth: What is? 
Porchey: Getting through to you. I picked up the phone to you just after nine this morning. It's now gone midday.
Elizabeth: Oh, don't exaggerate. But, yes, I know, it is infuriating. I'll ask if I can get you a direct line. 
Porchey: To you?
Elizabeth: Yes, to me. Why? Was there anyone else you wanted to speak to here?

Philip: What is it, "top dollar?" I need numbers. 
Elizabeth: 400.
Philip: A pop? A shot? Sorry, I'm trying to find a less onomatopoeic expression for-
Elizabeth: I know what it is. 
Philip: A shag.
Elizabeth: A cover. 
Philip: A cover? 
Elizabeth: Yes, that's the correct term for -
Philip: A horse hump?

Sutherland: I showed those sketches to your wife throughout. She remarked on how accurate they were. 
Winston: That is the whole point. It is not a reasonably truthful image of me!
Sutherland: It is, sir. 
Winston: It is not! It is cruel!
Sutherland: Age is cruel! If you see decay, it's because there's decay. If you see frailty, it's because there's frailty. I can't be blamed for what is. And I refuse to hide and disguise what I see. If you're engaged in a fight with something, then it's not with me. It's with your own blindness.

Elizabeth: You wish for Mr. Eden to take over? 
Winston: I do.
Elizabeth: Well, that will make him happy.
Winston: For a day or two, he might even stop cursing me. Then he will be overwhelmed by a job in which no man can ever succeed, and curse me again for leaving it to him.
Elizabeth: It might be an idea not to tell him that before he starts.

Elizabeth: I have nothing to hide from you. Nothing. Porchey is a friend. And yes, there are those who would have preferred me to marry him. Indeed, marriage with him might have been easier. Might have even worked better than ours. But to everyone's regret and frustration the only person I have ever loved is you. And can you honestly look me in the eye and say the same? Can you?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Philip: Is [Elizabeth] making life difficult for you and Peter? 
Margaret: Yes, she wants to delay the engagement. 
Philip: Well, it serves you right quite frankly. You both seem far too happy and far too in love. 
Margaret: Do we?
Philip: Yes.
Margaret: It's easy to be in love with someone who's not here, isn't it?
Philip: Yes. Perhaps that's why she's sending me away.

Elizabeth: You speak Arabic? 
Eden: Very badly. I studied it at Oxford.

Philip: So it was your idea, was it? Dispatching me to the penal colonies?
QEQM: If you mean entrusting you to go to Melbourne to open the Olympic Games alone, actually it was Tommy Lascelles.
Philip: Oh, your puppet. I might have guessed. 
QEQM: And you ought to be flattered. 
Philip: To be trusted to cut a ribbon? 
QEQM: To be given that level of freedom. 
Philip: What freedom? I have no freedom.
QEQM: You have more freedom than any consort in history. And you repay it by scowling and skulking like an adolescent. So go. Have some time in the spotlight, be the main attraction, and enjoy the attention. Hopefully it will do you some good. You might finally be less resentful and more supportive of my daughter in her duty.

Eden: I discussed the matter this morning with the attorney general and he advised that there was no easy way around the governing rules of the Royal Marriages Act. Furthermore several senior members of cabinet remain violently opposed. Indeed, Lord Salisbury has made it clear that he would resign from government, rather than submit to what he considers a subversion of the church's teachings the holy sacrament of marriage and the decay of moral standards.

Elizabeth: Since our last meeting, I've been thinking a great deal about something that my father said to Princess Margaret and myself at the time of the abdication. He made us swear, as sisters, never to put anything or anyone before one another, in the way that he felt his brother had. It's an oath that we both made and that we intend to keep. But I can't see how I'm to honor it. It is my duty as queen to refuse Margaret marriage to a divorced man. Everyone advises me so. And yet I will be breaking a promise, not only to my sister but also to my late father. And the one body of people who might make it possible for me to keep my promise is cabinet - a group whom I've learned count no fewer than four divorced men in their number. 
Eden: Yes. 
Elizabeth: Yourself included, Prime Minister.
Eden: Indeed.
Elizabeth: Now, I wonder, in light of this, whether you might go back and use your considerable influence and ask your Cabinet colleagues if they might reconsider their decision to oppose the marriage.
Eden: Certainly, ma'am.

David: The French are very much for her. At least Paris is, which is the only France that matters.
Elizabeth: And are you for her, too?
David: For Margaret, la Marianne, how can I not be? I share with her the fate of having a great love that captured much of the country's imagination, only to have it forbidden by the establishment. So, naturally, my sympathy is with her.
Elizabeth: I see.
David: But there is also the other great love of my life - the crown. And protecting that crown. And I imagine you find yourself in a difficult position now. Split down the middle. One half is sister. One half is queen.
Elizabeth: Exactly.
David: A strange, hybrid creature, like a sphinx or Gamayun. As I am Ganesha or Minotaur. We are half-people. Ripped from the pages of some bizarre mythology, the two sides within us, human and crown engaged in a fearful civil war, which never ends. And which blights our every human transaction as as brother, husband sister, wife, mother. I understand the agony you feel and I am here to tell you, it will never leave you. I will always be half-king. My tragedy is that I have no kingdom. You have it. And you must protect it.

Elizabeth: Everyone's just trying to help.
Philip: Oh, yes, by putting a problem on a boat to Australia and hoping it sorts itself out or better still, sinks.
Elizabeth: You know it is possible that you might enjoy it, and thank me.
Philip: Don't dress betrayal up as a favor.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Elizabeth: I think we both agree, it can't go on like this. So I thought we might take this opportunity, without children, without distraction to lay our cards on the table and talk frankly, for once about what needs to change to make this marriage work.
Philip: All right. Who goes first? Stupid question. If I've learned one thing by now, it's that I go second.
Elizabeth: If I am to go first, that's where I'd start. Your complaining. 
Philip: My complaining? 
Elizabeth: It's incessant. Whining and whingeing like a child.
Philip: Are you surprised? The way those god-awful mustaches that run the palace continue to infantilize me.
Elizabeth: If you weren't behaving like an infant-
Philip: Giving me lists, sending me instructions. Can you imagine anything more humiliating?
Elizabeth: Yes. As a matter of fact, I can. I've learned more about humiliation in the last few weeks than I hoped I would in a lifetime.

Eden: Now there's been a lot of talk recently about how much the world has changed since the war and how much society in Britain has changed or how much it jolly well ought to change and that places like Eton should no longer be seen as the birthplace of Britain's leaders, to which I, as a fully paid up egalitarian and progressive member of the Conservative Party, say what a lot of absolute nonsense. If Britain's leaders aren't coming from Eton, then where should they be coming from? You see before you the sixteenth Etonian Prime Minister. Sixteen out of forty. Not a bad percentage. Harrow, incidentally, only accounts for seven. Well, yes, you might well argue that as a social pool, it is a bit narrow. But narrowness at the top is not necessarily a bad thing, for as any serviceman will tell you, in battle, when the heat is on, one needs a shorthand, a shared language and understanding, a clarity. Eton has, for generations now, provided Britain with that clarity, that code, that shared language.

Elizabeth: Would you like to know the principal, perhaps only, advantage of being the Chief Patron of the English Bowling Association? My fellow patrons are frequently too old or too ill to meet, which means I find myself unexpectedly free for lunch.
Margaret: Well, I've just woken up. 
Elizabeth: It's 11:30.
Margaret: Yes. I got in at four. I left strict instructions not to be disturbed by anyone - for any reason. I can see a conspiracy to drive me insane is well underway.

