Jackie Kennedy: 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.
Queen Elizabeth II: Oh, you'll have to explain that one to me.
Jackie Kennedy: Well, a shy person will seek out someone strong to protect them.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes. I'm with you so far.
Jackie Kennedy: And a strong character is 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 ten thousand people under the glare of spotlights than be alone with me.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: Didn't you say how unhappy she was? In the marriage?
Queen Elizabeth II: 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.
Louis Mountbatten: You may hate him now, but one day, God willing, you will be a father yourself. And you will fall short, as all parents do. And be hated. And you will know what it is to pray for the forgiveness from your own son.
Harold Macmillan: I hope you haven't come to dissuade me. The situation is quite hopeless.
Queen Elizabeth II: That's not my understanding. The doctors told me that the tumor was benign.
Harold Macmillan: It was the size of an orange.
Queen Elizabeth II: While that causes inconvenience and discomfort that largely...
Harold Macmillan: I'll still require a long period of convalescence, not be in a fit state to undertake the arduous duties as PM. I'm afraid my decision to resign is final.
Queen Elizabeth II: That's very disappointing, especially after our conversation.
Harold Macmillan: As to who should succeed me, as sovereign you have the prerogative to consult, but there's only one man, in my opinion. The Earl of Home.
Queen Elizabeth II: Alec? Yes, we're all very fond of him, but...
Harold Macmillan: He's the right man. A decade younger than me, steel painted as wood, and the old governing class at its best. I would call Alec to the palace right away, ma'am. No sense dragging things out.
Queen Elizabeth II: Is that an order, Mr. Macmillan?
Harold Macmillan: It would be my advice, ma'am.
Queen Elizabeth II: 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.
Prince Philip: There are two types of people in life. Those whom one imagines to be trustworthy and reliable, who turn out to be treacherous and weak, like Mr. Macmillan. And those who appear to be complex and difficult, who turn out to be more dependable than anyone thought. Like me. I know exactly what my job is. Your father made it perfectly clear. You are my job. You are the essence of my duty. So here I am. Liegeman of life and limb. In, not out.
Michael 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...
Queen Elizabeth II: Old bat?
Michael 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.
Queen Elizabeth II: Postmaster Bevins is very kind. He's also a barefaced liar.
Michael Adeane: Just the tiniest changes, in the hair...
Queen Elizabeth II: 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.
Queen Elizabeth II: You were my guardian angel. The roof over my head. The spine in my back. The iron in my heart. You were the compass that steered and directed me. Not just me, all of us. Where would Great Britain be without its greatest Briton? God bless you, Winston.
Harold Wilson: Uh, well, I suppose I should kick things off with an apology.
Queen Elizabeth II: Whatever for?
Harold Wilson: Well, winning. I'm aware of your affection for my predecessor and doubtless you'd have preferred him to have continued in office.
Queen Elizabeth II: It is my duty not to have preferences.
Harold 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.
Queen Elizabeth II: Hardly.
Harold Wilson: Still, the country said otherwise. They'd had enough of the mess those Conservatives left us and the havoc they wreaked. Soaring land and house prices, race riots, sex scandals, large-scale unemployment, rejection from the EEC, and an annual trade deficit of £800 million.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes, it's an unenviable legacy. What will you do about the balance of payments? Will you devalue?
Harold Wilson: No, m-ma'am. A Labour government devalued the pound once before, with little success, and my party cannot risk being seen as the party of devaluation. It is also a matter of national pride. This is still a great country, and the pound is a powerful symbol.
Harold Wilson: Can't have been an easy one to get used to.
Queen Elizabeth II: What's that?
Harold Wilson: Well, you being part of that symbol. Your face on every coin and banknote.
Queen Elizabeth II: No. I remember seeing my father's face on a shilling for the first time and thinking how odd it looked. At the same time realizing I would probably, one day, have to look at my own face. But one never knows what destiny has in store for one.
Queen Elizabeth II: I'm not sure what I was expecting. Each of his predecessors, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, even Alec, each in their own way was formidable. Statesmanlike. But Wilson is neither old nor young, tall nor short, loud nor quiet, warm nor cold. He seems to have come from nowhere and is entirely unremarkable.
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester: Best qualities in a spy.
Queen Elizabeth II: What did you say?
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester: Aren't those the best qualities in a spy? Well, to be forgettable, unremarkable. Not stand out in a crowd. We used to say that about Henry, didn't we, dear?
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester: What?
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester: That you would have made the perfect spy, because no one could remember having met you.
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester: I ... I'd say that was marginally better than everyone having nightmares having met you!
Prince 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.
Anthony Blunt: I would think long and hard before I did that, sir. You would do well to reflect on your own position.
Prince Philip: What are you talking about?
Anthony 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.
Prince 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.
Anthony 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.
President Lyndon B. Johnson: Screw the Brits! I don't like 'em. I never liked 'em. If they're not looking down at you through their noses, they're holding their hands out like beggars. And I don't give a crap about any special relationship. Harold Wilson wants my help, he should have thought about that when he refused to support me over Vietnam. You can't screw a man in the ass and then expect him to buy you flowers!
Princess Margaret: [after telling Lyndon Johnson she was "distinctly underwhelmed" by John F. Kennedy] I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong? I do know these days one's not allowed to think anything other than what a great statesman Kennedy was.
First Lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson: Say nothing, Lyndon.
