Characters / The Crown (2016): The British Royal Family

Main Character Index | The British Royal Family | The British Royal Family: Older Generation | Relatives of the Royal Family | Friends & Acquaintances of the Royal Family | Her Majesty's Government | The Royal Household | Foreign Dignitaries and Leaders | Other Characters

The (rather large) main cast of The Crown (2016). Beware of spoilers.

---

The British Royal Family

General

The Season 4 ensemble.^note Back row left to right: The Princess of Wales, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Edward. Front row left to right: Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry, The Queen Mother, Prince Philip.

"Everything in British society begins and ends with the Royal Family. If you are seen in their company, if you are known and trusted by them, then all doors will open everywhere else."

— Sydney Johnson, valet to the Duke of Windsor

• Awful Wedded Life: With the exception of George VI and the Queen Mother (and, in the future, Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones), all of them. There are/will be four divorces in the family, and Elizabeth and Philip have difficulties in their marriage that they only manage to work out by Season 3.
• The Beautiful Elite: Globally, the Windsors (particularly the Queen herself) and their wider circle are as elite as it gets, with a galaxy of fabulous palaces and staff at their disposal. Many of them — Princess Margaret, Princess Andrew of Greece, Princess Marina, The Princess of Wales, The Duke of Windsor, William of Gloucester, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, Prince William — were considered great beauties in their prime.
• Big Fancy Castle: Naturally, the family inhabits some of the world's most beautiful residences. The Crown Estate includes 'Royal HQ' Buckingham Palace, the monumentally splendid Windsor Castle (the largest and longest-occupied castle in the world), the family's Scottish residence and favourite bolt-hole, Balmoral (owned privately by them), Kensington Palace (a sort of very glamorous Royal apartment building, where all the Queen's nearest relatives live) and many, many others scattered throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: They gradually slide from Dysfunctional Family into this as the years go by, as the toll of their duties erodes at them more and more. Ultimately, the show portrays them as people with wealth and opportunities a normal person could only dream of, but are stuck in a system with rigid rules that prevents them from fully appreciating and taking advantage of what they have. This is made starkly clear with Queen Elizabeth's children, who are all deeply unhappy despite all the privilege their positions afford them, due to the expectations that come with said positions.
• Boring, but Practical: A central principle of the institution, by necessity the Sovereigns and their entourages should be staid, neutral, devoid of histrionics or flashy acts of individualism in order to remain dutiful, reliable and useful to the nation. The series explores the struggles of the family to maintain this tenet and the problems that arise when its members deviate from it.
• Born in the Wrong Century: They're ultimately holdovers from a time when monarchies needed to be seen as dutiful and untouchable to the public, and much of the drama in the series revolves around them having to modernise (willingly or reluctantly) to keep up with their subjects and the changing world around them. The show indulges in repeated subtle and not-so-subtle hints that since the late 1940s, most of the senior members of the Royal family have been living in fear that the Monarchy is about to be abolished. Consequently, many family conversations have the underlying theme of "this is our last chance to survive, but only if we are on our best behaviour." ^note In reality, once the major wave of post-WWII decolonisation was over, the monarchical regime in the UK itself and in most of the other Commonwealth realms was never seriously questioned, with only a handful of smaller island nations becoming republics in the 1970s and 80s. Although episodes of anti-monarchical mood came and went in various segments of the society in many of the major Commonwealth realms during Elizabeth II's reign, there was never any serious republican movement in any of them until the late 1990. Similarly, although there certainly have been attempts by the Royal family and many British Prime Ministers to make the Monarchy more approachable and more in tune with the Zeitgeist, no core member of the Royal family is likely to have been seriously concerned that the system itself may come to an end. It's made all the more obvious when Diana marries into the family and begins her ascent to her near-deification, and in the last episode, Philip outright lampshades it, declaring that the system no longer makes any sense or has any real place in the world anymore.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Philip recollects that Lascelles shared with him the insight that this duality runs in the family. In every generation dazzling and boring Windsors coexist. Queen Victoria, George V, Queen Mary, George VI, and Elizabeth II are among the stolid but dutiful and reliable ones, with their counterparts Edward VII, Prince Eddy, Edward VIII, and Princess Margaret being brilliant, remarkable individuals, yet dangerous to themselves and to the institution. In the finale, this duality is once again repeated with William and Harry as remarked upon by Elizabeth, who warns the former to be understanding with the latter, as being "number two" has its own share of difficulties.
• History Repeats: A central theme in the series, with the obstacles and vetoes that David (Edward VIII), Margaret and Charles face due to their choices in life contrasting with the more lax opposition that Elizabeth and Anne do overcome.
  Margaret: Charles loves someone else. How many times can this family make the same mistake, forbidding marriages that should be allowed, forcing marriages that shouldn’t, paying the consequences each time?
• The Proud Elite: They are royalty, after all, and one of the oldest, longest lasting dynasties in the world and easily the best known and most-followed globally. While it's subtle in the earlier seasons, it becomes particularly pronounced in Season Four during their shared weekend with Margaret Thatcher at Balmoral, and later during their interactions with Diana.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Margaret, Charles, Anne, Andrew, Edward, Harry...all used to be cheerful children before growing up to be disillusioned, dysfunctional adults.

Generation of Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II

Her Majesty Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

^{Click here}  to see her in Seasons 3-4

^{Click here}  to see her in Seasons 5-6

Played By: Claire Foy (Seasons 1, 2, 4-episode 8 & 6-episode 10), Verity Russell (child, Seasons 1&3), Olivia Colman (Seasons 3&4) , Imelda Staunton (Seasons 5&6) and Viola Prettejohn (teenage, Season 6)

"You don't think I would have preferred to grow up out of the spotlight? Away from court, away from the scrutiny and the visibility? A simpler life, happier life, as a wife, a mother, an ordinary English countrywoman?"

The main character of the series, and the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Head of the then-British Commonwealth of Nations. We are first introduced to Elizabeth as a young wife and mother who is unexpectedly thrust into a position of power and authority on the death of her father, and must learn to navigate her new role and the tensions it creates between her family, her own modest nature, and the changing place and nature of post-war Britain.

