The Crown season 4 highlights the darker side of the British monarchy

The Crown season 4 revealed a darker side of the British monarchy that might leave viewers questioning their love for the characters they’ve come to know.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Crown‘s fourth season. 

If you’ve watched season four of Netflix’s The Crown, you’ll have noticed the show has begun to reveal a darker side to the British monarchy — one that may have fans questioning their love of this royal family we’ve been following for three seasons.

Before I go further into this, it’s important to note that The Crown is a fictional TV show based on history. A lot of liberties were taken while telling the royal family’s story, but many events were based on fact. Peter Morgan, the creator of the show, imagined dialogue and scenes based on what was actually happening at the time.

The fourth season of The Crown reveals the most toxic elements of the British monarchy. Although previous seasons of the show touched on some of these elements, the close distance we have to season 4’s time period makes it difficult to not be affected by them.

Season 4 takes place in the 1980s, the time period during which Princess Diana arrives on the scene. The princess is still talked about today, especially after the events surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s marriage bear some similarities to Diana’s story. Previous seasons of the show highlighted a time when the British monarchy was more celebrated and viewers could be swept up in royal glamor from a different time period. But the more modern a society becomes the harder it is to justify the relevance of a monarchy.

I’ve written articles showing empathy for the royal family, and now I’m questioning the level of empathy I previously expressed. This empathy made sense when Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip, and Princess Margaret were young royals learning about themselves and the system they were in. I saw them as being at the mercy of the system, but now they are older in the modern U.K. and yet they are perpetuating the same system.

I’ve explored the theme of duty vs. individuality in previous seasons, which is about the royals having to choose the crown over their own individual desires and needs. I saw this way of operating as an unfortunate circumstance of the job and their way as a family of trying to survive. But this interpretation is not enough to take away the distaste I feel for the royal family. There are several moments in season 4 that warrant this type of reaction.

The royal family is out of touch with the real world

The first episode of the season, “Gold Stick,” begins with Trooping the Colour, which is an annual ceremony held to celebrate the queen’s birthday. The Queen travels on horseback with Prince Philip, Prince Charles, and Lord Mountbatten behind her in what is called the Horse Guard Parade in Whitehall.

A voiceover of a representative from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) comes on, talking about how Irish Republicans are tired of the English presence in Ireland. These scenes of Trooping the Colour are put next to footage of the Irish resistance.

The Trooping of the Colour has “operational soldiers” in ceremonial uniforms, looking like they are getting ready for a faux war, while the images in Ireland are showing a true war between Irish citizens and the government, making the British celebration seem very grandiose and out of touch.

Another example of this type of scene happens in Episode 8, which starts with a 21-year-old Elizabeth, then Princess of Wales and played by Claire Foy, giving her famous birthday speech to the Commonwealth on the radio when she and her family were visiting Capetown, South Africa in 1947. (The Commonwealth is a group of independent nations that used to be colonies of the British Empire.)

In her speech, the young queen pledges her allegiance to the Commonwealth. You can watch the original speech online and it’s quite moving to see the young future queen make a seemingly selfless statement. The speech is overlaid on top of scenes of people from different  Commonwealth countries listening to her speech. The people are from different races, they look poor, and live in cultures that are nothing like the Queen’s.

This scene could’ve been created to show Elizabeth’s dedication to the Commonwealth since this is also the episode where the queen works with Commonwealth leaders to get Margaret Thatcher to approve sanctions that will help stop apartheid in South Africa, but the difference between the two worlds and the way her speech didn’t move any of the people listening makes me think this scene is just showing how unnecessary the British royals really are.

Princess Diana’s plight

There has been much speculation about how Princess Diana was really treated by the royal family.

There are documentaries that are more sympathetic to the monarchy’s perspective on Diana’s story, like “Fire Feud, and Fury” in the documentary series The Royal House of Windsor. Others are focused on Diana’s side of the story, like the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, which is from a secret interview Princess Diana gave that was going to be turned into a book. Through the scenes between Princess Diana and members of the royal family in The Crown, we are able to see these different points of view play out.

After Princess Diana comes back from the Australian and New Zealand tour with Prince Charles, she goes to Buckingham Palace to meet with the queen. She wants Elizabeths’ support because her marriage is in a “wretched” state. Prince Charles resents the attention Princess Diana got on the tour and is jealous of how Australia’s approval rating of the royal family increased because of her.

Princess Diana also mentions not feeling supported by the family since she arrived. The queen shows Diana no sympathy and even suggests that maybe Princess Diana “overstepped her mark,” that maybe she liked the spotlight a little too much. This was a common criticism of Princess Diana, that she loved the attention she was getting and fed into it in a way that served her rather than her husband or the crown.

There were also moments in the conversation that showed how uncomfortable the queen was with affection. When Princess Diana greets Elizabeth she calls her Mama, which shocks the older woman. When the Queen ends the conversation with Diana, the princess begs her not to push her away and gives her a big hug.

Later, while dishing about the experience to the Queen Mother, Princess Anne, and Margaret at dinner, she mentions that maybe Princess Diana has a point. Their family can be cold and her modern way of addressing the public could be helpful in preserving the crown.

