The crown isn’t real - but all the unsavoury bits are!

[CoulsenAvenge]

AIBU! I keep seeing people and newspaper article saying the crown is fake and people are taking it as history etc but in reality all the nasty bits people are up in arms about ARE true.

• queens cousins shut off in an institution and family pretended they were dead
• Charles giving camilla a bracelet right before marrying Diana
• Diana being fragile and unsupported by monarchy
• Edward smarming about how they would want him at Cambridge and he did get into Cambridge even though he wasn’t intelligent enough to be there by halves
• Charles having an affair with camilla (maybe timings off but they did have an affair)
• Margaret Thatcher leaving Balmoral early so clearly didn’t enjoy it or value being there
• Prince Phillip and Queen Mother being big snobs about having to meet and greet ‘common’ people has been said about them a lot.

Did Maggie leave balmoral early?

It must be embarrassing for everyone going to Cambridge if you're not as bright as the other students. Although maybe he's too arrogant to care!

I think the palace have stated that on no occasion did MT leave Balmoral early. I think it shows, though, the class difference pretty well.

I wonder if the line about the 'tests' Dennis Thatcher was warned about it true (ep2)?

And if so, what those are...

@CatMuffin

It must be embarrassing for everyone going to Cambridge if you're not as bright as the other students. Although maybe he's too arrogant to care!

I think it was fairly standard for the male royals to attend Oxbridge at that time if they didn't go directly into the military. Charles also attended Cambridge. I suspect part of it is the college system will make security a trifle easier, which may have effected William choosing St Andrews, which is also a collegiate university.

And I've never heard any hint before about the Queen being snobby about meeting the "common" people.
Personally I'd hate to have to greet a crowd of people I didn't know who may well report anything you said (or even that you didn't say) to the press, who will pour over it and you have very little chance of reply-they won't believe you if you deny it anyway. However she doesn't show signs of it.

@Witchend, the OP said it was Prince Philip and the Queen Mother who were snobs. I know the QM had a terrible reputation for that.

Standard or not, surely it would be embarrassing for Royals to be present at intellectual discussions at Cambridge and not being able to contribute. Or a tutor having to deal with them writing substandard essays.

@CodenameVillanelle according to this article about Theresa May’s first visit Thatcher was always keen to get away ASAP and would book a car for 6am

Sorry with article www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/16/may-pm-visit-balmoral

I actually thought The Crown went fairly easy on the royals. Even the ones who do 'evil' things are portrayed in quite a sympathetic way. The stuff about the Queen's cousins was probably the most shocking part of the season.

Edward getting into Cambridge doesn't surprise me much though. I used to live near Cambridge uni and often met students who left me baffled as to how they got into such a prestigious university.

Apparently Edward’s bodyguard got a 2:1 and Edward got a 2:2.

Wait, no. It was Charles’ bodyguard and Charles, not Edward.

I think you are glossing over the timing of the affair a bit. Who knows what happened but there is a difference between just carrying on the affair and cutting off any private contact for years, only resuming it once the marriage seemed irretrievable. I know the emotional unavailability and feelings for someone else would still have been a huge factor, but it is still a very different story.

I think its interesting because a lot of people seem to think this is the season where they are brutal at depicting the royals whereas they were more sympathetic in earlier seasons, but actually I think the earlier seasons build up nicely for understanding their positions a bit more.

Diana was absolutely unsupported, abandoned, treated horrifically. But the Queen wasn't that much older when she got married, and similarly was expected to turn a blind eye, keep her head down, etc etc, so you can understand to an extent why she expected her to get on with it. I think you see people's foibles clearly. Charles comes across as very emotionally needy, a mix of hubris and insecurity, but the previous series show the background to all that: it doesn't excuse it but it explains it somehow. Edward comes across badly but was very young, Andrew comes across dreadfully. I am sad we don't get more Fergie in it.

What. is interesting to me is that people have shifted the way its judged because Diana feels so much more recent: previous seasons were 'historical' in a way this one isn't, people remember what happened more. From the beginning they have shown the Queen as putting duty and crown first and expecting others to do so, but when its clear the effect that has on someone vulnerable who people feel 'connected' to it seems more shocking.

@Inkpaperstars i meant more that people seem to be saying it’s unfair as it portrays the royals in a negative light. From what I have read all the unsavoury bits are true. What would be unfair is if Charles was shown having an affair with camilla when he never had an affair and was loyal to Diana throughout - but he did have an affair. He did cheat. The timing shown in the show may be incorrect but it is still correct he’s a cheat which is the unsavoury bit that makes the royals look bad.

Diana being fragile and unsupported by monarchy

More importantly she was never supported by her own family, long before the CHarles fiasco, she was supposed to be fairly fragile yet they were happy to dump her in a London flat. When she was seeing Charles surely a loving family would have raised questions, she had two fairly savvy sisters although her mother had done a bunk years ago. Were my inexperienced 19 year old daughter wanting to marry an experienced man 12 years her senior I would be asking a lot of questions, not clapping my hands at the idea of a Spencer on the throne!
She was let down much much earlier, by the time she married the damage had been done.

Look at your list again. Apart from Charles’ affair with Camilla, which he admitted himself, everything else is something people said or thought. How can we possibly know it’s true? It’s all conjecture, rumour and opinion, not fact.

@Rainyrainrant

I wonder if the line about the 'tests' Dennis Thatcher was warned about it true (ep2)?

And if so, what those are...

I think some of the 'tests' were set up by the staff who can, in that type of household, be far snobbier than their employers. The scene where Mts T came down dressed for dinner too early seemed unreal, there are always timetables of events left in bedrooms, even if you simply meet a Royal officially there's a long protocol sheet. I doubt that the Queen would have let her go out onto the moors dressed like she did in The Crown, there would have been outdoor clothes available for unprepared guests. HM is a very kind woman.

I see what you're saying Coulson

Can’t understand why they missed out tampongate. I vividly remember that being absolutely incendiary when it came out.

@Wiredforsound

Wait, no. It was Charles’ bodyguard and Charles, not Edward.

Wasn't it Prince Philip who is supposed to have quipped 'What a friend we have in Jesus' when Edward was admitted by Jesus, Cambridge with a C and two Ds at A-level?

Apparently Thatcher did cut visits to Balmoral short.

However, she would have been better briefed, surely. And I don't know if she participated in the weird Ibble Dibble game

I might be the least Thatcherite person on the planet (and I haven't started this season of The Crown yet, so have seen no specifics of the plot and GA's performance) but if I were a lower-middle-class PM making semi-compulsory visits to staghunt in what is by repute a freezing, uncomfortable house, inhabited by insanely-rich royals who, frankly, haven't a lot else to do, I think I would both be (a) leaving early and (b) and making it quite clear I was leaving early because of, you know, wrecking the country single-handed etc etc.

Well Edward can,t be too think if he got a 2.2 from cambridge. Anyone else we say look they have a cambridge degree well done.

Also I have met price Philip through Duke of Edinbrugh. He enjoyed meeting the young peoope and handing out the awards and only stopped this when he was well past retirement. (thinks 80+)

I am still only one Series 1, but I do find that when I Wikipedia, I am surprised at the bits that are true!