Elizabeth: As your sister, I would have been perfectly happy for you to marry Peter. It was the Crown that forbade it. Not to mention the fact that he was a little old. Not really from the right 
Margaret: Don't you dare say background. 
Elizabeth: Well I just think it might have all come back to haunt you.
Margaret: What, did Philip's Nazi sisters come back to haunt him? Or his lunatic mother? Or his womanizing, bankrupt father?

Dickie: Where are you off to?
Edwina: I thought we agreed, mysteries on both sides. 
Dickie: We did. 
Edwina: Then don't ask.
Dickie: May I present Anthony Nutting? Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.
Edwina: I entirely approve of foreign affairs.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Solicitor: Are you really sure about this? A divorce can leave a woman quite isolated. Maybe things will get better if you stick it out. I tend to think that's always the best way for everyone. Grass is rarely greener.

Elizabeth: How long do you imagine you'll be away?
Eden: Not long, ma'am. A few weeks.
Elizabeth: Well, I suppose one can always reach you at short notice. It's a point I always make to my private secretaries. Yes, I'm away, but Windsor really is just round the corner. And Norfolk, too. County Durham, isn't it? Your family home.
Eden: Jamaica, ma'am.
Elizabeth: Your family home?
Eden: Where the doctor felt I should be going. He specified Jamaica? He specified sunshine, tropical sunshine. He said he felt my life might depend on it.
Elizabeth: What would he prescribe for the rest of us do you imagine?

Michael: The provenance of this rumor is quite arcane. Your sister-
Martin: Sister-in-law.
Michael: Had lunch with her aunt, who had just spent the weekend at-
Martin: Cholmondeley Castle.
Michael: At which, one of the other guests was the bridge partner-
Martin: Tennis.
Michael: Of the solicitor visited by Eileen Parker.
Martin: I think that's it.
Michael: That's half Britain already.

Helen: As someone with surprisingly progressive views, that must concern you.
Philip: I have progressive views?
Helen: You don't think that you do? Televising the coronation? Advocating modernization?
Philip: That's just common sense.
Helen: If you're a progressive, one prepared to make changes.

Smith: Sir, my decision as Flag Officer is no.
Philip: And my decision as Admiral of the Fleet is that we do.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Elizabeth: [Philip]'s in the Antarctic, and from there, he goes to the South Shetland Islands, then he goes on to the Falkland Islands. And then he goes all the way up here, to Ascension Island. All these are British Overseas Territories, and they have to be visited every once in a while, so they don't feel neglected or forgotten, and don't get any silly ideas like becoming independent.

Margaret: He's got a beard!
Elizabeth: Yes, yes. They're all growing beards. 
Margaret: It makes them look a bit shifty.

Elizabeth: Tommy?
Lascelles: Your Majesty.
Elizabeth: I thought you were supposed to be in happy retirement. 
Lascelles: I am, ma'am. 
Elizabeth: Then what on earth are you doing here? Oh, dear. Either you missed the place more than you could bear, which would be 
Lascelles: Tragic. 
Elizabeth: Yes. Or there's a serious problem, and you've been called in to help.
Lascelles: Just a routine matter with Colonel Adeane, ma'am.
Elizabeth: It's hardly routine if he sent one of the royal cars.
Lascelles: Well, in actual fact, that's my car.
Elizabeth: We gave you a car?
Lascelles: You did, ma'am. As part of the farewell package.
Elizabeth: Not the driver too, surely?
Lascelles: The driver too. 
Elizabeth: Was that me? 
Lascelles: I believe so.

Elizabeth: I can never forget what my grandmother said to me about being married to a man with a beard.

Elizabeth: To do nothing is often the best course of action but I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be. History was not made by those who did nothing.

Philip: I hate hats.
Valet: I believe its value on this occasion is not in its being worn, but in its being removed. "In a gesture of chivalry and deference."
Philip: Before I enter the aircraft.
Valet: Before you reach the stairs of the aircraft.

Philip: To make it work to make it bearable I'll need the respect and acknowledgment of the dreaded mustaches.
Elizabeth: Please stop calling them that. 
Philip: I'll stop calling them that when they don't all have one. An end to their snobbery and prejudice, no more being sniffed at for being a foreigner with a background nobody understands.
Elizabeth: You will earn their respect with your behavior.
Philip: No. No. No. I will earn their respect with the only thing those creatures understand, a gesture, a statement. Something irrefutable that shuts them up and commands their respect. Right now, I am currently outranked by my eight-year-old son!
Elizabeth: Well, yes, of course. He's the heir to the throne.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Margaret: What am I to do, Billy? No one wants to take me on, apparently. I'm too daunting a prospect.
Billy: I could give it a go.
Margaret: Don't be silly, you're a friend.
Billy: Yes, but isn't that the first quality one should look for in a husband?

Elizabeth: Mummy said something interesting the other day. She said that the first ten years of marriage are just an overture, that there's often a crisis at ten years, but then you work it out and settle in and it's only then that it really gets into its stride.

Margaret: [The wedding] somehow managed to lift the spirits and make one want to kill oneself in equal measure.

MacMillan: I am absolutely determined to restore the special relationship that exists between our two countries. We're bound by so much more than just language and shared history. It's a kind of marriage. As in any marriage, there'll be ups and downs, but one must work to get things back on track.
Elizabeth: They say that listening's important - in any marriage.

Margaret: Are you drunk?
Billy: Don't be like that. I had to do something for the pain.

Margaret: You pathetic, weak, contemptible fool. I never even wanted to marry you. You were only ever an act of charity. Or desperation. And now you insult me? You? People like you don't get to insult people like me. You get to be eternally grateful. You've quite the way with women. Take a look at this face. A picture of disappointment and disgust. This is the look that every woman you ever know will come to share. This is what the next forty years of your life will look like.

Philip: So on my recent tour of the Pacific, I was introduced to a man who said to me, "My wife is a doctor of philosophy and much more important than I am." To which I could only reply, "Ah, yes, sir, we have that trouble in our family too."

QEQM: Someone suggested Prince Christian of Hanover, a descendant of Queen Victoria. Served in the Luftwaffe, but we won't hold that against him.

Margaret: It was the first room I've ever been to where nobody got up, bowed, curtsied. Some just carried on having conversations as if I wasn't there at all. Those that did talk to me did with such indifference or nonchalance, it verged on impertinence.

Margaret: I called [Elizabeth Cavendsih] when I got home last night and interrogated her. "What are the five most important things I need to know about that man?"
Elizabeth: Why five?
Margaret: I don't know. Felt like the right number.
Elizabeth: Why not three?
Margaret: He's more interesting than three.
Elizabeth: So, what did she say?
Margaret: One, that he's Welsh. 
Elizabeth: Is that interesting?
Margaret: No, not particularly.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Michael: Lord Altrincham has been struck.
Elizabeth: Dumb, I hope.
Michael: Better than that, ma'am. In the face. Quite forcefully, I'm told.
Elizabeth: By whom? Which gallant and chivalrous individual?

Martin: Sir, forgive me if I'm interfering beyond my station - Tommy.
Tommy: Martin. You were about to interfere beyond your station.