---

• '50s Hair: Starts the series with a shoulder-length 1940s curly do up until Season 2, where her hairdresser creates the now-iconic 50s style she retained up until her death in 2022.
• The Ace: In keeping with her real-life legacy, in the series' grand finale, a vision of her younger self reminds her that she's far better at being royal than any other member of her family — and knows it — and in a fitting conclusion to her character arc, Prince Philip later asserts that she was "born ready" to be Queen, and as such, is extraordinary.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • As a child, she was known as "Lilibet" by those who loved her. Her family members still use the nickname sometimes. In Real Life, only her contemporary cousins (the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, Princess Alexandra, etc) are still known to have the dispensation to do so, beginning letters "Dear Cousin Lilibet,..".
  • Philip calls her "ma petite chou" (French for "my little cabbage") during their anniversary party in "Beryl," referencing one of Philip's actual nicknames for her (he apparently called her that and also just "Cabbage").
  • The spouses of her children (and grandchildren) have special dispensation to call her “Mama”, as seen in-series with Diana.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Horse riding and husbandry is one of the few topics of conversation with which she is completely comfortable.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Life would have been much easier for her if she’d settled down with her horse-breeding, mild-mannered friend Porchey, but Elizabeth only ever had eyes for the irascible, flighty, Troubled, but Cute Philip.
• Always on Duty: She rarely lets her hair down, even with close family members.
• As the Good Book Says...: She gets caught up in the hype surrounding televangelist Billy Graham, and commits herself to living by Christ's example. She soon learns how difficult it is to reconcile this with some of her responsibilities as queen.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Her coronation is a spectacular affair and the first in British history to be filmed in full. The scenes beamed around the world are powerful enough to evoke Manly Tears from the Duke of Windsor.
• Battle Ballgown: Invoked. At an engagement a few years into her rein, she sports a beautiful dress with her blue Royal riband and medallions (Royal Family Orders) and Prince Philip compliments her on how nice she looks. “What, in full battle dress?”, she asks.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When Harold Macmillan gives up his position as prime minister, she names all the prime ministers she previously had a "bunch of elected quitters". Her longest-running PM would be Margaret Thatcher, with whom she shared a tense, head-butting relationship.
• Becoming the Mask: During Claire Foy's tenure in the role, Elizabeth is often conflicted between her own desires and Queen Mary's edict that "the Crown must win." By the end of Olivia Colman's run, she has not only fully embraced this edict but is now its chief enforcer, especially when it comes to Charles.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: From the get-go as Queen, she learns that the sovereign precedes the person.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She is shown to be a kind and just woman, who always wants the best for her people, and graciously takes advice from those she knows are wiser than her. But those who cross her will be reminded, she is the Crown.
• Big Sister Instinct:
  • As Queen, she always puts her duty before family, and whilst the two of them don't always get along, she is nevertheless extremely protective of Margaret. After learning of Tony's very open sexual nature, as well as her belief that Margaret has taken up with him out of envy and anger at Peter, Elizabeth concernedly advises Margaret against the match, and questions whether marrying Tony is what she truly wants. In the end, she does allow Margaret to marry Tony — mostly out of guilt over how she had failed to permit her marriage to Peter.
  • In Series 3, there is a beautiful moment where she, following Margaret’s suicide attempt, tells her sister that life without her would “be unbearable” and that she’s the closest person to her in her life. Elizabeth’s unusually loving, protective manner surprises Margaret and seems to go some way towards cheering her up.
  • In Series 6, after Margaret's health deteriorates chronically after multiple strokes, Elizabeth supports and comforts her to the very end. In a position as extraordinary as Elizabeth's is, Margaret, she notes, is as near to a constant equal as anyone.
• Book Dumb: While by no means unintelligent, her education was extremely limited^note It mainly consisted of extensive lessons on court etiquette and the British Constitution. She also picked up fluent French from her nannies as a child. and she becomes embarrassed that she doesn't have a single school certificate to her name. She hires herself a tutor so that she can properly understand the many matters of state that she has to deal with as Queen. However, her anti-intellectual bent gets brought up even during Season 5, when she innocently asks Philip how he knows about mitochondrial DNA.
  Philip: I read!
• Break the Haughty:
  • A delicious one against her uncle David, after he goes on to insult her and the family when she refuses him social reentry and work with the British government. She angrily goes on to tell him she knows all about his traitorous collusions with the Nazi Party and Hitler himself in an attempt to usurp the throne back from her father, leading the Duke of Windsor to shrink back in fear from his incandescent niece.
  • After she is made aware of Jackie Kennedy’s bitchy comments about both her dress sense and Buckingham Palace itself (a "2nd rate country hotel", as Jackie rather surprisingly puts it, given the Palace’s overall splendour), she decides to bring out the big guns and contrives a luncheon à deux at the monumentally splendid Windsor Castle. Jackie, feeling suitably sheepish and overawed by the setting, apologises for her rudeness.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Downplayed. No one could call George VI a bad parent, but he and the Queen Mother organised only a rudimentary level of education for Elizabeth and Margaret beyond the courtly knowledge and protocol required of them as royal princesses. Elizabeth decides to rectify this by seeking out a tutor to improve her own knowledge gaps, and ensuring her children all attend (understandably prestigious) schools.
• Catapult Nightmare: In Series 6 episode “Ruritania”, Elizabeth sits bolt upright in bed following a nightmare in which Prime Minister Tony Blair is crowned king in a tasteless ceremony, complete with a manically grinning Cherie Blair by his side, that smacks of the Stylistic Suck and rampant cultural “dumbing-down” associated with the early Blair years.
• The Chains of Commanding: A major theme of the series, with Elizabeth learning to take on the responsibilities of the Crown even at the increasing cost of her personal happiness. Season one has a poignant moment when she and Prince Philip return home after a months-long journey abroad, and Philip goes absolutely nuts running around with their children, playful corgis yapping at their heels, while Elizabeth gives them a Longing Look and then exits stage left to a meeting with Prime Minister Churchill.
• Commonality Connection:
  • Whilst they may have frequently butted heads, she is sympathetic, as a woman, to the manner in which Mrs Thatcher was turned on and ousted by her party. She tells Thatcher that just as she had to deal with a cadre of “old, grey men” when she ascended the throne, she commends the way Thatcher herself dealt with the “old, grey men” of the parliamentary Conservative Party. It is this shared connection, as well as shared faith and love of country, that compels her to award Mrs Thatcher with the Order of Merit, an award limited to just 24 living recipients and granted at the sole discretion of the monarch to those persons who have exhibited exceptional meritorious service, no matter their background.
    Elizabeth: You could be the daughter of a duke. Or a green-grocer. What matters is your accomplishments and nobody can deny that this is a very different country now, to the one inherited by our first woman Prime Minister.
  • Jackie Kennedy; the two bond over their mutual shyness and their attempts to reconcile this with their very public positions.
• Cool Boat: Series 5 begins and ends with the launch and decommissioning of the beautiful Royal Yacht Britannia, the Queen's personal vessel. The ship itself is used as an analogy for Elizabeth feeling her age, and her diminishing relevance in the face of Prime Minister Tony Blair's new-look Britain.
• Cool Crown:
  • St Edward's Crown, which she uses for her coronation, as is tradition.
  • Her extensive collection of tiaras, which she wears for formal but non-ceremonial occasions.
• Daddy's Girl: A role she, unusually, shares with Margaret. Both adore their father; Elizabeth refers to him as a "saint" in Season 3. However, Margaret is notably the favourite, which seems to be the only way that she can best Elizabeth.
  Elizabeth: [About whether anyone could improve on her father] Well, who could?
• Dancing Is Serious Business: Her foxtrot with President Kwame Nkrumah essentially saves the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ghana.
• Darkest Hour: Elizabeth experiences hers in 1992, which she famously describes as an “Annus Horribilis” and is fully detailed in the eponymous episode, in which she has to contend with a series of deeply upsetting events, including the breakdown of not only the Wales’ marriage, but also Princess Anne’s and Prince Andrew’s too and, most harrowing of all, the great fire at Windsor Castle, which guts much of the thousand year-old royal residence. In an enormously rare occurrence, she expresses openly distressed emotion in public.
• Deadpan Snarker: As seen when talking to her mother regarding the ill health of her uncle David, the surrounding media coverage, and how Charles wants to visit him.
  It's possible, Mummy, that not everyone is as consumed by loathing of him as you are.
  One doesn't usually get the opportunity to meet a former king. Former Kings are usually dead.
• Determinator: Not even muscle spasms from smiling too much will stop her from continuing on a punishing tour of the Commonwealth.
• Divine Right of Kings: Discussed. Elizabeth asks her grandmother Queen Mary if she really does believe in it and is told yes, firmly. Appointment by God confers a sense of legitimacy and security onto the throne and thus the country.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor call her "Shirley Temple" behind her back on account of her curls and precociousness as a child.
• English Rose: Porcelain-skinned with rich brown hair and blue eyes, possesses a gentle demeanor and iron will, petite with a modest and elegant beauty.
• Ermine Cape Effect: Elizabeth is most comfortable in a twin-set and pearls or country apparel with a headscarf. However, the gravitas of her coronation requires something far more spectacular, including a beautiful satin gown embroidered with the floral emblems of the four home nations and those of the Commonwealth realms, an actual ermine cape, and finally the splendidly dazzling St Edward’s Crown to top off and complete the look. At a coronation viewing-party at his home in France, the Duke of Windsor explains how the ceremonial raiments enhance the transformation from demure young woman to anointed goddess.
• Fairytale Wedding Dress: Her beautiful gem-encrusted, embroidered silk gown recalls a traditional Victorian silhouette, with covered arms, a cinched waist and full, floor-length skirts. She looks every inch a demure Princess Classic.
• Foil: To the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Both women are a force to be reckoned with, but that’s where the similarity ends. The Queen holds her position by birthright and is deeply traditional and historically-minded, taking time to relax with country sports. Mrs. Thatcher is a self-made, work-obsessed, lower-middle class suburbanite, and is immovably and unapologetically modernising in her pursuit of social order and economic growth.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "responsible" to Margaret's "foolish." Margaret accepts that she has "nothing to do" in comparison to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth believes that she has to be responsible as Queen.
• Friendly Address Privileges: She's always verbally addressed as 'Your Majesty', then 'Ma'am' thereafter, and when referenced, 'The Queen' (Princess Margaret explodes at Mrs Thatcher when she refers to Elizabeth as "your sister"). Her family are the exception, with 'Mummy' (her children), 'Mama' (her children's spouses), 'Granny' (her grandchildren), 'Cousin/Aunt Lilibet' (her close relations) and simply 'Lilibet' or 'Elizabeth' (her parents, sister, and husband) used in private family settings, though even they all follow the preceding rule in public. Everyone however, without exception, is supposed to bow or curtsy to her (as the monarch) upon first greeting, then when leaving — as seen in-series both with Princess Anne and her aunt, Princess Marina.