The Queen Mother just responds saying that Princess Diana is an immature girl who eventually must “learn how to bend.” The queen asks what happens if she doesn’t bend, but Margaret interrupts and says, “She will break.” Princess Margaret is talking from experience. This dinner conversation shows how important it is for the royals to fall into line to finish their duty, no matter the toll it puts on others.

It’s important to mention that earlier in the episode, Princess Margaret brought to the attention of these same group of women that Princess Diana was unhappy in her marriage and was suffering from bulimia. None of these women suggested that they help Diana cope with this very serious disorder. This part really bothered me. A simple choice to comfort or just ask how she is feeling could possibly make a difference.

The royal that was closest to showing some sympathy to Diana was Prince Phillip, but he eventually missed the mark. During the family’s Christmas celebration, he tries to comfort his daughter-in-law, saying that Charles will come around and that, as an outsider, the other members of the family don’t understand him either.

Princess Diana tells him that if she doesn’t get the love and support she thinks she deserves from this family she will leave. Prince Phillip then gives a semi-threatening monologue that is supposed to get Diana to change her perspective, but his words actually show just how toxic the British monarchy truly is.

"“You are right to call me an outsider…We all are. Everyone in this system is a lost, lonely, irrelevant outsider, a part of the one person, the only person that matters. She is the oxygen we all breathe. The essence of our duty. Your problem, I must say, you must be confused about who this person is.”"

Again, duty is being brought up. Phillip’s advice is to focus on her duty to the queen, the essence of their duty. Based on Diana’s actions, the royals must think that Diana is selfish because she chooses herself. But it is choosing herself and being who she is that is what sets her apart from the rest of the royals. That she allows herself to be human and show emotion is why people loved her.

Mistreatment of certain members of the Royal Family

Let’s not get it twisted, the British royal family has a privileged and decadent life, but the way the system operates has caused a lot of hurt within the family. And because of their duty to the crown, their lives are not their own.

Throughout the series, Princess Margaret continues to be let down by her family. She wasn’t allowed to marry the love of her life because he was divorced, and her natural instinct to shine and dazzle a crowd was put down because it overshadowed the Queen. Their relationship was quite sour. Princess Margaret had a terrible marriage with Lord Snowden, and her family didn’t take her seriously when she expressed her frustration with him.

In season 4, we see the princess has developed a bad habit of excessive drinking and smoking over the years. One day, during dinner with the Queen, she starts coughing up blood. Princess Margaret has to get surgery and because of this, she has to change her lifestyle. To help her do this, she asks for her sister to help her keep busy.

Since Princess Margaret isn’t in line for the throne and is now older her life is full of space left to be filled. The queen agrees to help keep her busy, but one of the only jobs Margaret has is standing in for her sister at events when the queen is unavailable, and unfortunately, that is also taken from her as the queen’s adult children age.

Since the youngest of the Queen’s sons turned 21 and he is closer to the throne than Margaret, he is now to The Royal that has to deputize in the Queen’s honor. This puts Princess Margaret into a depression. Prince Charles and Princess Anne recommended to her that she sees a therapist. Through her first meeting with her therapist, she learned that mental illness runs in the family.  Two first cousins from her mother’s side, sisters Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyons, were developmentally disabled. Katherine and Nerissa were sent away to Royal Earlswood Hospital and no one knew about their whereabouts because they were proclaimed dead in 1940.

In The Crown, the queen and Princess Margaret found that the sisters were proclaimed dead in a book that is probably the Burkes Peerage,  which is a book about the genealogy of the elite.  Princess Margaret has her friend visit the hospital to confirm that the girls exist.  She confronts her mother, asking why these women were sent away from the family.  The Queen Mother’s reasoning of this if the sisters were associated with the Royal Family it would question the purity. After the abdication of the throne and Princess Margaret’s father took the place of his brother to be king, the Queen Mother’s family now had a close connection to The Crown.  It became important that her family line was pure, to support the legitimacy of having a royal family. This horrible secret in the family proved to Princess Margaret that anyone in her family that is different or not proper is moved to the side. “If you’re an individual character with individual needs… if you don’t fit the perfect mold of silent dutiful supplication, then you will be sent out, or hidden away, or worse declared dead.”

Another example of mistreatment of The Royal Family is the lack of emotional support and parenting the Queen’s children received. When Princess Anne told the Queen that Princess Diana was taking her baby with her on the royal tour, she thought it was strange, since she left her children for 5 months when she and Prince Phillip were doing that same tour. In Episode 4, “Favourites,” we see how out of touch she is with her children. They were all shocked that their mother scheduled time to be with them.

The way Prince Charles treats Princess Diana in The Crown is infuriating, but it’s the result of various things in his life. He wasn’t allowed to be the sensitive man he naturally was and was forced by his father to go to a school he didn’t want to attend.  Because he didn’t get the emotional support he needed, he was overly sensitive to Diana being more loved by the public than he was. In the show, he tells Diana that he needs her to show that she cares about him. This could come from the fact that he wasn’t getting this level of attention from his family.  When he told his family that he wanted to be with Camila Parker Bowles, they were against it because she was a divorcee’. This sets up Prince Charles to be unhappy in his next relationship.

Were there other stories in The Crown that you thought were dark? What part of this season is most infuriating to you?