Tommy: If I had a shilling for every time someone of a progressive or liberal disposition had warned needlessly of a popular attack against the crown, I'd be a rich man. The British people adore their sovereign. It is what constitutes, indeed defines, being British. No, the worst I've ever encountered is, uh, apathy, where people simply accept the king or queen as they accept the sky above their heads. But it's a long way from apathy to insurrection. Now, as regards the newspapers, the crown can count on their support first, there is nothing to attack. That's the advantage of a constitutional monarchy. They have no power so there's nothing to complain about. And even if they wanted to, they'd always let us know first. The palace would then threaten them with a boycott on the next major royal event, causing the newspapers immediately to back down. Because the very people you fear will hate the queen are the same ones who buy copies in their millions. Why? Because they love her.
Martin: So I'm worrying unnecessarily?
Tommy: Martin, I shall leave the drawing of that inescapable conclusion to you.

Philip: I thought you were hoping for more children from me.
Elizabeth: I am.
Philip: Then why on earth would you do something like that to your hair?
Elizabeth: What's wrong with it? I thought it was tidy and sensible.
Philip: Adjectives to stir the loins.
Elizabth: Apparently it's very à la mode. All the regimental wives are wearing their hair like this now. 
Philip: Really? 
Elizabeth: Yes.
Philip: Well, it's certainly very practical. And should you ever feel compelled to ride a motorcycle, it could always double as a helmet.
Elizabeth: Well, I like it.
Philip: No, I have nothing against it personally.
Elizabeth: Stop it.
Philip: Sure it will provide ample protection against any falling masonry. But if enlarging the family and enticing your husband to procreate is the goal-
Elizabeth: It is.
Philip: Then you might take a look at Jayne Mansfield or Rita Hayworth. Ooh, Rita Hayworth.

Elizabeth: I wish first to express to you my very great pleasure at being here today. My husband and I have been most profoundly moved by your hospitable welcome and would like you to know how very grateful we are to you all for the work that you do. We understand that in the turbulence of this anxious and active world, many of you are leading uneventful, lonely lives where dreariness is the enemy. Perhaps you don't understand that on your steadfastness and ability to withstand the fatigue of dull, repetitive work depend, in great measure, the happiness and prosperity of the community as a whole. The upward course of a nation's history is due, in the long run, to the soundness of heart of its average men and women. May you be proud to remember how much depends on you, and that even when your life seems most monotonous what you do is always of real value and importance to your fellow-

Michael: The man that struck Altrincham, it turns out, is a member of the extreme right League of Empire Loyalists, which is a pressure group that campaigns against the dissolution of the Empire and has a clear doctrine of English racial supremacy.
Elizabeth: Oh, dear.

Elizabeth: It doesn't quite fit the profile of a revolutionary.
Altrincham: It's the assumption everyone has made. Because I dare offer an opinion, I must be trying to burn the temple down. On the contrary, I'm trying to make sure it survives.

Elizabeth: So, what is it that you'd have me change?
Altrincham: It's not so much what I'd have you change, just an acknowledgment that it has changed. 
Elizabeth: What?
Altrincham: Everything. And to prepare yourself for the fact we now live in a time where people like me -
Elizabeth: Can say exactly what they think. 
Altrincham: Yes. 
Elizabeth: In any way they want. 
Altrincham: Yes.
Elizabeth: And, remind me, why is that, exactly?
Altrincham: Because the age of deference is over.
Elizabeth: And what is left without deference? Anarchy?
Altrincham: Equality.
Elizabeth: How can it be equality when I cannot return the fire?
Altrincham: You can. But I struggle to think of a moment in history where it has worked to a monarch's advantage to return fire on their own people.

Elizabeth: That same monarch is sitting before, forgive me a failed politician and an unrecognized journalist and taking his advice on how to do her job. Altrincham: The situation is as baffling to me as it is to you, Your Majesty.

Philip: Does he have a name, this stylist?
Margaret: I want to say Victor Gabon, but that's not quite right. Um Vidal Baboon?

QEQM: And so it goes. The stings and bites we suffer as it slips away. Bit by bit, piece by piece. Our authority, our absolutism, our divine rights. The history of the monarchy in this country is a one-way street of humiliation, sacrifices, and concessions in order to survive. First, the barons came for us, then the merchants, now the journalists. Small wonder we make such a fuss about curtsies, protocol and precedent. It's all we have left. The last scraps of armor as we go from ruling to reigning to 
Elizabeth: To what?
QEQM: To being nothing at all. Marionettes.

Edited December 11, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

QEQM: It's rare and not entirely reassuring to see religious certainty in someone so young.
Elizabeth: [Billy Graham]'s not young. He's my age.
QEQM: Precisely. A child. I think moral authority and spiritual guidance should come from someone with a little life experience, not from someone who learned their trade selling brushes door to door in North Carolina.
Elizabeth: But there's a humility to that which I like.
QEQM: Are those people crying? What's happening to this country? The people of Great Britain never cried during the war. Now they're weeping like children.

David: Would you like to know what my day consisted of today?
Wallis: Don't tell me.
David: The same as every other day. I rose late, past 11, then inspected the gardens, then ate lunch with people of no consequence. 
Wallis: My friends.
David: People of no consequence. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but a life of pleasure really has its limits.
Wallis: Try a life spent living with you.
David: My motto as Prince of Wales, was "Ich dien." "I serve." Deeply rooted within me is a need to serve my country. I need a job, a purpose. 
Wallis: Not this again. 
David: Yes, this.
Wallis: Well, where do you intend to find one?
David: I will simply have to go to London to set things in motion.
Wallis: Shall I tell you what else is deeply rooted within your family? Delusion.

Adeane: His Royal Highness, the Duke of Windsor, has written with a request. 
Elizabeteh: What for? 
Adeane: To be allowed to enter the country. 
Philip: Denied! 
Adeane: To research a book which he's planning to write.
Elizabeth: On what subject?
Philip: How To Be a Truly Great King: a Guidebook.

Margaret the historian (aka not Princess Margaret): As historians, we have a duty to publish the truth, no exceptions. Otherwise, what are we all doing? Protecting Nazis? I have access to the US State Department duplicate files, including this. There's nothing to stop the American government publishing if the British government won't.

Philip: Lanky bugger, isn't he?
Elizabeth: I think he's rather handsome.
Philip: A door-to-door salesman in a hideous shiny suit. Where's his box? -
Elizabeth: What box? 
Philip: The one containing his brushes. Hair brushes, floor brushes, toothbrushes.
Elizabeth: Do shut up, Philip.

Philip: It's not often I say this, so perhaps if I do, you will take it seriously. Ask Tommy Lascelles to come and see you. 
Elizabeth: What? 
Philip: And tell him of your proposed course of action. 
Elizabeth: I can't keep summoning him like that. 
Philip: Why not? 
Elizabeth: Well, he's retired for one thing.
Philip: Well, then go and see him, in an unofficial capacity. For sherry or tea. Or human blood, whatever that monster drinks.

David: Who has fed you this poison? Your mother?
Elizabeth: No.
David: Tommy Lascelles? 
Elizabeth: I came to my own mind. 
David: But you have no mind of your own. That's why everyone's so thrilled with you.

Elizabeth: Oh, you're drunk. 
Philip: I am. I don't deny it. But not nearly as drunk as either of my drinking companions tonight. Care to take a guess? 
Elizabeth: I wouldn't dare.
Philip: Your dear ma was one. 
Elizabeth: What?!
Philip: And Tommy Lascelles the other. 
Elizabeth: No!
Philip: Yes! I know. Hideous thought. But we all agreed to put aside our historical differences to celebrate the one good thing we all have in common.
Elizabeth: Which is?
Philip: You. And the heroic way you kicked that wretched fool out today, tail between his legs.
Elizabeth: It was hardly heroic.
Philip: On the contrary, it was entirely heroic.