• Friend to All Living Things: She is thrilled at the variety of wildlife she gets to see up close during her and Philip's visit to Kenya. However, like most of the British upper class, she also has no problem with The Grand Hunt.
• Go into the Light: In the series’ very final scene, set in St George’s Chapel just after Charles’ wedding to Camilla, Phillip kisses Elizabeth’s hand goodbye and gently says, "Well... I'll leave you to it. Say one for me?" before departing (foreshadowing his own death in 2021, before Elizabeth's) leaving Elizabeth alone. A bagpiper plays the title song as she walks past her own coffin before a vision of her younger self in military uniform appears, saluting her with a smile. Elizabeth turns to go—all three versions of herself (Imelda Staunton in front, flanked by Olivia Colman and Claire Foy in the back) — a small, but steady and determined figure sporting her iconic ensemble of a primrose coat-dress, matador hat, and ever-present handbag, as the chapel door opens for her and she exits into white light.
• Good Old Ways:
  • In her 70th decade, much of the conflict between her and Charles is derived from her absolute abhorrence of divorce and his continuing relationship with Camilla. Charles claims her aversions come from Victorian values instilled in her by her grandmother Queen Mary — something which Elizabeth retorts that she's proud of.
  • In Series 6, during the cultural shift to a less deferential Britain under New Labour and amidst the Royal Family’s declining popularity, Tony Blair strongly advises Elizabeth to reduce the Royal Household’s list of occasionally comically-specialised staff. She initially errs, but after interviewing every one of said staff, Elizabeth acknowledges their merit as guardians of tradition and history, and refuses to act on his advice.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Slightly envious of Jackie Kennedy and her seemingly natural charm.
  • Her attitude towards Margaret being a hit on her 1964 U.S. tour and Diana's popularity in Australia (eclipsing the crowds gathered for her own tour 30 years earlier) smack a little of this. As she herself says:
    Elizabeth: I am a Queen, not a saint.
  • In Series 6, post Diana’s death, the Royal Family suffers a drop in popularity, and Elizabeth has nightmarish dreams of a United Kingdom in which Tony Blair, whose own rampant popularity she is starting to quietly resent, is crowned king.
• The Hero: The series' main character, head of the Windsor family and, as Prince Philip relays to Diana, the only reason why any of them matter — fundamentally, the Royal Family exists to support her in her role as Monarch, Head of State and Head of the Commonwealth.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Her famous love of corgis is less prevalently presented than might be expected but an ingratiating squadron of them wriggle into some scenes, and she has them all under excellent control. In fact it's Prime Minister Heath's open dislike of them, along with his disregard for the demands of coal unions, that cement her negative feelings towards him.
• The High Queen: Elizabeth is forced to quickly transition from a newlywed and young mother to the sovereign of a nation still recovering from a devastating war, which needs her to be a dignified and distant figure of admiration.
• Hypocrite: Princess Margaret accuses her of hypocrisy in marriage, as she fought tooth and nail to be married to Philip and succeeded, but doesn't offer that level of support to Margaret or Charles. When Elizabeth grudgingly says she won't interfere when Anne, who is divorced, wants to remarry, Margaret points out that the only real difference between her and Anne is forty years.
• I Am Very British: Has perhaps the most heightened Received Pronunciation of any character on the show, and Claire Foy nails the real Queen's clipped tone and the very slightly raspy quality to her voice.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Often, much to her regret, and almost always due to the requirement that she remain unemotional and impartial in all matters in order to preserve her unimpeachable status.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Would rather be an "ordinary English countrywoman" instead of, well, the Queen.
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • In the Season 3 premiere, she muses about having gone from "young sovereign" to "old bat" and how age is rarely kind to anyone; truly as the Queen went from being portrayed by the petite and beautiful Claire Foy to a frumped down and stockier Olivia Colman.
  • Season 4 has her say that the young and beautiful Queen who toured Australia in the 50s is now "old and dumpy".
• Important Haircut: Elizabeth getting her iconic hairstyle halfway through Season 2 is given the full Mundane Made Awesome treatment, scored with Handel's "Zadok the Priest" (originally composed for the coronation of King George II and used for every other British coronation since). It's then hilariously undercut when Philip isn't impressed at all.
• Innocently Insensitive: Her Lascelles-approved speeches give off this vibe, especially after her speech to the workers at Jaguar (approved by Lascelles and Adeane—though not Charteris, significantly), which comes off as paternalistic and classist. All showing she can be rather out of touch with her subjects (depending heavily on her courtiers).
• Kirk Summation: The effects of her rather cold and hands-off parenting style towards Charles are not shied away from throughout the third and fourth Series, but when Charles complains of his 'suffering' in his marriage to Diana her response — that for all their problems the two of them are nevertheless young, attractive, fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful and fabulously powerful people both in reality and, crucially, from the perspective of almost everyone else, meaning that their constant acting out and whining about how miserable they are consequently just comes across ungrateful, self-obsessed and narcissistic — is shown to hit a mark.
• Lack of Empathy: A very subdued, tragic version. In the wake of the terrible Aberfan tragedy in Season 3, Elizabeth reflects that she might be 'broken' due to the fact she cannot connect to most people or cry. Though it is played with, it is clear that she genuinely does feel empathy for the victims of the tragedy, but due to her innately stoic nature, she finds it difficult to express her grief.
• Letting Her Hair Down: While living in Malta in the early years of her and Philip's marriage, and on their visit to Kenya.
• Like Mother, Like Son: Elizabeth subtly compares Charles to his "dull and shy" great-grandfather, qualities that she herself has been described as in her youth.
• Mama Bear: In a strident, but very much hands-off manner.
  • Despite being distant and cold with him, she is very protective of Charles and has no wish for him to attend Gordonstoun, as she can predict exactly the effect it will have on him.
  • Later in life, when Charles starts dating Camilla Shand, he comes to her after figuring out that someone is trying to break them up. The Queen immediately confronts Lord Mountbatten and her Mother, who are conspiring against the romance.
  • To the Commonwealth itself (self-admittedly), especially when PM Thatcher voices her own dismissive views of the institution.
• Marry for Love: Against the wishes of both the Royal Family and Parliament, she refuses any Arranged Marriage, sticking to her guns and making it known that she will only marry Phillip, who despite his Royal Lineage, has no true title or standing and was actually a political refugee after his family was run out of their homeland, because the two had fallen in love.
• Married to the Job: Her royal duties often require her to spend long periods of time away from her husband, and sometimes restrict his behavior according to protocol.
• Maternally Challenged:
  • She means well, but Season 4 makes it clear that her role as Queen takes precedence over motherhood, and she’s on the whole rather incompetent as a parent. All four of her kids are in terrible situations and yet her advice is either essentially put up and shut up, or simply nonexistent.
  • In Series 6 episode "Aftermath", which details the events following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Charles explains to his mother that the nation needs the Queen to act as a maternal rallying point, and it takes much convincing for her to finally travel to London to address her people, as Elizabeth is paralysed, feeling she should stick to the Stiff Upper Lip modus operandi she feels the public value her for.
• Modest Royalty: Not particularly interested in fashion; she usually wears a sensible dress and pearls around Buckingham Palace.
• My Greatest Failure: Season 3 features what the real Elizabeth considered the greatest regret of her reign — delaying a visit to Aberfan for several days after nearly 150 people (mostly young children) were killed in a coal avalanche. Afterwards, she admits she's suspected for years that there's something wrong with her mind, given her inability to cry at such tragedy.
• Nature Lover: Fond of solitary moments in the country or the garden.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She vetoes Margaret and Peter Townsend's marriage out of tradition, although Peter would be an eminently more suitable choice for Margaret than her eventual husband, Lord Snowdon, who is portrayed as cruel at best and abusive at worst.
• Offscreen Teleportation: After meeting with Lord Altrincham to discuss his recommended modernisations, she seemingly disappears as if by magic from the room they were talking in, after he briefly leaves and re-enters. Altrincham is slightly unnerved when relaying this to a colleague, as there is no obvious alternate exit at all.
• Oh, Crap!: Visibly has such a moment as she learns of the depth of the Duke of Windsor's affinity for Nazi Germany. This prevents her from allowing him back into public life out of Christian charity, as she had planned.
• Parents as People: While she loves her children without exception, her job does keep her unavailable from them, something that she herself resents. Also, while she no doubt loves Charles, she is somewhat distant from him, as he represents the succession of the Crown, and therefore is a constant reminder, much like how she was for her father, of her own mortality.
• Parental Favoritism: After Mrs Thatcher openly names her son Mark as her favourite child during an audience, the Queen is shocked by her candidness. Prince Philip reminds her that they’re just the same, with his favourite being Anne (obviously) and though she does at first argue against it, as she does love all her children, hers being Andrew. She doesn’t deny it.
• Parental Neglect: By Season 3, she's become very cold towards her elder children. Charles is saddened as he realizes he's more a chess piece than a child, while Anne would like to be elevated to that level because her mother doesn't have any real interaction with her anymore^note because Anne's so far down the line of succession as to essentially no longer matter.
• Parental Obliviousness: In Season 4, Anne has to spell out in labored detail both her and Charles' marital troubles, telling her mother that it's always her way to simply do nothing. Elizabeth also expresses surprise at Diana wanting to take baby William with her to Australia, saying everything turned out fine when she and Philip left Charles and Anne for months during their tour and doesn't understand what Margaret is getting at when she asks if that kind of hands-off practice had any "unintended effects", whilst Anne looks on somewhat sadly.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Despite her penchant for traditional, minimalist chic, when attending official occasions and posing for portraits, she brings out the big guns (aka dress-designer Norman Hartnell) and always looks regally sophisticated.
• Politeness Judo: A trait she masters over the years, which is tested to its limits via her interactions with PM Margaret Thatcher, who’s a monarchist at heart, but who’s also completely inflexible and deaf-eared in her leadership style.
• Precious Puppy: Several of her corgis are often seen scampering about Buckingham Palace.
• Princess Classic: A perfect example in her younger years; Elizabeth is beautiful, kind and just, but above all she’s dutiful, always putting The Crown above her own wants and feelings — especially when contrasted with her wayward sister Margaret.
• Queen Incognito: During a flashback to the VE Day celebrations in 1945, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret sneak out of the Palace undercover to join the party on the streets of London and later the Ritz Hotel, where Elizabeth engages in uncharacteristically wild behaviour, jitterbugging the night away with a group of American GIs who have no idea who she is.
