Prince Andrew: We all knew what we were getting into when we brought Sarah into the family. Everyone was so pro. You more than anyone.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes. She was a breath of fresh air.
Prince Andrew: Modern, relatable, buckets of fun.
Queen Elizabeth II: That laugh.
Prince Andrew: So infectious.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes.
Prince Andrew: But that's what we do in this family. Destroy anyone that's different. Not at the beginning. First, we tell ourselves how good they'll be for the system. They'll be our salvation, our secret weapon. Make us look more modern. More normal. More human. And we learn the same painful lessons yet again. That no one with any character, originality, spark, wit, and flare has a place in this system.
Queen Elizabeth II: Darling, I'm glad you've found happiness. I know how difficult it was in the end with Mark. But of all the families you could have been born into, fate has endowed you with this one, with everything that goes with it. Including the fact that your mother is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and remarriage when the first husband is still alive, as you well know, is not only frowned upon, it is forbidden.
Princess Anne: I, of all people, hardly need reminding of the requirements of being in this family. I have dedicated myself to my role. Bent myself into shape. Placed duty above all else. Including, more often than not, my own happiness. Five engagements a day. Three hundred days a year, for the past twenty-four years. Well, you cannot have all of me. And I will not give all of me. And I will marry Tim.
Prince Charles: Prince Harming, they're calling me now. Amid endless other calumnies and lies. I know you've always tried to see both sides of the marriage, but will you now, finally, agree that official separation is the only sensible course?
Queen Elizabeth II: Charles...
Prince Charles: If it were just incompatibility or infidelity, that would be one thing, but the sheer vindictiveness of that Morton book. And then the temerity to insist that she had nothing to do with it. I've done as you asked, Mummy. I've tried to make it work for 11 years, but there comes a point...
Queen Elizabeth II: I have been no stranger this year to my children's marital difficulties. But while Anne's and Andrew's problems are deeply distressing, yours are in a category of their own because you, as future king, are in a category of your own. At my coronation, I took an oath that you will one day take at yours to maintain the laws of God. And God's law is that marriage is for life. And while it is expected for the monarch to be married and produce an heir, being happily married is a preference rather than a requirement.
Prince Charles: You also took a solemn promise to maintain and protect the Crown. Diana won't rest until she's blown the whole thing up. Is that what you want? It's funny, isn't it? I... For years, I've called for a more modern monarchy that reflects the world outside. Look at the rates of family breakdown out there, and then look at us. Margaret, divorced. Anne, divorced.
Queen Elizabeth II: All right.
Prince Charles: Andrew, humiliated and heading for divorce. Me, trapped and dreaming of divorce. And you talk about moral examples. If we were an ordinary family and social services came to visit, they'd have thrown us into care and you into jail!
Princess Margaret: Without sun and water, crops fail, Lilibet. Let me ask. How many times has Philip done something? Intervened when you couldn't? Be strong when you couldn't be? Be angry when you couldn't be? Be decisive when you couldn't be? How many times have you said a silent prayer of gratitude for him and thought to yourself, If I didn't have him, I'd never be able to do it? How often? Peter was my sun. My water. And you denied me him.
Queen Elizabeth II: I denied you as Queen, not as your sister.
Princess Margaret: The conditions are irrelevant. The prohibition is what counts. A prohibition, incidentally, you are not now extending to Anne.
Queen Elizabeth II: That is different.
Princess Margaret: How is it different? Anne is a royal princess with no prospect of acceding to the throne, as was I. Commander Laurence is a palace equerry, marrying scandalously above his station. Peter was a palace equerry, hoping to marry scandalously above his. Anne and Commander Laurence are in love. Peter and I were in love. In both cases, one party is a divorcee. The situation is identical in every way except for the outcome. She is being allowed to marry him. I wasn't. Her story ends happily. Mine did not. And yet, even after forty years, you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge what happened to me and the part you played in it.
Prince Philip: If I weren't so ashamed, I might confess to admiration of the sheer scale of your achievement. In one fell swoop, you've succeeded in alienating the church over your moral fitness, the politicians over your conduct unbecoming, The House of Commons is in uproar. They're saying we've pressed the self-destruct button. Among your many, entirely unjustified military honors is colonel-in-chief of the Royal Regiment of Wales. I wonder if you might remind us of their motto? [Charles starts speaking in Welsh] In English.
Prince Charles: Better death than dishonor.
Prince Philip: What's that? Speak up!
Prince Charles: Better death than dishonor.