Edited December 12, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Margaret: I received a letter this morning from Peter Townsend. 
Tony: Ha! Group Captain Bore?
Margaret: Peter's not a bore.
Peter: Excuse me. Straight-backed, obedient, decent. Missionary fashion, three quick minutes. And that's your lot. Definitely a bore. Probably pajamas, too. He looks like a pajama man. Striped and ironed.

Tony: [Jacqui] really is the most dazzling fuck. 
Camilla: Evidently.
Tony: What is that supposed to mean?
Camilla: Well, you've just become so much better since seeing her.
Jeremy: Hear, hear.
Tony: Have I?
Jeremy: I really can't keep up anymore.
Camilla: And you're more imaginative.
Tony: Am I?
Camilla: So don't give her up, whatever you do.

Camilla: You said [Margaret] had thick ankles and the face of a Jewish manicurist.
Tony: Well, she does. But she's adorable, too. And with a quick temper. 
Camilla: Oh, is that a plus?
Tony: It's not unsexy.
Camilla: It doesn't mean you have to marry her.

Philip: I like your toes. 
Elizabeth: My toes are hideous.
Philip: Don't be silly. They're the second-best thing about you.
Elizabeth: That's a horrible compliment.
Philip: There's no such thing as a bad compliment.

Philip: Just fifteen minutes ago, the British government and establishment were up in arms about my joining this family. I was a royal prince from a royal house. My great-great-grandmother was Queen Victoria. My father was a prince, my grandfather was a king, and everyone was mortified at how inappropriate I was and how low you were stooping. I mean, this fella's mother is a ghastly social climber. His father's a common garden contract lawyer who buggered off with an airline stewardess and everyone's throwing their hats in the air, declaring it's a victory.

Lascelles: I hope Your Majesty understands the context in which this discreet reconnaissance work was done and that it in no way represents a prurient, moralistic, or censorious position.

Margaret: Have you thought of a name?
Elizabeth: Well, we briefly considered George, but there's been too many of those, and anyway, no one could live up to Papa.
Margaret: No.
Elizabeth: And then we thought of Louis, but that was a bit too-
Margaret: Foreign.
Elizabeth: So we've decided upon Andrew. After Philip's father.
Margaret: Yes, the bankrupt philanderer.

Margaret: I will marry Tony if it is the last thing I do - at the Chelsea Registry Office, with a local drunk as witness, if need be, because Tony makes sense of me, defines me. At long last, I know who I am and what I represent.
Elizabeth: And what is that?
Margaret: A woman in my own right, a woman for the modern age, and above all, a woman who is free - free to live, to love, and free to break away.
Elizabeth: But you're not breaking away. Because you won't give up your title, your rank, your privileges, for one simple reason - you enjoy it all too much. The palaces, the privileges, the deference. It's always meant more to you than it did to me.

Edited December 13, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Elizabeth: When is it, do you think, if one's committed to a life of honesty, that one must start calling oneself middle-aged?
QEQM: Oh, stop it. You're still a young girl!
Elizabeth: I caught sight of myself in a mirror today. I looked like an old woman.
QEQM: You haven't even finished having children yet.
Elizabeth: True.
QEQM: So finish your family, let the first one go to school, and then let's talk about being middle-aged.
Elizabeth: That won't be middle-aged, that'll be ancient.

Elizabeth: This macaroni and cheese is heavenly.

QEQM: [Jackie Kennedy]'s so young. I always thought she was the same age as you.
Elizabeth: She is.

MacMillan: One overriding item on the agenda today, ma'am - Ghana. And our continued concern for Nkrumah's growing hostility to the West.
Elizabeth: You feel that he's drifting from the commonwealth?
MacMillan: Not so much drifting as bolting for the door.

Elizabeth: I thought de Gaulle didn't care for Mr. Kennedy.
MacMillan: Oh, he doesn't! Personally or politically. 
Elizabeth: So what turned it all around? 
MacMillan: The First Lady, ma'am. 
Elizabeth: Why? What did she do?
MacMillan: Dazzled le tout Paris. Had President de Gaulle eating out of her hand.
Elizabeth: How on earth did she do that? 
MacMillan: By speaking French fluently.
Elizabeth: Yes, we can all do that.

Elizabeth: For goodness' sake. 
Philip: Come on, it's like royalty.
Elizabeth: Oh. Very funny.

Michael: President first, President first.
Jackie: Your Majesty. 
Michael: No curtsy.
Martin: No curtsy. 
Elizabeth: Mrs. Kennedy.
Jackie: Your Grace.
Michael: Your Royal Highness. 
Philip: Mrs. Kennedy.
JFK: Good evening, Your Royal Majesty.
Martin: Oh, dear.
MacMillan: Oh, for goodness' sake.
Elizabeth: Mr. President. 
Philip: Mr. President. 
JFK: Your Grace. 
Michael: Did they not get the protocol sheet?
Martin: Yes! He obviously didn't read it.
Elizabeth: Yes, well. Shall we?
JFK: Uh Jackie. 
Martin: Where do you think she's going? 
Michael: Lord knows.
Elizabeth: Mrs. Kennedy. I believe you know our Prime Minister 
JFK: I feel like that went wrong in about ten thousand different ways.
Philip: I've seen worse. Though I'm not sure when.
Martin: Sorry, sir.
Michael: Bloody shambles.

Elizabeth: What are you doing?
Philip: She wants a tour of the place. 
Elizabeth: Does she? Well, then I'll do it. 
Philip: No, it's all right, she asked me.
Elizabeth: No. It's my house so I'll do it.

Philip: You do know you're the luckiest man on earth?
JFK: Yes.
Philip: Although people keep telling me the same thing.

Jackie: I've often wondered how someone who hates attention as much as I do ended up in a goldfish bowl like the White House. But I realize there's actually a perverse logic to a cripplingly shy person ending up in this position.
Elizabeth: Oh, you'll have to explain that one to me.
Jackie: Well, a shy person will seek out someone strong to protect them.
Elizabeth: Yes. I'm with you so far.
Jackie: And a strong character's often one who enjoys public life, who thrives on it. And then, before you know it, the very person you've turned to in order to protect you is the very reason you are exposed. Jack's idea of heaven is a crowd. Campaigning, fund-raising, speechmaking - that's when he comes alive. He'd far sooner speak to 10,000 people under the glare of spotlights than be alone with me.

Jackie: I always think my sister would've made, if not the better, the more natural First Lady. 
Elizabeth: Oh, mine too. A born queen. And the greatest of British queens. In her own mind, anyway.

Elizabeth: Patrick? 
Margaret: Plunket. I saw him last night at Tartuffe. 
Elizabeth: Oh, is that a restaurant?
Margaret: It's a play, dear. A very famous French play. 
Elizabeth: Oh, I knew that. 
Margaret: Did you?
Elizabeth: Yes, it's a classic tragedy. 
Margaret: Farce. 
Elizabeth: By Pissarro.
Margaret: Molière.
Elizabeth: Oh. 
Margaret: Pissarro was a painter! When was the last time you even went to the theater? Or a gallery? Or even read a book? Oh, you're a savage.

Patrick: The words I think I overheard were that in our head of state, we had a middle-aged woman so incurious, unintelligent, and unremarkable that Britain's new reduced place in the world was not a surprise, but an inevitability.

Philip: The best thing you can do is stay at home and be what you're supposed to be. 
Elizabeth: A puppet? 
Philip: A constitutional monarch! 
Elizabeth: A puppet. 
Philip: If you like.
Elizabeth: Well, that's the whole point. I don't like.