• Quit Your Whining:
  • Finally tells Philip to can it after losing her patience with his complaints about his position.
  • She upbraids Charles after his continued complaints about his marriage to Diana.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • Philip's insulting impression of her father while needling her Freudian Excuse. It's the first time in the series where she really loses her temper.
  • Mrs. Thatcher and sanctions in South Africa. She doesn't yell, but Elizabeth is so angry that she then promptly gets to a protocol-breaking point, which distresses several people around her.
  • She really goes off on Charles about "letting the side down" at the end of Season 4, when he keeps pushing for an end to his marriage, basically issuing a royal fiat.
    Elizabeth: You will not separate, or divorce, or let the side down in any way!
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives quite a few throughout the show, frequently overlapping with the above trope. She is the highest authority in the land, after all.
  • Gives one to her uncle David about siding with the Nazis and hoping to depose her father while still feigning outrage and seeking charity from their own family.
  • Gives one to Harold Macmillan after he resigns due to believed-poor health over Elizabeth's request for him to stay while she copes with a difficult pregnancy.
  • Gives one to Lord Mountbatten after he is involved in a planned coup d'etat.
  • Gives one to Margaret Thatcher over their differing takes on sanctions in South Africa.
  • Gives one to Charles, where she demands that he and Diana work out their marital problems.
    Elizabeth: [A] spoilt, immature man, endlessly complaining unnecessarily, married to a spoiled, immature woman endlessly complaining unnecessarily. And we are all heartily sick of it.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Much of the drama of the show is her struggle to be precisely this.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Margaret's Red.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Like most modern monarchs, she never dons her crown and robes except for ceremonial occasions.
• Rousing Speech: Prince Charles describes Diana's death as “the biggest thing that has ever happened”. And he's not wrong, as the whole world seemingly unites in unprecedented grief. Charles, sensing the mood of the nation and a creeping sense of the Queen being conspicuous by her absence, convinces his mother to deliver one of the most powerful speeches of her reign, in which she completely uncharacteristically acknowledges the sorrow she personally feels as Monarch and, more importantly, as a grandmother.
• Royal Blood: From a line going back 1,200 years (at least) to the legendary Alfred the Great (she is his 32nd great-granddaughter) and beyond. Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, reminds her of her impressive lineage and contrasts it (dismissively) with the younger line of the Greek-born Prince Philip’s family.^note Somewhat unfairly; while Philip's line was not royal until 1863, the House of Oldenburg can be traced back to the 11th century, and other branches had previously been kings of Denmark since the 15th century—royal enough to marry Queen Anne. Still other branches had previously ruled Sweden and Russia (the House of Romanov that existed at the fall of Tsarist Russia was agnatically a branch of the Oldenburgian House of Holstein-Gottorp).
• Royal "We": As seen when giving speeches, though used fairly sparingly, lending her an even more distant, rarefied tone on top of her already staid persona.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: She was a mechanic during World War II^note Indeed, she is the last surviving monarch to have legitimately served during the war. As a princess and as Queen, she understands that her role is to act as the living symbol of the United Kingdom and tirelessly goes around her realms to show her peoples the nation at work.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Despite her lamentably limited education, she proves to have a deeper understanding of Britain's constitution than many of her courtiers and ministers, thanks to her childhood lessons with the vice-provost at Eton.
• The Scapegoat: Falls victim to this a lot, especially when it involves the personal lives of her family. As the head of the Royal Family and its most visible member, she gets blamed for the machinations of others, whether it's her government or her mother.
• Selective Obliviousness: Thanks to the distance between her and her children as the result of her position as the Queen, she can be rather oblivious to many of their issues, such as their marriage troubles. In Season Four, when she hears about the rumors of Charles and Diana's marriage, she brings in Anne to get a clearer picture of what's happening. Not only does Anne allude to her own marriage problems (something that Elizabeth seemed to be unaware about), but she admits that the reality of her brother's marriage isn't as bad as the rumors suggest. It's worse.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Lampshaded and discussed extensively. She is protected from a large amount of ordinary people's suffering (as Macmillan and other prime ministers are prone to point out), but her very sheltered aristocratic status has caused a lot of problems for her in and of itself.
• Shrinking Violet: Is naturally shy and hates the spotlight.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She is naturally shy and hates being in the spotlight...however she proves to be an excellent and strong-willed stateswoman and possesses a very hardy commitment to her role and country. She even refuses to cut her tour short when learning that there have been death threats made from Gibraltar.
  Elizabeth: I am aware that I am surrounded by people who feel 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. And I say we go.
• Single-Target Sexuality: As far as anyone can tell, and she herself proclaims, she has only ever loved Philip, no one else.
• Slave to PR: Becomes this after a poorly received speech at the Jaguar factory.
• The Social Expert: Despite her limited education, Elizabeth has well-honed diplomatic smarts, and is rarely on the back foot when dealing with even the most seasoned politician (or relation) who tries to outmanoeuvre her.
• Stealth Insult: After she hears that Jacqueline Kennedy was gossiping about her at a dinner party and describing her as “a middle-aged woman, so incurious, unintelligent,” she listens to the insults Jackie has slung at her, pauses for a moment, and then says, “Well, we must have her again,” with a delivery so cold it should be the new international standard for absolute zero.
• Stepford Smiler: Especially during the Commonwealth tour, when excessive smiling results in facial spasms.
• Stiff Upper Lip: She will do her duty with as little fuss as possible. It takes an incredible amount of stress for her facade to even start showing cracks and, even then, they are so subtle that few even notice she's under strain.
• Strangely Arousing: Philip can't put his finger on why she is especially attractive after she lectures Bobbety and Winston.
• Surrounded by Idiots: As her grandmother Queen Mary expressly put it, the Crown comes first before any self-centered desires. Unfortunately Elizabeth has to contend with the self-centeredness and poor choices of several family members and advisors. She usually refrains from the exasperated attitude, however.
• That Woman Is Dead:
  • Following her ascension, her grandmother Queen Mary impresses on her that her old life is well and truly over.
    Queen Mary: And while you mourn your father, you must also mourn someone else. Elizabeth Mountbatten. For she has now been replaced by another person, Elizabeth Regina. The two Elizabeths will frequently be in conflict with one another. The fact is, the crown Crown must win. Must always win.
  • Echoed by an appearance of her younger self in the final episode of the series when she's seriously considering abdication. Her younger self bluntly and tartly points out that even if she abdicated, she wouldn't know what to do with herself, because it's impossible for her to go back to the woman she was before she became Queen.
    Older Elizabeth: But what about the life I put aside... the woman I put aside when I became Queen?
    Younger Elizabeth: What sort of question is that? For years now, there has just been one Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth.
    If you went looking for Elizabeth Windsor, you wouldn't find her. She's gone. Long gone. You buried her years ago.
• Thicker Than Water: The Queen is a mistress of diplomatic impartiality, but when the newly installed (and boorish) President Yeltsin of Russia pays a state visit, she's surprisingly direct (but always polite) in confronting him over the destruction of Ipatiev House, the building where her Romanov cousins were brutally executed. She only agrees to return a state visit if Yeltsin arranges for the Romanovs to have a proper burial.
• Took a Level in Badass: Having erred on the side of caution for much of Series 1, her aforementioned assertion that she will not miss out Gibraltar from her Commonwealth tour, despite death threats, marks a turning point in her own confidence and authority.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: As can be seen with her full title above, which takes into account her role as Queen of the United Kingdom, and the UK's protracted, but still widespread, list of Commonwealth nations. 'Defender of the Faith' refers to her position as Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church.
• Unexpected Successor: The series treats Elizabeth as virtually out of the line of succession until the Succession Crisis created by Edward VIII changed it all in 1936. In reality, the prospects of Edward siring an heir with Wallis were low (she was 40-years old already, and later on, their marriage did not produce children), and it's more than likely that Albert would have remained the presumptive heir for life, so Elizabeth's uneasy head would have had to wear the crown eventually. ^note King George V was fully expecting the throne to continue via Albert's line, even telling a courtier in 1935 "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."
• Useless Bystander Parent: Played for Drama in her relationship with Charles and Philip. As Philip accepts that she has power over him in every other way, Philip insists upon being allowed to raise Charles as he sees fit. While not physically abusive, this brings a lot of suffering to Charles due to Philip's coldness about what Charles actually wants.
• Verbal Tic:
  • "Oh!" to express mild surprise. Or disdain.
  • "Oh, dear" to express her realization that something is about to become a pain in her ass.
  • She goes into auto-pilot and deploys her famous “have you come far?” chit-chat opener, usually reserved for meeting the public on far more cordial occasions, with Palace-intruder Michael Fagan. Although it’s Played for Laughs, there’s also a more serious undertone, as Truth in Television, reacting automatically is one of the things people do when they're terrified.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Female version; Philip sarcastically suggests that she only puts up with her duties as Queen to make her father love her as much as Margaret. This clearly strikes a nerve.
• Windbag Politician: Lord Altrincham's opinion of her after her unwittingly insensitive speech at the Jaguar factory.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Her youth and inexperience could have made her much more impulsive and selfish than she allows herself to be.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: Elizabeth frequently resists the government's attempts to put a leash on Philip, saying at one point that his proud spirit is part of what drew her to him. (This hits a limit when he initially refuses to kneel before her at her coronation, however.)
• Wrench Wench: Takes great pride in her wartime service as a mechanic and driver, and jumps at the chance to show off her skills in the event of car trouble.
• You Can't Go Home Again: The day her father dies, she writes him a letter asking permission for her and Philip to return to Malta, where they lived early in their marriage. Later in the series, she refers to Malta as her "island of happy memories."
• You Are in Command Now: Elizabeth is forced to take the throne far sooner than she was expecting or prepared for, as a woman still in her twenties, while the United Kingdom is still rebuilding from the Second World War and under rationing.
• Young and in Charge: Elizabeth is 25 when she takes the throne, becoming Head of State, Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Head of the Armed Forces. She’s also head of the Windsor Family, as she quickly reminds Margaret when the latter offers to read the speech at their late father’s memorial statue unveiling.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