Princess Margaret: Of course he'll say nothing. He was his loyal deputy. Which I think I can understand better than most. The frustrations and resentments that can build up from a life as a number two. The support act. Even of someone you adore. You spent three years as Vice President. I've spent my whole life as Vice Queen.
Queen Elizabeth II: Margaret does suffer more than anyone else by not having a more meaningful role. Suffers in health and happiness. She's overlooked. And in terms of ability and character and intelligence and flair, she does not deserve to be overlooked. So, why shouldn't we consider expanding the role, sharing the job a bit more?
Prince Philip: There are two answers to that question. Neither makes for pretty listening. Yes, the system is unequal and unjust and cruel. Primogeniture divides and destroys families. The system stinks. But in its cruelty and injustice, it reflects something else, which is harsh and brutal, which no one is suggesting we rearrange. Life. We all desire equality, but here's the thing. We were not born equal.
Queen Elizabeth II: And what's the second?
Prince Philip: Do you remember I told you once I got drunk with that god-awful monster Tommy Lascelles? Well, that night he shared with me his theory about the House of Windsor. I've never repeated it to anyone since.
Queen Elizabeth II: Go on.
Prince Philip: He asked me to imagine a mythological creature. A Reichsadler. A polycephalus, a two-headed eagle. For the purposes of this conversation, I want you to think of it as representing us. This family. Your family. There have always been the dazzling Windsors and the dull ones. Your father...
Queen Elizabeth II: A saint.
Prince Philip: But dull. Sorry. Your grandfather, too.
Queen Elizabeth II: George V?
Prince 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...
Queen Elizabeth II: Queen Mary, wonderful.
Prince Philip: Ditchwater. And so it goes, through George V to Queen Victoria and back. An uninterrupted line of stolid, turgid dreariness.
Queen Elizabeth II: Culminating in me?
Prince Philip: Well, yes, but alongside that dull, dutiful, reliable, heroic strain runs another. The dazzling, the brilliant, the individualistic, and the dangerous. And so, for every Victoria, you get an Edward VII. For every George V, you get a Prince Eddy. For every George VI, you get an Edward VIII. For every Lilibet, you get a Margaret. And she may have had a success in Washington, but let's not delude ourselves that serious diplomacy can be achieved through drinking and dancing. Let Margaret have the glory, but let's not rewrite the constitutional rulebook because she got lucky once.
Queen Elizabeth II: And where does that leave my relationship with her?
Prince Philip: Unchanged. You're the Queen. And she's your dangerous baby sister.
Tommy Lascelles: [flashback, after a young Margaret suggests taking Elizabeth's place as heir] What you are suggesting is unthinkable. The order of succession to the throne is determined by the Act of Settlement of 1701, not the wild and irresponsible whims of young princesses. The principle of undisturbed hereditary descent is a pillar of stability and perpetuity for the nation. Princess Elizabeth's destiny is to accede to the throne. Yours is to serve and support. I would urge you to accept your position in life ... and to dismiss forthwith any childish notions about rewriting the rule books that it might better suit your character. We all have a role to play. Princess Elizabeth's will be center-stage, and yours, ma'am, will be from the wings.
Queen Elizabeth II: Churchill would have had the character to do it face to face. Come to think of it, so would Anthony Eden. And Harold Macmillan. Each of them would have had the courage to express their anger to me directly. None of them would ever have resorted to going behind my back like that. I have it on authority you tipped off journalists that I was letting the side down by not going to Aberfan.
Harold Wilson: Never.
Queen Elizabeth II: It wasn't you?
Harold Wilson: No, ma'am. But perhaps one or two of my colleagues, concerned at the anger being directed at the government...
Queen Elizabeth II: Broke ranks? Took matters into their own hands?
Harold Wilson: It's possible.
Queen Elizabeth II: Perhaps they're right. The people of Aberfan deserved a prompt response. They didn't get one. They deserved a display of compassion, of empathy from their Queen.
Harold Wilson: And they got it yesterday.
Queen Elizabeth II: They got nothing. I dabbed a bone-dry eye, and by some miracle, no one noticed. After the Blitz, when we visited hospitals, I saw what my parents, the King and Queen, saw. They wept. I couldn't.
Harold Wilson: Well, you, you were a child. What do you expect?
Queen Elizabeth II: Not just as a child. When my grandmother, Queen Mary, whom I loved very much, when she died, nothing.
Harold Wilson: Well, she had been ill a long time. It had been expected.
Queen Elizabeth II: When I had my first child, a moment of such significance for every mother ... I have known for some time there is something wrong with me.
Harold Wilson: Not wrong.
Queen Elizabeth II: Deficient, then. How else would you describe it when something is missing?
Harold Wilson: These meetings are confidential, yes? I have never done a day's manual work in my life. Not one. I am an academic, a privileged Oxford don, not a worker. I don't like beer. I prefer brandy. I prefer wild salmon to tinned salmon. Chateaubriand to steak and kidney pie. And I don't like pipe smoking. I far prefer cigars. But cigars are a symbol of capitalist privilege. So, I smoke a pipe, on the campaign trail and on television. Makes me more approachable. Likable. We can't be everything to everyone and still be true to ourselves. We do what we have to do as leaders. That's our job. Our job is to calm more crises than we create. That's our job, and you do it very well indeed. And in a way, your absence of emotion is a blessing. No one needs hysteria from a head of state. And the truth is, we barely need humanity.