What are they doing?
Martin: Hard to say. I believe it's the foxtrot.

Elizabeth: What I should've said was that I didn't do very much in Ghana. I got on a plane and I went.

QEQM: Didn't you say how unhappy she was? In the marriage? 
Elizabeth: Yes. That's the thing about unhappiness. All it takes is for something worse to come along and you realize it was actually happiness after all.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Philip: Charles is going to Gordonstoun. 
Elizabeth: Not necessarily.
Philip: Yes, necessarily.
Elizabeth: It's not set in stone. 
Philip: Give me a hammer and chisel and watch me carve it into one.

Philip: He won't learn a thing about himself at Eton.
Elizabeth: Yes, but he might just survive or flourish.
Philip: Or he might just become another wet, namby-pamby, mollycoddled twit like the rest of the British upper classes.

Philip: I wish he'd stop meddling.
Elizabeth: Well, meddling is what Dickie does.

Hahn: I don't expect you to get on with everyone. What I do expect of all my pupils is to conform with Platonic ideals to argue without quarreling, to quarrel without suspecting, to suspect without slandering.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Dorothy: Do you believe [Profumo]?
MacMillan: In the course of my life, I've learned to recognize the face of a liar. Something in the features is drawn differently. Something in the eyes. What other option is there? To distrust those close to me, those who profess to love me? That would be too painful.

Valet: His Royal Highness is away, ma'am. 
Elizabeth: Where?
Valet: At a house party, for the weekend.
Elizabeth: The weekend? It's Wednesday.

Tony: So, it's a yes to Paris? 
Editor: If you must.
Tony: I must.
Editor: Didn't you just get back from an assignment in New York? 
Tony: I did. 
Editor: And Tokyo before that? You don't think some time at home would be good?
Tony: In any marriage it's important to find things that really bind you together, as a couple.
Editor: And yours is?
Tony: Absence.

Elizabeth: Goodness. 
Margaret: What?
Elizabeth: The dining table in the same room as the kitchen? I'm not quite sure what to make of that.
Margaret: It's modern. It's egalitarian.
Elizabeth: You're the least egalitarian person that I know.

Elizabeth: I'm here to ask that on your way to building this great, bright, modern egalitarian home for your growing family, you might have a little more consideration for your neighbors.
Margaret: In terms of what?
Elizabeth: I'm assuming noise and general disruption.
Margaret: Oh, I see. And who sent you on this ugly little mission? Marina?
Elizabeth: Yes.
Margaret: She'd do well to remember her place. As a low-ranking member of your husband's refugee family, she's lucky to be here at all.
Elizabeth: I rest my case about egalitarian. And it's not only her. 
Margaret: Oh, is it Alice? That cantankerous old bat. 
Elizabeth: And the Kents and the Gloucesters. 
Margaret: Oh, I see. The whole nasty, jealous circus, cooped up in this ridiculous compound, furious because we got the largest apartment. 
Elizabeth: No one's furious about the apartment. 
Margaret: Incandescent. Positively constipated with fury.
Elizabeth: They're furious about the noise.
Margaret: Because it represents rejuvenation, modernization and change.
Elizabeth: No, because it's inconsiderate, selfish and deafening.

Elizabeth: So how is the baby so far?
Margaret: Mmm, it's uncomplicated, surprisingly. How's yours?
Elizabeth: Complicated. They want me to take it easier this time.
Margaret: May I politely suggest you do? Tell Philip to take some of the strain.

Elizabeth: You're coming too?
Philip: Coming? Uh, no. I'm going.
Elizabeth: Where? 
Philip: St. Moritz.
Elizabeth: How mysterious.
Philip: You?
Elizabeth: Balmoral. Separate countries. How apposite. 
Philip: What does that mean? 
Elizabeth: Appropriate, suitable, fitting, apt.
Philip: I know what apposite means.

Elizabeth: Do you know, I've been queen barely ten years? And in that time I've had three prime ministers, all of them ambitious men, clever men, brilliant men. Not one has lasted the course. They've either been too old, too ill, or too weak. A confederacy of elected quitters.

Philip: What are you doing here?
Margaret: I could ask you the same question in reverse. What were you not doing here? In case you hadn't noticed, your wife has just appointed a close family chum as Prime Minister on the advice of a man who had no right to give that advice since he was no longer in office. It's blown up in her face somewhat. We came to see if she was all right. But she's already left. Bolted back to the safety of Scotland.

Tony: So where were you, you mysterious fellow? St. Moritz at one point, I heard.
Philip: Yes.
Tony: That was a bit careless. Just use me next time. I'd always cover for you, you know. Boys' honor and all that.

Philip: This is most unlike you.
Elizabeth: On the contrary. This is the most like me I've been in years.

Philip: is it not possible that among all those problems and all those things that are driving you mad, there are some of us who are there for you no matter what, come what may?
Elizabeth: If only.
Philip: What's that supposed to mean? 
Elizabeth: It means exactly that. If only.

Edited December 17, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[DHDancer]

Absolutely no offence ElectricBoogaloo but why are you quoting at such length?  I realize you are including multiple quotes but it's very hard to parse them.  Perhaps Episode # before each section or just separate posts?

[Rinaldo]

Each post is devoted to one episode, I believe. With extra linespace before each new excerpt. (Maybe that doesn't show up on a phone, or something?) They make sense to me, anyway. 

[PinkRibbons]

On 12/17/2017 at 5:38 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Elizabeth: Do you know, I've been queen barely ten years? And in that time I've had three prime ministers, all of them ambitious men, clever men, brilliant men. Not one has lasted the course. They've either been too old, too ill, or too weak. A confederacy of elected quitters.
 

I was shocked at seeing that written up, this speech was only five rather short lines. The way Claire Foy delivered them had more weight that pretty much any long speech (and there are quite a few) given by other cast members. As Elizabeth she speaks very little and that makes complete sense for both of a "shy child" and a "woman who knows when to keep her mouth shut". And when she does speak, damn she is like a sniper with her words. Everyone else sprays words everywhere and hope they hit the mark, but Elizabeth has a talent for hitting the mark dead center.

[Rinaldo]

Well said, @PinkRibbons. I still giggle in awe remembering her delivery (and, be fair to the writers, the content) of the Season 1 speech that ended with a terse "Perhaps not."

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Adeane: Everyone at the Post Office is delighted with the new profile, ma'am, which they feel to be an elegant reflection of Her Majesty's transition from young woman to-
Elizabeth: Old bat?
Adeane: Mother of four and settled sovereign. The Postmaster General himself commented that the two images, the young and the slightly older Queen, are almost identical.
Elizabeth: Postmaster Bevins is very kind. He's also a barefaced liar.
Adeane: Just the tiniest changes in the hair.
Elizabeth: A great many changes. But there we are. Age is rarely kind to anyone. Nothing one can do about it. One just has to get on with it.

Philip: I even heard a rumor that he's a KGB spy.
Elizabeth: Mr. Wilson? That's ridiculous.
Philip: That his predecessor, Hugh Gaitskell, was poisoned by the Russians, so that their man might take over. 
Elizabeth: Who did you hear that from? 
Philip: A friend of mine at the lunch club. He had a whole theory about Wilson being turned while on a trade mission to Russia. Said he even had a KGB code name - Olding. 
Elizabeth: Well, if you know it, and your chum knows it, obviously MI5 will know it, and they must have come to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson was fine, or they would have done something about it.

Elizabeth: I can't imagine what that would be like, having a prime minister one didn't trust.