Prince Philip: A sentiment on which you would do well to reflect.
Princess Anne: What's all this I hear about a book?
Prince Charles: The idea is to do a book following on from the interview. Taking some of the points further.
Princess Anne: Why?
Prince Charles: Because a lot of the really important things I wanted to say about education and environment and architecture got drowned out by all the hoo-hah about adultery. Also, people are interested.
Princess Anne: Maybe not as interested as you think.
Prince Charles: Maybe more interested than you think. If my postbag is anything to go by. In the 18th century, it was considered perfectly normal for the Prince of Wales to set up shop at Leicester House to generate fresh ideas. A shadow monarchy, in essence. A rival court.
Princess Anne: But this is not the 18th century. And creating rival courts is not what we do in this family. We close ranks behind the sovereign, not criticize her.
Prince Charles: We're all after the same thing, Anne.
Queen Elizabeth II: Mr. President, I stand here today as the first British monarch to ever set foot in Moscow. You are the first democratically elected leader in Russian history. Thanks in part to family ties, there has always been a strong bond between our countries. But in recent years, that close alliance has become estranged. Warm ties of kinship became frozen into a decades-long winter. There have been times where we have seemed to live in different worlds. In making this historic trip, I hope to usher in not merely a thaw but a comprehensive new footing based on cooperation, understanding, and respect. A new era of partnership in which both of us can flourish together.
Princess Diana: No one prepares you for what it's like to be separated. It's a strange sort of no-man's-land. Or no-woman's-land. Neither married nor single. Neither royal nor normal. Like a harpy. One of those mythological creatures. Half woman, half bird. And one minute, you're flying high, the center of attention. And the next thing, you're down to earth with a bump. Not even a bump. A crash. No one to talk to. And there's no one for company. At least when I had the children here, we had each other. Now William's about to start at Eton. I can't believe he's already at that age. So grown-up. And he's always been my rock. Now that he's gone, I don't know what I'll do.
Queen Elizabeth II: You and Diana talk, don't you?
Princess Margaret: What makes you think that?
Queen Elizabeth II: You always say how much sympathy you have for her.
Princess Margaret: I feel for her. As an outsider. As someone who is emotionally complex. As someone who struggles to lead a straightforward life. As someone with flair and character. And star quality.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes.
Princess Margaret: The system isn't easy for people like us, you know. But that doesn't mean we talk. Or share confidences. Diana comes and goes, and I have no idea what she's up to.
Queen Elizabeth II: Does it not occur to you that if you feel the need to clear a few things up, a public forum might not be the best place to do it? That such matters would best be discussed in private with the people involved?
Princess Diana: I've tried that.
Queen Elizabeth II: When?
Princess Diana: On numerous occasions over the years. I've asked to see you so that we might talk face-to-face. And on every occasion, you refused or were unavailable.
Queen Elizabeth II: I accept it's not easy navigating this family. And I can understand why you might think we're all a bit remote. But there is another word for "remote." Busy. We are all busy people with busy diaries, rarely under the same roof for two nights at a time. And none of us, not one senior member of the royal family, has a spare ten minutes to think about themselves, let alone you or how we might best make your life miserable. On the contrary. It might surprise you to learn we all spend a great deal of time doing the opposite. 'Cause when people, armies of people, say to me, What has that girl done now? Who does she think she is?, What do you imagine I say? Oh, Lord, yes, Diana's awful. A nightmare. What a mistake that was. Not once. Not a single time. You're wife to my eldest son, mother to my grandsons, and a valued senior member of this family, so I defend you each and every time. Loyally. Emphatically. To the hilt. The enemy you imagine I am, the hostility you imagine we all feel is a figment of your imagination.
Princess Diana: Is it?
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes. All any of us want, Diana, is for you to be happy. And one day, to be our next Queen.
Marmaduke Hussey: A great many honest, decent people work at the BBC. And on their behalf and mine, I'm so sorry.
Queen Elizabeth II: Diana had the decency to warn me in advance, but no one was prepared for this.
Marmaduke Hussey: I blame myself entirely. And will, of course, hand in my resignation.
Queen Elizabeth II: There's no need, Dukey.
Marmaduke Hussey: There's every need, ma'am. I'm already hearing shocking rumors about how the interview was secured. How can I effectively govern when it's not a corporation I recognize anymore? It's not a world I recognize anymore.