^{Click here}  to see him in Seasons 3-4

^{Click here}  to see him in Seasons 5-6

Played By: Matt Smith (Seasons 1&2), Finn Elliot (child, Season 2), Tobias Menzies (Seasons 3&4), and Sir Jonathan Pryce (Seasons 5&6)

"What kind of marriage is this? What kind of family? You've taken my career from me, you've taken my home. You've taken my name."

Elizabeth's husband and consort. After his wife's elevation to the throne, he finds himself in a position of subservience he was unprepared for and must try and find a place for himself in his family's new life.

---

• '50s Hair: He wears his hair slicked and parted for the rest of his life (hairline permitting).
• Adaptational Personality Change: Whilst the real Philip was infamous for being hotheaded and perpetually sticking his foot in his mouth, he was also undyingly loyal to Elizabeth and the institution of the British Crown. It was accepted that he'd occasionally grumble about certain things, but the Duke of Edinburgh was never as antagonistic as the show portrays him to be. He is also portrayed as much more contentious and modern to the point of selfishness and controversy, frequently voicing complaints about how tradition should be changed, much to Elizabeth's chagrin, notably his expectation to kneel. The real Philip's own royal house borrowed much from British tradition, and he was not only fully aware of what was expected of him, he was more than prepared to go along with it without a fuss. He almost certainly didn't threaten divorce because Elizabeth wanted to pull Charles out of school.
• Affectionate Nickname: His mother calls him "Bubbikins" even when he's middle-aged.
• Ambiguous Situation: Anything to do with Philip’s possible extramarital affairs are presented in this way, neither clarified nor denied. Even when firmly challenged by the Queen, brandishing a portrait of Galina Ulanova purloined from his things, Philip, and by extension the series itself, never admits anything — he simply tells Elizabeth he loves her. This turns into a full-fledged Bait-and-Switch by Season 5 — when every time anyone (including Philip himself) seems to be talking about him having an affair, it turns out to be about him not having one, or something else entirely.
• Bearer of Bad News: He declines Martin Charteris' offer to be the one who informs Elizabeth of George VI's death. This allows her at least a brief moment to mourn her father before she has to focus on her new role as Queen.
• Break the Haughty: In the past. Prince Phillip gets this big time when he starts at Gordonstoun, with his classmates and teachers making it clear he won't get special treatment but rather pushed to hard places to become stronger.
• Broken Pedestal: After being fascinated by the Apollo 11 crew during his dissatisfaction with his own achievements, he arranges a private meeting and is surprised to find they're basically blue collar joes who don't seem to have any appreciation for the grandeur of their accomplishment.
• Brutal Honesty: Not one for mincing words or holding his tongue.
• …But I Play One on TV: In-Universe, he finds it a little ridiculous that, as a career sailor, he was made an Honorary Marshal of the Royal Air Force and decides to take flying lessons so that he can legitimately wear pilot's wings on his uniform.
  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 even bloody well fly!"
• Chest of Medals: He has an impressive collection of medals that he often wears (as seen in his page photo). While most of these are of the ceremonial kind, he did earn his World War II campaign medals the hard way.
• Comically Missing the Point: After Prince Harry is disgraced for wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, Prince Philip actually telephones the costumiers to bollock them for getting the uniform's details wrong, as opposed to disciplining his foolish grandson.
• Competition Freak: The Duke prefers sports and competition to dinners and speeches, and will treat any contest as Serious Business, be it the Royal Navy rowing competition or some tug of war with the natives.
  Philip: Row, you bastards!
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Mummy, in this case — she did; she was ill and it wasn't originally her choice. However, even though Philip has known this since he was a child, he and his mother still have to work through it when she suddenly arrives more than thirty-five years later in "Bubbikins".
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a withering or bitter remark for almost every situation.
• Deconstruction: As a Hot Consort, Phillip has no other duties besides looking presentable next to his wife and is not allowed to contribute anything to her reign that he can call his own, even after being forced to give up his career, his home and his name. This leaves him feeling inferior to his wife and bored out of his mind, spending his time frequently partying and getting drunk with friends.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Philip reacts very negatively if he feels that Elizabeth is granting him favours out of pity for his subordinate position.
• The Drunken Sailor: Feels free to become this while traveling on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Not a sports version, though, quite the opposite. He is obsessed with "toughening up" Charles and constantly scorns any hobby or pastime he views as not sufficiently masculine.
• Freudian Excuse: The second season explores how his harsh experiences at Gordonstoun compounded with the death of his sister and her family and his complicated feelings towards his parents played a role into his hot-headed obsession with personal ego.
• Friend to All Children: For all his faults, Philip is consistently shown to be a doting father to his children and despises having to spend time apart from his family. He is also shown playing with two boys who work at Sagana Lodge on his and Elizabeth's return from Treetops. This becomes strained as Charles is not turning out the way Philip hoped, with his disappointment unchecked and obvious.
• Generation Xerox: His father was distant and cold towards him and, despite his best efforts, he finds himself being distant and cold towards Charles.
• Gorgeous Greek: Invoked. Philip is a member of the now-deposed Greek monarchy, and in his prime was celebrated for his handsome charms, often being referred to as a 'Greek God' in the press.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Philip gets jealous when Elizabeth starts spending a lot of time with her old friend Porchey, to the point where it leads to a shouting match.
  • He also admits after the death of Mountbatten that he was jealous of his uncle Dickie turning his affection to Charles.
• Has a Type: Cites Jayne Mansfield and Rita Hayworth, both of whom had curly shoulder-length hair, as celebrity crushes.
• Hot Consort: In his youth he was once described as looking like a Viking or Greek god. The impressive, muscular physique he sometimes shows off in a few topless scenes brings him into Mr. Fanservice territory, especially considering he's played by Matt Smith.
• Grumpy Old Man: A hot-head in his youth, in his later years, Philip is portrayed as the irascible and formidable patriarch he's remembered for being.
• Hypocrite: All of his suggestions about the coronation, which cause much of a flap among the stuffy old establishment types who are organising it, are centred around modernising the monarchy. However he noticeably chafes at the prospect of having to kneel in submission before his own wife, a very old-fashioned attitude indeed.
• Idle Rich: As a royal consort, he has no official duties of his own beyond looking presentable next to his wife. He deals with the boredom by frequently partying and getting drunk with friends and by taking up flying as a hobby.
• Impoverished Patrician: Despite being a member of the Greek Royal Family, he grew up under very humble circumstances for someone born into royalty.^Explanation Most of his family was forced into exile after a disastrous defeat of Greece by Turkey, with his father Prince Andrew being court-martialed for his role in that defeat. The family were supported by rich relatives in Paris for several years, and then within a very short space of time, his mother Alice became ill and was institutionalized, his four sisters were married to German princes, and his father left for the South of France and subsequently Monaco and only saw Philip (who was sent to school in England, Germany, and then Scotland) rarely, living with a mistress and dying heavily in debt. Consequently Philip was mainly looked after by his mother's nearly-as-royal, equally un-wealthy family.^note The only one of his English relatives with a fortune was his aunt Edwina, Louis Mountbatten's wife. He lampshades this just before his own engagement, asking Elizabeth if she wouldn't prefer someone with money and property, and again bitterly during Margaret and Tony's engagement party, pointing out how his grandfather was a king, his father was a prince, and people still said he wasn't good enough.
• I Was Never Here: Philip is dragged into the Profumo scandal, detailed in Series 2 finale "Mystery Man", after he befriends osteopath-cum-Society-fixer Stephen Ward, and it's strongly implied that Philip attends the scandalous parties attended by Profumo and his escort-lover Christine Keeler. Sketches of Philip, apparently drawn by Ward at said parties, have to be secretly bought by the Crown at huge expense to avoid a breaking scandal. In Real Life, the Palace has always denied Philip's attendance, and in-series he personally denies it to the Queen. 
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This is more or less his story arc in Season 2, where his often secretive, flippant and uncaring attitude is contrasted with his noble motives, inner strength and love for his family.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Philip dearly loves Charles but is frequently frustrated by his son's sensitive nature. He decides to enroll Charles in Gordonstoun, a notoriously tough boarding school ^note Charles would later bitterly describe the place as "Colditz with kilts", in an attempt to prepare Charles for the harsh realities of the real world.