Wilson: I suppose I should kick things off with an apology. 
Elizabeth: Whatever for? 
Wilson: Well, winning. I'm aware of your affection for my predecessor and doubtless you'd have preferred him to have continued in office.
Elizabeth: It is my duty not to have preferences.
Wilson: Well, we all do though, don't we? We can't help it. It's human nature. And I can see the attraction of someone like Posh Alec - someone you can chat with about the racing, someone well-bred, highborn, who knows how to hold his cutlery, as opposed to a ruffian like me.

QM: Tony, darling, come and sit next to your wife.
Tony: Why would I do that? I see her all the time.
QM: Well, she was just saying she sees you none of the time.
Margaret: Because he's always working, traveling, or waterskiing.

Philip: The very least you could do is quietly crawl away, not force us to live with you under the same roof. But doing the the right thing, the decent thing, the honorable thing - you wouldn't have the faintest idea what that was. Well, I am going to be watching you and one wrong step, you treacherous snake, and I will expose you and have you thrown in jail.
Blunt: I would think long and hard before I did that, sir. You would do well to reflect on your own position.
Philip: What are you talking about?
Blunt: You may remember, at the height of the Profumo sex scandal, there was talk of a member of the royal family being involved. No one knew who, but it was rumored to be a senior member of the royal family - very senior. When the osteopath at the center of the scandal, Stephen Ward, took his own life there was speculation that a number of portraits of that senior member of the royal family had been found in his apartment. Naturally, a great many people were keen to get their hands on those portraits. Mercifully, someone respected and well connected in the art world was able to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands.
Philip: I never saw Stephen Ward in any capacity other than as an osteopath. If he made drawings of me, he would have done so from photographs.
Blunt: We all tell ourselves all sorts of things to make sense of the past, so much so that our fabrications, if we tell them to ourselves often enough, become the truth in our minds and everyone else's. And believe you me, I'm happy for your truth to be the truth. It would be better for everyone. Imagine how awful it would be, for example, if those pictures saw the light of day now, the storm it would create. And for what? It's the past.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Lascelles: The Crown is not just an ornament to be worn. It is a privilege and a burden, which comes with formidable expectations and responsibilities.

Elizabeth: I don't think I can do it.
Margaret: I could.
Elizabeth: I know you could.
Margaret: I'd love every minute. To be on every coin, on every banknote, to be the most famous woman in the world. I'd be so very good at it - wearing a big crown, giving everyone orders.

Margaret: She and I are complicated. 
Tony: It's true. Elder sister, younger sister. Number one and number two.
Margaret: Who's number one?
Tony: You, of course. A natural number one whose tragedy it is to have been born number two.
Margaret: That is my burden.
Tony: She knows it, too.
Margaret: Yes, I think she does. That's her burden.

Margaret: These people were amusing and attractive. And they made me feel good.
Tony: No, no, no, no. The alcohol made you feel good and blunted your judgment to the sycophancy of the people surrounding you. 
Margaret: Is that right? Well sadly, it's not blunted my judgment to your mean-spiritedness and jealousy and general pusillanimity. Pusinalamn. Small-mindedness.

Margaret: What happens if I fail? If we don't get the bailout?
Then we break our promises to the IMF, exhaust the credit facilities available to us, face a run on sterling, and the government would be left with no option but to devalue the pound.
Margaret: And that's bad? Devaluation?
It's worse than bad. It would relegate sterling to the second division of the world's currencies and Britain to the third division of the world's economies. It would mean international humiliation, political ignominy, and financial ruin.

Margaret: You spent three years as Vice President. I've spent my whole life as Vice Queen. Except that came out wrong, I didn't mean I'm a vice queen.

Wilson: This then led to a drinking contest which, in turn, led to a limerick contest. 
Elizabeth: Limericks? 
Wilson: Yes, ma'am. Some of them, I'm afraid to say, were a little off-color.
Elizabeth: Well, go on then.
Wilson: Well, the first one went-
Margaret: There was a young woman from Delaware who liked to make love liked to make love 
Tony: Delaware! Delaware! 
Margaret: In her underwear. A terrible prude-
Wilson: She would never go nude, And her bum, hips, and tits she would never bare. 
Elizabeth: What else?
Wilson: The President countered with, "There was a young man from Wisconsin Who was blessed with an enormously large-" 
LBJ: Johnson!
Elizabeth: Where's the rest of it?
Wilson: I believe everyone thought that was long enough. As it were.
Elizabeth: Any more?
Wilson: Princess Margaret won the evening with this one "There was a young lady from Dallas qho used a dynamite stick as a phallus-"
Margaret: They found her-
Elizabeth: You've made it this far.
Wilson: They found her vagina in North Carolina and her arsehole in Buckingham Palace.
Elizabeth: Bravo.

Elizabeth: Now, you must know by now any triumph from this family is met with a healthy dose of-
Margaret: Envy? Spite? 
Elizabeth: Good-natured teasing to keep one's feet on the ground.

Philip: There have always been the dazzling Windsors and the dull ones. Your father.
Elizabeth: A saint.
Philip: But dull. Sorry. Your grandfather, too. 
Elizabeth: George V? 
Philip: Deadly dull. At the height of the Great War, when the the Tsar and the Kaiser and the Emperor of Austria were dazzling the world, where was he? He was sticking stamps in his album. His wife-
Elizabeth: Queen Mary, wonderful.
Philip: Ditchwater. And so it goes, through George V to Queen Victoria and back. An uninterrupted line of stolid, turgid dreariness.
Elizabeth: Culminating in me?

[merylinkid]

Don't have this exactly right but in episode 4:

Aide:  Ma'am, the Duke of Edinburgh ...

Queen:   Not me.   I'm darling or cabbage.   Sweets is someone else.  (as she goes back to her papers).  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Andrew: Come on, Harold. This is an accident caused by unprecedented rainfall. It isn't political. 
Wilson: Everything is political, Andrew.

Wilson: Children have died. A community is devastated.
Elizabeth: What precisely would you have me do?
Wilson: Well, comfort people.
Elizabeth: Put on a show? The crown doesn't do that.
Wilson: I didn't say put on a show. I said comfort people.

QM: Morning, darling. Tea?
Margaret: Anyone object if I had something stronger?
QM: Coffee? 
Margaret: No, I was thinking whiskey. 
Elizabeth: Margaret, it's nine o'clock. 
Margaret: Yes, I know. But it's not morning. Not in my world anyway.

Charteris: Without wishing to prompt, Your Majesty, you may wish to consider that this is Wales, not England. A display of emotion would not just be considered appropriate. It's expected.

[merylinkid]

28 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Wilson: Children have died. A community is devastated.
Elizabeth: What precisely would you have me do?
Wilson: Well, comfort people.
Elizabeth: Put on a show? The crown doesn't do that.
Wilson: I didn't say put on a show. I said comfort people

Prior to that when talking to the Aide:

Elizabeth:   We go to hospitals, the Crown does not go to the accident scene.

[AZChristian]

10 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

Prior to that when talking to the Aide:

Elizabeth:   We go to hospitals, the Crown does not go to the accident scene.

I found it interesting that she now is referring to herself in such a non-personal way.  Not "I" go to hospitals, but "the Crown" goes to hospitals.