Prince Charles: For years, Diana has washed her dirty linen in public. She's thrown endless grenades over the Palace gates trying to blow us all up. And throughout this, Camilla has remained a model of discretion and decency and dignity. And yet you save your most bitter condemnation for her. The prime minister...
Queen Elizabeth II: Ah yes, the prime minister.
Prince Charles: [ignoring her interruption] ...a young man who understands the public better than anyone, told me that what they want is a happy heir to the throne whose private life reflects the world as they see it.
Queen Elizabeth II: I don't want to get drawn on Mr. Blair or whether he understands the people better than me or not.
Prince Charles: I'd say he does.
Queen Elizabeth II: But I do want to make clear that the only person in this family to have a direct relationship with the first minister is the sovereign.
Prince Charles: Which will one day be me.
Queen Elizabeth II: One day. But not yet.
Prince Charles: When?
Queen Elizabeth II: You should know the answer better than anyone because, God willing, you will one day take the oath yourself. This job is for life.
Prince Charles: Let's hope there's still an institution for me to take the oath for.
Queen Elizabeth II: I don't think it's my behavior that's threatening its survival.
Prince Charles: Isn't it? It hasn't been on my watch that there's been a complete breakdown of authority, that a program on national television's made such a mockery of us.
Queen Elizabeth II: The vote, as I understand it, went comfortably in our favor. Less in yours.
Prince Charles: In Hong Kong, I saw how easy it is to dispose of us. Buildings renamed. Your head removed from the stamps. 150 years of living under the Crown, they couldn't have been shot of us more quickly. That's what happens when we fail to move with the times. You can't be blamed for living a long life.
Queen Elizabeth II: Thank you.
Prince Charles: But you have to accept that your, your values were shaped by Queen Mary.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes. Proud of it.
Prince Charles: Hers by Queen Victoria.
Queen Elizabeth II: Proud of that too.
Prince Charles: I'm just worried, Mummy, that if we continue to hold onto these Victorian notions of how the monarchy should look, how it should feel, then the world will move on. And those who come after you will be, will be left with nothing.
Queen Elizabeth II: I hear you had a visit from Princess Diana.
Tony Blair: Yes, she came to Chequers last week with Prince William. We had a nice game of five-a-side. That's football. Then we had lunch. Then the princess and I went for a walk around the grounds. She feels strongly that she still has a lot to offer the country as a public servant. And a lot of energy. If you take her recent work on landmines, two years ago, a global ban on landmines was considered impossible. Now, almost a hundred countries have agreed to sign a treaty outlawing them. When Diana talks, the world listens.
Queen Elizabeth II: Yes.
Tony Blair: She wanted to know if I, that is, the government, could find a way to harness her gifts on a more formal basis. And that any official role I, we, might offer her would be enormously appreciated.
Queen Elizabeth II: I always say it's hard to be half in anything. You're either in or out. You yourself will know the difference of being in government or out. While she's mother of the boys and, in that respect, always welcome at the palace, as a divorced woman and no longer an HRH, Diana is now learning the difference between being officially in the royal family, and out.
Prince Charles: May I just say how wonderful it is to see you all here, and thank you all so much for coming. And particularly, I want to thank my darling aunt, Princess Margaret, and Camilla's father, Major Shand. Bruce, as many of you know, is a wine merchant, so he's better placed than anyone else here to tell us what it is to improve with age. As one gets older, one starts to realize what one really values in life. One's health. One's family. And one's friends. The people who enrich our lives and who we can't bear to be without. Well, tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're all here to celebrate a person who, I'm afraid, I can't bear to be without. Darling, all of us here can testify to your quite exceptional warmth and generosity. But, again and again, I've been struck by something else. And that is your heroism. Because over the years, there have been many people out there, who know nothing about you, who've been quite staggeringly unkind and unfair. Now, the easy thing for you to do, the understandable thing, would have been to walk away. But you haven't. You've stuck with it. And you've stuck with me. And for that, I am eternally grateful. I wanted tonight to read an excerpt from a famous letter. It's a story of ardent young lovers challenged by adversity who have a second chance of happiness later in life. It's from Persuasion, and it's Captain Wentworth's letter. "Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant." Camilla, for you alone, I think and plan.
Mario Brenna: Everyone wants pictures of celebrities. Pictures that show famous people. They are no different. They are human beings, just like us. Making mistakes, just like us. The old rules have changed. Now there are no rules. It's every guy for himself. People, they pay one, two hundred thousand dollars for the right shot. But the right shot is hard to get. You have to be like hunters. Killers.