• Just Friends: Philip admits to Elizabeth that he is very close to Penny Knatchbull, though he is absolutely insistent that they are purely intellectual companions and nothing improper has taken place. He even asks the Queen to befriend her so as to avoid any tabloid speculation.
• Kubrick Stare: He is very tall and has to look down a lot, so he usually delivers his pungent remarks and strides around in this way.
• Like Father, Like Daughter: Anne shares more of his Mountbatten features and his snarky personality than any of his sons.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: His reaction to Elizabeth's "tidy and sensible" haircut.
• The Maiden Name Debate: He and Elizabeth both want their children to take his surname of Mountbatten. Her advisors, the government, and the Queen Mother insist otherwise. A case of Truth in Television as Philip complained that he was "the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." A 1960 Privy Council declaration created the surname "Mountbatten-Windsor" for male-line descendants of the Queen who do not have royal titles, or when royals who do not typically use surnames require one, such as for a marriage registry.
• Missing Mom: Separated from his mother Alice for much of his childhood and young adulthood, due to her illness and institutionalization, followed by WWII, to the point where, in 1967, all Philip has to say of her is "she gave birth to me. That's all." (His father Andrea followed this by then becoming a Disappeared Dad, moving to Monaco and letting other people play a far more active role in Philip's life, before dying during WWII. Small wonder the Duke of Windsor snarkily refers to Philip as "the foundling.")
• Mistaken for Cheating: Since he spends most of his time partying with his friends away from the palace, his possible infidelity nags at the back of Elizabeth's mind. Rumors did swirl at the time that Philip was having an affair (if not several), and do play a part during the second season, enough for Elizabeth to issue an official denial.
• Nerves of Steel: He’s definitely something of a daredevil, likely due to his disruptive upbringing. Exemplified whilst he and Elizabeth are in Kenya, on route to Treetops, and a huge, aggressive bull-elephant smashes its way though the bush, blocking their path to the lodge. Without any thought for his own safety, he commands their guide take the princess to safety whilst he distracts and stares down the elephant, who eventually wanders peacefully away.
• Only One Name: As a child and until 1947. He was Philip of Greece and Denmark, with no family name and not even a middle name. As seen when questioned by an immigration official:
  Young Philip: It's just 'Philip'.
• Only Sane Man: As one of the few characters who haven't spent their entire lives dealing with the British Royal Court, he is able to see some of the absurdities inherent in the system. Unfortunately for him, no one listens to what he has to say.
• Parental Abandonment: Absolute Truth in Television. Boarding school gave him structure and several caring relatives looked out for his welfare, but he never knew where he was going to be during school breaks. It played a huge role in his no-nonsense, self-sufficient character and his congenial, social side.^note  Yes, this goes hand-in-hand with all the bluntness and snark. One of his cousins described him as "a large friendly dog, always looking for a meal".
• Parental Favoritism: He gets on much better with outgoing tomboy Anne rather than shy, sensitive Charles. In Series 4, after Mrs Thatcher openly names her son Mark as her favourite child during an audience, the Queen is shocked by her candidness but Philip reminds her that they are just the same, with his favourite being Anne (obviously) and hers Andrew.
• Parents as People: Mostly in regards to Charles. It's clear he does love his eldest son, but the two are so fundamentally different that they have a hard time connecting as father and son should. Philip's attempts to correct this through toughening Charles up to be more like him instead of accepting Charles for who he is only widens the gap between them and negatively colors their relationship when they're adults. In Series 6, it's shown that Philip has come to regret this, and it drives his decision to intervene in the conflict that springs up between Charles and his own eldest son William in the wake of Diana's death, allowing them to successfully reconcile.
• Pride: Several of the conflicts between himself and Elizabeth stem from his pride chafing at his inferior role in their relationship since she became Queen.
• Rank Up: Zigzagged — by birthright, Philip was titled and styled as a prince of Greece and Denmark, but he relinquished his princely status prior to his marriage to Elizabeth in 1947, and was thereafter created a British duke (among other noble titles). Then, in 1957, the Queen formally made Philip a British prince, thus regaining his princely status once again, including a capitalised definite article ('The Prince') normally restricted to the children of monarchs.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives a deceptively gentle one to Diana at the end of Season 4, saying everyone in the Royal Family is an outsider except the one person at its center...and Diana seems to think that's her rather than the Queen.
• Rich Boredom: Because he has nothing to do as a royal consort, he begins going out and partying all day long. When that gets to be boring, he starts taking flying lessons and decides to become the fastest-qualified pilot in Britain simply because he has time to spare.
• Royal Blood: Despite the fact that he willingly renounced his birth titles in order to marry Elizabeth, he often brings up in frustration how people tend to forget that he was born a Prince of Greece and Denmark whose mother was born in Windsor Castle and who, like his wife, is a descendant of both Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark.
• Seadog Beard: Allows this to grow over the course of his solo Commonwealth tour.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: In 1994, President Boris Yeltsin of Russia pays a state visit. The Queen brings up the fact that Ipatiev House, where her Romanov cousins were brutally executed by the Bolsheviks, was pulled down on Yeltsin's watch and is surprisingly direct in voicing her request for them to have a proper burial. As Philip is the nearest UK-based matrilineally-related person (via his mother Alice and grandmother Victoria) to the Tsarina Alexandra (his great aunt) and her five children, he agrees to give a sample of his mitochondrial DNA to help identify their exhumed bodies^note  Tsar Nicholas II was his first cousin once removed on his paternal side, but obviously mitochondrial DNA would not have matched there, even though the relationship was through Nicholas's mother Dagmar. Princess Marina's son Michael also gave DNA.. This leads Philip down a wider path of discovery and, having always felt like a bit of an outsider, he reconnects with his historically Orthodox Christian heritage.
• Sleeps in the Nude: He prefers sleeping this way, giving audiences a good look at Matt Smith's toned behind when King George VI wakes him up early to shoot near the end of the first episode. Truth in Television; it was frequently noted by valets that young penniless Philip had no pajamas, and preferred it that way.
• The Social Darwinist: He bluntly tells Elizabeth in Series 3 that "we are not born equal" in reference to their shared, rarefied royal heritage — although it's solely for that reference frame. The otherwise–progressive Philip would be the last to claim anyone needs to stay where they're born or even that being royal automatically makes you better.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: In-Universe His wife's shadow, to be exact, and he hates it.
• Supering in Your Sleep: He relates that he waves to the crowds in his sleep. This actually happened.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Acknowledged with regards to Charles. While initially kind and loving towards Charles, Philip is shown growing further and further away from him, being dismissive at best and emotionally abusive at worst.
• Tough Love: He engages in this with Charles, sending his son to Gordonstoun, his own alma mater, a notoriously tough boarding school and openly expresses his displeasure at Charles' sensitive nature. He's even tough when being affectionate towards Charles, roughly play-fighting with his son and manhandling him.
• Trauma Conga Line: Philip's adolescence was basically this. His mother was involuntarily hospitalized with psychiatric issues, his womanising father opted to move away to the glamour of Monaco, he was bounced around between relatives and boarding schools and countries, including Nazi Germany, and then his beloved sister Cecile and her family died in a plane crash, with his father blaming him for the event in the series.^note  In Real Life that wasn't even the end of his losses, as the next year his uncle and guardian George Mountbatten also died.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Philip gets drunk after Lord Mountbatten is killed and — somewhat understandably — ends up pouring out his abandonment issues and resentment about Dickie and his father Andrea onto Charles, while angrily stating he's a better father.
• Wrong Insult Offence: During the flashback to his time at Gordonstoun in "Paterfamilias," one of the other boys sneers at him for being a mongrel European noble whose sisters all married Nazis, whose mother is in an asylum, and whose father left the family to live with his “whore” in Paris. "It’s Monaco," quips Philip with unfazed condescension.
• You Leave Him Alone!: In Series 5 episode “Annus Horribilis”, his wife endures what she calls “the worst year of her life” and wants to recognise the fact in a public speech. The Queen Mother, by now over 90, is horrified and adamant that Elizabeth must maintain a granite-like stoicism. Philip, overhearing every pushy word, bursts into the room like a guardian deity and immediately silences the Queen Mother, noting that Elizabeth has earned the right to express her emotions after such long, exemplary service. It marks a true shift in the power balance at the Palace, with the Queen Mother finally diminishing and Philip becoming a firmly in-charge patriarch after years of feeling sidelined.