Maybe that explains why there are no tears.  She says "I" don't cry, but (in reality) means "the Crown" does not cry.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Spivak: The article then goes on about the significant challenge the royal family faces in surviving on the existing allowance. Is this creating an awkward situation, sir? 
Philip: Very. We go into the red, I think, next year. Which is not bad housekeeping, if you come to think of it. We've kept the whole thing going on a budget which was based on the costs of of over 15 years ago when the Queen acceded to the throne. 
Spivak: So in order to afford everything-
Philip: Well, very considerable corners have had to be cut and it is beginning to have its effect. Now if nothing happens, we shall either have to, um, I mean, I don't know. We may have to move into smaller premises. Who knows? 
Childs: Smaller palaces?
Philip: Something like that. We've already embarked on a general belt tightening which has not made life easy. For instance, we had a small yacht which we have had to sell.
Childs: Really?
Philip: I shall probably have to give up polo fairly soon and things like that.

Philip: What does [Wilson] want us to do? Live in a semi-detached? Travel everywhere on the omnibus?

Philip: Uh, sweetie, are you there? Can you hear me? Sweetie? Sweetie? Hello, sweetie? Hello, sweetie? Can you hear me? Do pick up. Hello? Hello? Sweetie?
Servant: Your Majesty.
Elizabeth: Yes. 
Servant: His Royal Highness, the Duke of-
Elizabeth: Not me, I'm afraid. I'm darling or cabbage. Sweetie is someone else.

Philip: I've spoken to Colonel Adeane and Martin Charteris and William Heseltine -  collection of the people you most hate in life. Well, we all got together.
Anne: In a reptile cage? At a zoo?

Philip: Generally, you're good value for money.
Anne: Like a pair of long-lasting boots?
Philip: Is there anything one loves more in life than a pair of long-lasting boots?

QM: Shhh, they're rolling, dear.
Margaret: We are being filmed watching television, that people might watch us watching television on their own television sets at home. This really is plumbing new depths of banality.

Margaret: What do we do now? Do you expect us to say something? 
BBC: Yes. 
Margaret: Well, what? Did someone prepare something? 
BBC: I think the general idea is it be unscripted to reflect a normal evening. 
Margaret: This is nothing like a normal evening. If it was a normal evening, we'd all be on our own in sad isolation in individual palaces. It wouldn't be crowded like this. This is like some kind of nightmare Christmas.
BBC: Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, perhaps you might comment on what's on the television.
QM: That'd be easier if there was something remotely amusing to watch.
Elizabeth: I agree. This is deathly.
Margaret: Things might improve with a drink.
QM: Everything improves with a drink.

Philip: Let me give you some advice. Stop patronizing me! Stop interfering and stop meddling. Just stop. You know nothing.
Elizabeth: I know that she's your mother.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Wilson: People like Mountbatten, meddlers, for want of a kinder word, energetic, well-connected meddlers, it's better that they're inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

Dickie: Are you kicking me out?
Wilson: Well, no, sir, I'm thanking you on behalf of the government, on behalf of the armed forces, on behalf of the whole country, for your many years of remarkable service.

King: We must act now. Not just to save Britain, but the world. We are proposing a radical revolution led by bankers, businessmen, and the armed forces. Professionals who can save us from amateurism, incompetence, and Russian infiltration.

Dickie: What all successful insurgencies have in common are five key elements - control of the media, control of the economy, and the capture of administrative targets, for which you need the fourth element, the loyalty of the military. Now in Ghana and Gabon, this can be achieved with a handful of battalions, but here in the United Kingdom we would need to secure Parliament, Whitehall, the Ministry of Defence, and the Cabinet Office. The Prime Minister will be arrested, of course, along with other politicians still loyal. We would have to shut down the airports, air traffic control. Same with the train stations. Curfews will be put in place, martial law declared. And I haven't even mentioned the police. It would take tens of thousands of unquestioningly loyal servicemen, and even in my heyday, I could never command that. Which brings me to the fifth element - legitimacy. Now our government draws its strength from long-established institutions that support it - the courts, body of common law, the constitution. For any action against the state to succeed, you'd have to overthrow these as well. But in a highly evolved democracy such as ours, their authority is sacrosanct, which is why, gentlemen, a coup d'état in the United Kingdom doesn't stand a chance.

Elizabeth: Somehow today has managed to be one of the most enjoyable days of my life. And at the same time, one of the most depressing.

Elizabeth: If I tell you something, do you promise it will stay between us?
Porchey: Of course. This is how I'd like to spend all my time - owning horses, breeding horses, racing horses. It's what makes me truly happy. And I actually think it's what I was born to do, until the other thing came along that someone else was born to do, that they elected not to do, which meant that first my father, and then I, had to do a job we were never meant to do.
Porchey: Well, you've managed to make it look like the other thing is the only thing you were ever meant to do.
Elizabeth: You're kind. But it isn't. And on days like today in places like this, in company like this you get a glimpse of what it all might have been like - the unlived life and how much happier it might have made me.

Dickie: Why are you doing this? Why would you protect a man like Wilson?
Elizabeth: I am protecting the Prime Minister. I am protecting the constitution. I am protecting democracy.
Dickie: But if the man at the heart of that democracy threatens to destroy it, are we supposed to just stand by and do nothing?
Elizabeth: Yes. Doing nothing is exactly what we do and bide our time and wait for the people that voted him in to vote him out again, if indeed that is what they decide to do.

Elizabeth: I'm sure you find it near impossible to do nothing and to not have the role and responsibilities you've always had. You were born to be busy and to lead. But you still have a huge role to play in this family. A father figure to my husband. An uncle and a guide to me. A king to make in Charles, not to mention a brother to your sister. When was the last time you even visited her? Cheered her up?
Dickie: ...
Elizabeth: That would be a greater service to the crown than leading unconstitutional coups.

Alice: Did you get a dressing down from our doughty Queen? 
Dickie: Yes, I did. Oh, what's so funny?
Alice: Well, that's funny. The little girl admonishing the grand old admiral of the fleet.
Dickie: Well, I'm glad it amuses you.

Elizabeth: If you have something to say, say it now. Otherwise, if you don't mind, I'm busy.

[Razzberry]

[Razzberry]

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Marshall: In my capacity as Earl Marshal, I've always abided by one guiding principle, which has served me extremely well until now.
Wilson: Which is?
Marshall: Wherever possible, change absolutely nothing. Do things exactly the same way as they were done before.

Charles: Why is she never like that with you? Vile and cold like that.
Anne: Because I'm irrelevant. I rather wish she would be like that with me. It would suggest I have significance.
Charles: Trust me, you wouldn't like it in reality.
Anne: I would. I'd bully her right back.
Charles: Fancy swapping then? Fancy being the heir?
Anne: Not if it means going to Wales.

Millward: In case you've forgotten, I'm the vice president of Plaid Cymru. I'm a republican nationalist. You know my feelings about the office of the Prince of Wales - that it's a princehood illegitimately imposed upon us by an oppressive imperial conquest.

Millward: We learn through imitation. Like anything in life, if we pretend we're something long enough, we may just become it.

Charles: I miss Cambridge already. And this place is a bit gloomy.
Anne: It's Wales. What do you expect? How are the other students? Short, hairy, and angry?
Charles: What? 
Anne: Isn't that what the Celts are like? Furry and furious, big eyebrows, red faces, stooped under the weight of an ancestral grudge?

Anne: It's not for long.
Charles: An eternity. Three months!
Anne: It'll fly by.
Charles: Crawl by more like on hands and knees.
Anne: You really are the most terrible Eeyore.

Millward: The hardest pronunciation for you will be the word atmosphere. Awyrgylch. It's like a verbal assault course of all your worst sounds scattered one after another like traps. Break them up.

Elizabeth: What more is to be said?
Charles: How about, "Thank you," or "Well done"?
Elizabeth: If we all had to thank one another every time we did anything in this family, we'd never get anywhere.

Elizabeth: Not having a voice is something all of us have to live with. We have all made sacrifices and suppressed who we are. Some portion of our natural selves is always lost.
Charles: That is a choice.
Elizabeth: It is not a choice. It is a duty. I was a similar age to you when your great-grandmother, Queen Mary, told me that to do nothing, to say nothing, is the hardest job of all. It requires every ounce of energy that we have. To be impartial is not natural, it's not human. People will always want us to smile or agree, or frown or speak, and the minute that we do, we will have declared a position, a point of view, and that is the one thing as the royal family we are not entitled to do. Which is why we have to hide those feelings, keep them to ourselves. Because the less we do, the less we say or speak or agree or-
Charles: Or think or breathe or feel or exist.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Philip: Why do we do this week in, week out? Like lemmings. What does it do for you? Honestly.
Elizabeth: Church? It's a chance to take stock, reflect on the past week, think ahead to the next.
Philip: You can use a diary for that.
Elizabeth: And to think of life's bigger questions.
Philip: Except one doesn't. One mainly thinks about what a lot of dreary nonsense the dean is talking and why doesn't he shut up.
Elizabeth: He's been with us for nearly twenty years.
Philip: That might make him loyal. It does not make him interesting.

Philip: Where is she? 
Servant: Who, sir?
Philip: If I say "she," and we're in Buckingham Palace, who do you think I mean?

Elizabeth: Is it possible, do you think, the dean might have reached - how can I put this kindly? The moment of his own obsolescence? I noticed one or two people struggling to stay awake.
Adeane: We could discreetly start the search for a replacement.
Elizabeth: Could we? Someone with a bit of...
Adeane: Oomph. 
Elizabeth: I think so. 
Adeane: Zest. 
Elizabeth: That's it.
Adeane: Pep. 
Elizabeth: Yes, thank-
Adeane: Vim. 
Elizabeth: Thank you.

Elizabeth: Around the same time we were asked by the American State Department if we'd send that message to the moon on a silicon disc, we were also asked another question.
Philip: On how many occasions is the British royal family forced to eat venison each year? Honestly, I think if I eat any more of this stuff I'm going to start growing antlers.

Edited November 27, 2019 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

David: Reputation is an idle and most false imposition. Oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

Hirohito: Imagine living in exile from your homeland. I would sooner die.

QM: I can't bear it. Now they're rehabilitating him.
Elizabeth: It's possible, mummy, that not everyone is as consumed by loathing of him as you are.

Elizabeth: One doesn't often get the opportunity to meet a former king. Former kings are usually dead.

Andrew: This escalation of hostilities is neither necessary nor justifiable.

Dickie: I hear [Wallis] consumes nothing but whiskey, and has had so many facelifts she can barely speak.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Wallis: Watch out for your family.
Charles: They mean well.
Wallis: No, they don't.

Elizabeth: I am sorry, Prime Minister. [The dogs] mean no harm.
Heath: All animals mean harm. They are but a meal away from barbarism.

Philip: Are you warming to him yet?
Elizabeth: Mr. Heath? I'm not sure there's much to warm to.

Charles: I've come to ask you a question. I've been given a posting - eight months in the Caribbean.
Elizabeth: That's not a question.
Charles: I'm not happy about it. 
Elizabeth: Still not a question.

QM: We'd like to ask you some questions. And it's important while answering those questions that you remain clearheaded, unemotional, rational and calm.
Anne: As opposed to what? The hysterical and neurotic way I normally behave?

Dickie: We need to talk to you about your brother.
Anne: Which one? I have three.

Elizabeth: I'd like to speak to mummy alone.
Philip: Right. That's our cue. Queens only.

Elizabeth: So what's the next step?
QM: The families have been spoken to. A date has been set for Camilla to be married to the Parker Bowles boy.
Elizabeth: Good.
QM: All that's missing is for someone to let them know.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Other Anne: What about Hugo? We were thinking of tying a ribbon round him for you.
Margaret: Oof, no. How could he ever be thrilled with me? He's so excessively thrilled with himself.

Margaret: You're perspiring.
Roddy: Uh, true, I am, ma'am.
Margaret: So why don't you jump in the pool?
Roddy: Well, I didn't bring any trunks. 
Margaret: That was stupid.
Roddy: No, it wasn't.
Margaret: Yes, it was. I just said it was.
Roddy: It can't be stupid. I don't possess any trunks.
Margaret: That's not just stupid, that's absurd.

Margaret: So, apart from owning a woefully inadequate wardrobe, what is that you do?
Roddy: A research assistant at the College of Arms, which involves genealogical research and boning up on heraldry. I also have a mobile disco company, called Vibrations. And I clean the floors in a gallery on the Fulham Road at night. But all of this is just to fund my real passion.
Margaret: Have we got to the end of the answer yet? I'm rather regretting asking.

Margaret: Oh, gawd. We've stumbled upon an experiment in inbreeding.

Margaret: You know, I have a garden that needs doing.
Roddy: Do you? I imagine you must have an army of gardeners.
Margaret: Don't believe everything you hear. No, my garden is quite neglected. Especially the one in Mustique.
Roddy: Where?
Margaret: It's a small private island in the Caribbean. 
Roddy: How lovely.
Margaret: My husband hates it. But since I hate my husband, what he thinks is irrelevant.

Tony: The powers that be thought it might be nice if someone from inside the firm were to design some of the memorabilia. 
Elizabeth: Oh, Tony, you are clever.
Tony: Always happy to help my family.
Elizabeth: Are you? Let's talk about that for a minute.

Elizabeth: I don't want to pry or lecture anyone about what goes on in a marriage. In my experience, people find a way to do what they need to do to remain happy or sane. I often think turning a blind eye is the best approach. Things work themselves out in the end.

[PeterPirate]

On 11/23/2019 at 6:42 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Alice: Did you get a dressing down from our doughty Queen? 
Dickie: Yes, I did. Oh, what's so funny?
Alice: Well, that's funny. The little girl admonishing the grand old admiral of the fleet.
Dickie: Well, I'm glad it amuses you.

That scene from Coup continues:  

Quote

Dickie:  Because the situation this country is facing is anything but amusing.

Alice:  Oh Who cares? Honestly. One of the few joys of being as old as we both are is that it's not our problem. It's not really our country, either.

Dickie:  What are you talking about? Of course it's our country.

Alice:  We Battenbergs have no country. Our family might have kings and queens in its ranks, but we're mongrels, too. Part-German, part-Greek, part-nowhere at all.

Dickie:  Well, this is my country. It gave me a home, it gave me a name, and in return, I've given it my life. And to see it like this breaks my heart. 

[PeterPirate]

From Favourites:

Charles - Camilla and I just hunt together these days.  That's all.  And talk on the telephone.  
QE -  How often?
Charles - As often as is necessary.  More often when I need cheering up.
QE - When you need cheering up?  You've just bought your dream house, your Xanadu, that you and an army of sycophants are turning into the living embodiment of your soul.  And your young, beautiful wife, struggling with pregnancy, has locked herself upstairs and is refusing to come out.  You know how I hate interfering.  It's not for me to tell a grown man what to do.  But in your position, I might be inclined to worry less about my own happiness and pay more attention to the well-being of the mother of my future child.  
 

[Macbeth]

Princess Ann from Imbroglio - after telling why she knows Camilla is obsessed with Andrew and not Charles.

"I hope that wasn't too emotional for you all."