Princess Margaret

Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

^{Click here}  to see her in Seasons 3-4

^{Click here}  to see her in Seasons 5-6

Played By: Vanessa Kirby (Seasons 1&2), Beau Gadsdon (child, Seasons 1&3, teenage, Season 6), Helena Bonham Carter (Seasons 3&4), and Lesley Manville (Season 5&6)

"You think that I am free? To be constantly in your shadow. Constantly the overlooked one."

Elizabeth's younger sister. More vivacious, modern and charismatic than Elizabeth, she resents living in her sister's shadow, but her own arrogance and wilful sense of independence creates just as many problems for Elizabeth.

---

• '50s Hair: Has some stylish bob cuts in Seasons 1 and 2 only to change to a Beehive Hairdo for the 1960s.
• '60s Hair: Wears teased updos and maintains similar hairstyles well into the rest of her life.
• '70s Hair: Holds on to 1960s hair for most of the episodes and then during her affair with Roddy, she wears her hair very long and loose.
• '80s Hair: Starts wearing her hair in the pouffed out chignon that she wears well into the end of her life, in a similar style to her niece Anne.
• Affectionate Nickname: Margot, as she was known within the Royal Family.
• Age-Gap Romance:
  • With Peter Townsend in Season 1, who was 16 years her senior.
  • In Season 3, with Roddy Llewellyn, 18 years her junior.
• Agony of the Feet: A stroke on Mustique leaves her feet horribly scalded and deformed with the soles burned; it causes her visible pain just to try to wear a pair of normal heels after that.
• The Alcoholic: It starts early but from Season 3 on, Margaret either has a drink in her hand, is drunk, or is visibly impatient for when she can get a drink.
• Awful Wedded Life: She tries to play it off as The Masochism Tango, but by the end of Season 3 her marriage to Lord Snowdon has become a full-fledged Destructive Romance, complete with Truth in Television emotional and likely physical Domestic Abuse.
• The Beautiful Elite: When she was born in 1930, her grandfather was King-Emperor of the largest Empire the world has ever known, or will likely ever know again, so in terms of elite, she's as elite as it gets — and doesn't she know it. Cecil Beaton gushingly explains to her this is why her annual birthday portrait is so important to the British public; — her image can invoke the fantasies of the drab reality many of the people face. As in real life, Princess Margaret was quite famed for her ethereal beauty, as well as her haughty superiority at times.
• Beehive Hairdo: Sports this hairdo in Season 3 (starting in 1964).
• Berserk Button: It becomes more apparent as she ages, but even the slightest lapse of deference, hint of over-familiarity, or error of protocol results in a swift, acidic rebuking.
• Blood from the Mouth: In Series 4 she coughs blood into a handkerchief while having lunch with her sister and is forced to have part of her left lung removed as a result. From then on, she never really recovers her full health.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: The counterculture of the 1960s agrees with her, except for the side of her that still loves to be a princess. The Queen chides her that she's "the least egalitarian person she's ever met."
• Break the Haughty: It's hard to dissociate the personal misfortunes that Margaret suffers with the entitled, condescending or arrogant behavior she tends to impose upon others, often without even realizing it, or caring.
• Broken Bird: Progressively. She takes her father's death hard, but gets through it with the help of Peter Townsend; losing Peter (and his subsequent remarriage) are both huge blows to her, and she fully enters this territory after entering an abusive marriage to Lord Snowdon.
• Camp: As she ages, and her extravagance and hauteur increases, she slides into this territory. Series 3-4 Margaret is cabaret camp; cigarette holders, blusher, huge dark glasses, colourful cocktails at midday, dismissive overstatement, arriving late, entering with a flourish, exiting with a flounce, pausing for effect, making a scene — all essential camp-icon credentials.
• Cheerful Child: A flashback shows her playfully sticking her tongue out at Elizabeth during an etiquette lesson.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: In Series 5 episode "Decommissioned", Elizabeth celebrates her 70th birthday and true to the family's Real Life tradition of giving each other comedy gifts as opposed to anything valuable or meaningful, Princess Margaret presents her with a pair of rubber gloves (which she assures her she finds very useful^note  which is not Blatant Lies as one might assume; Lady Anne Glenconner, her lifelong Lady-in-waiting, tells the tale of finding Margaret washing up, marigolds on, the following morning after parties at her house), and Prince Andrew presents her with a Big Mouth Billy Bass, which she loves. Only Charles doesn't follow suit, presenting his mother with one of his landscape paintings, which in context is something of a Gift-Giving Gaffe.
• Cool Aunt:
  • A downplayed example. She is rather concerned about the choice of name for her second nephew and in one episode of Season 2 is seen holding and cuddling her niece Anne.
  • In Season 3, her niece Anne is rather amused at her withering remarks, in comparison to anything her maternal grandmother and parents have to say.
  • Season 4 shows her to be very concerned about her nephew Charles' impending marriage to Diana, which was clearly showing itself to be a sham and laments how history is repeating itself, her own misaligned matches in mind.
  • Later in Season 4, both Anne and Charles’ love and concern for her is reciprocated as they discuss having her see a therapist for her depression. Charles even travels out to her villa on Mustique to spend some quality time with her.
  • In Season 5 she supports Anne's decision to wed Timothy Laurence, not wanting her niece to have the same regrets as she did.
  • In Series 6, she attends Charles's party for Camilla's birthday and tries to encourage Elizabeth to loosen up in regards to their relationship noting how healthy and loving they both are and in "Sleep, Dearie, Sleep" Charles is shown to have a portrait of Margaret beside a picture of him and Camilla in his office.
• Cool House: Somewhat surprisingly, Princess Margaret only ever actually owned one property; Les Jolies Eaux ('Pretty Waters'), a beautiful colonial-style villa exceptionally located on the southern tip of the uber-exclusive island of Mustique. The property was gifted to her by the island's owners, her dear friends Colin and Lady Anne Tennant^note in true Margaret fashion, after Colin had staked out her planned plot of land, she grabbed the pegs and marched them a few hundred feet further, citing her need for gatehouses at the property's entrance and as seen in-series, the island became something of a bolthole for her in times of stress.
• The Confidant: She serves as one to Elizabeth and is one of the few people Elizabeth can drop her queenly demeanor in front of and is on hand to lend perspective on certain matters, at her 70th birthday at the Ritz, Elizabeth actually praises her as being a dutiful sister.
• Crazy Enough to Work: By 1965, the United Kingdom was in debt to the USA to the tune of over a hundred million dollars, and despite all diplomatic efforts, the Government had failed at every turn to persuade President Johnson to help with a bail-out. The final desperate solution? Send in Princess Margaret — a woman known for having a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease to charm the pants off him with a royal visit and secure the cash. It worked.
• Daddy's Girl: As their father says "Elizabeth is my pride, but Margaret is my joy." More than that, Margaret never really got over suddenly losing him and searched for the security and adoration he gave her for the rest of her life.
• Demoted to Extra: In-Universe, after Prince Edward comes of age, she is stripped of her seniority as a member of the royal family, right when she was ready, and needed something to focus her time on.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: In Series 4, following an operation to remove part of her lung, she has an epiphany and decides she must focus on her royal duties (as opposed to drinking, smoking, and partying). Trouble is, Prince Edward, her nephew, has come of age and her position on the list of 6 royal deputies is no longer required. It sends her into a tail-spin, and ultimately on a trail of discovery, as she uncovers and confronts her mother over the terrible secret of her institutionalised Bowes-Lyon cousins.
• Destructive Romance: Margaret and Tony are very much worse off together after several years of marriage than they were separately, and the repercussions cause a public scandal.
• Driven to Suicide: She overdoses on sleeping medication in the Season 3 finale, after separating from Tony and losing her lover, Roddy. Whilst her mother downplays it, Elizabeth has an uncharacteristically emotional heart to heart with her, which sets her on the road to recovery.
• Eating the Eye Candy: As soon as she meets Roddy Llewellyn, she begins a mission to get him into swimming trunks and thoroughly enjoys the ensuing pool-party.
• Elder Abuse: Princess Marina and Alice, Duchess of Gloucester are both Margaret’s aunts and neighbours at Kensington Palace, but Margaret exhibits a complete lack of familial care when both older women complain about the incessantly noisy building work she’s organised for her own apartment. Citing jealousy, Margaret dismisses Alice as a “cantankerous old bat”, and is even less kind to the (widowed) Marina, suggesting that her “low rank” and “refugee” status means she shouldn’t even be at the Palace at all.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Played with; she is at her best when reading her own words, not those provided to her by courtiers.
• English Rose: Beautiful, elegant, fashionable, slim, and spirited...she fits the image of the English Rose. An image that is foisted on her by her position, her mother, and the palace photographer. She tries to rebel against that image with sexier portraits of all things.
• Fag Hag: Margaret was known to enjoy the company of flamboyant, sexually ambiguous men — she married one (Lord Snowdon), was best friends with another (Colin Tennant) — and she clearly loves her and Dazzle's campy, boozy nights dancing together at Kensington Palace, although she cools off dramatically when he reveals his priestly vows.
• The Fashionista: She can be seen parading around in the haute couture and resort-wear fashions of her era.
• Feeling Their Age: As she reaches her fifties in Series 4, whilst she’s still the life and soul of the party on Mustique, with a penchant for hogging the karaoke and dancing all hours, the mornings after are shown to be filled with deep regret and unhappiness as she remembers her glory years and lost loves.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Margaret is shown never to have gotten over being disallowed from marrying Peter Townsend. She is very affected by meeting him after forty years.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "foolish" to Elizabeth's "responsible," which results in a decidedly mixed bag for both Margaret and Elizabeth. For example, it backfires on her when she tries to get involved in the miners' complaints in Season 1, but she is beloved by Lyndon Johnson due to her bluntness.
  Elizabeth: I'm dependable [...] but it would nice to be dazzling on occasion.
  Philip: You are dazzling. You're a dazzling cabbage.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Much as she accuses Elizabeth of jealousy towards her, it's pretty clear that she's even more jealous about Elizabeth's position in the spotlight and how constantly overshadowed she is.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Early on in the series, Margaret establishes herself as the Royal Family’s ‘wild child’ — a witty, charismatic, rebellious, and glamorous woman with tremendous star power and an ever-present cigarette. In Series 3 and 4, she graduates to a full-on Lady Drunk and begins incessantly smoking and drinking her beloved Famous Grouse whisky at an alarming rate, accelerated after the breakdown of her marriage to Lord Snowdon. She’s only forcibly compelled to cut back after a health-scare in 1985 when part of her lung is removed in a grim Foreshadowing of her later chronic health issues.
• Has a Type: Lampshaded by Colin Tennant, who points out all the similarities between Tony Snowdon and Roddy Llewellyn.
• Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: She enjoys the perks of being a princess, but loathes the responsibilities and restraints it entails.
• Heroic BSoD: She falls into deep despair the evening she finds out about Billy Wallace's behaviour, detailed above, and trashes her bedroom in a mascara-smeared, drunken rage, which is scored by the deeply melancholic "Angel Eyes" by Ella Fitzgerald.
• Historical Downgrade: Her interests in and advocacy for children's rights are largely ignored throughout the series.
• History Repeats Several characters point out that she shares with her uncle the Duke of Windsor a penchant for "individuality" which is unhealthy for the institution, and the Duke himself points out that both he and Margaret share commonality in having a big love forbidden by the establishment. Despite his compassionate stance, he advises The Queen to protect the kingdom above everything else in the matter of Margaret's proposed marriage to the divorced Peter Townsend.
• Honorable Marriage Proposal: Receives one of these from her friend Billy Wallace, as they know he will be accepted by her family. This falls apart quickly after her close friend Colin Tennant challenges him to a duel with pistols over his flirting with other women.
• Hypocrite: She claims to be a free modern woman, breaking away from the stale traditions of the royal family — but Elizabeth calmly points out that she's not giving up her titles or her privileges, and she never will, because she values all the trappings of royalty too much. She also makes a big deal of how much of an egalitarian, modern woman she is, prompting Elizabeth to note that Margaret is possibly the least egalitarian woman Elizabeth has ever met.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: The waspishness, condescension and dismissiveness towards Elizabeth that occasionally comes through tends to stem from this; much as she might believe that she'd be the better person to be in the limelight, the fact is that Elizabeth's the one who actually is there and always will be, and there's nothing either of them can do about it. Any jealousy Margaret believes Elizabeth to possess over her more outgoing and vivacious personality is more than drowned out by Margaret's jealousy over the fact that she will always exist in Elizabeth's shadow as a minor royal.
• It's All About Me:
  • Couldn't care less that her renovations are bothering the other residents of Kensington Palace, and assumes their complaints are out of jealousy.
  • While Margaret does have some valid reasons to feel jealous with regards to being overshadowed by Elizabeth and hard-done-by with regards to how she and her romantic partners have been treated, she often tends to default to the position that anything Elizabeth does is part of some overarching malicious scheme to spite her rather than consider the possibility that the inconveniences imposed upon her via Elizabeth in many (or even most) cases might not actually be personal. For example, when Elizabeth reveals that her pregnancy means that Margaret's engagement announcement will have to be delayed for a few months^note Royal protocol means that the birth of a child of the monarch, and thus another immediate heir to the throne, takes precedence over any other Royal family member's news, Margaret's response is an outburst of outraged whining and petty insults with a curt, tossed-off "Congratulations, by the way," briefly thrown in.
  • While her outrage over the way the Bowes-Lyon cousins have been treated due to their mental illnesses is entirely justified, it's quite telling that she still can't help but establish a parallel with how she herself has been treated by the Royal Family — which, while not always kind exactly, is nevertheless several orders of magnitude better.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Margaret has a serious cough in the first part of "The Hereditary Principle". Although it doesn't signal an actual fatal illness^note Margaret passed in 2002 after suffering several strokes; lung disease had nothing to do with it it's obvious that she and Elizabeth are both thinking of what happened to their father after seeing the blood in the handkerchief.
• I Will Wait for You: She and Peter willingly undergo this for two years, so that they will be allowed to marry. In an unusual variation, they still don’t get to be together when it’s over as Margaret can't reconcile giving up her place in the Royal Family to do so.
• Jaded Washout: Margaret is a rare, privileged, blue-blooded example. She grows bitter and bitter with the years as she fails to accomplish any of her life goals and is only able to elicit happiness by evoking long-time past moments of her youth, most of them involving music and Peter Townsend.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She gets a few of these.
  • Margaret is justified at being upset over how her role as princess interferes with her personal life and restricts her freedom. This is particularly noticeable in her doomed relationship with Peter Townsend. Most of her Jerkass moments come from her tendency to lash out with personal insults and pettiness when dealing with it instead of trying to approach the issue with maturity or showing any understanding of the other side’s arguments.
    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: No, no, 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 womanising, bankrupt father?
  • She is absolutely right about the dangerous work faced by British coal miners.
  • She understandably feels betrayed after her two year separation from Peter is over and she finds out they still won’t be allowed to marry. She did keep up her end of the bargain, after all.
  • She might have a point about the eagerness of the press to paint her as the wicked sister to Elizabeth's 'good queen' persona.
  • She is rather rude to Margaret Thatcher, but has a point when she tells the Married to the Job PM that there will always be problems in the country but relaxation lends perspective.
  • She is the only one in the family willing to acknowledge that Charles is still in love with Camilla and that a marriage between him and Diana will only lead to disaster and ruin.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can be abrasive, rude and snarky, but she does love her family very much, and at times does thoroughly respect her sister's position as head of the family. Also she publicly expresses her sympathy to the plight of the British coal miners, however this is frowned upon by both the monarchy and government due to their staunch stance on remaining politically neutral.
• Lady Drunk: A Hard-Drinking Party Girl in her younger years, by Series 3, she’s almost never without a tumbler of her favourite Famous Grouse whisky in hand and admits that it’s the only thing keeping her going after her love-life further collapses around her and her role in the monarchy becomes increasingly sidelined. It's a habit that gets worse and worse as time goes by.
• The Last Dance: Having enjoyed an extraordinarily glamorous existence, Series 6 episode “Ritz” is dedicated to the end of Margaret’s life. Whilst at a party on Mustique, her health takes a dramatic turn for the worst, with Margaret suffering a stroke mid-speech. Following rehabilitation, the Princess refuses to alter her partying ways and later, back on Mustique, she suffers a second stroke, scalding her feet with boiling water whilst showering, which tragically debilitates her for the rest of her life. Margaret is determined to Face Death with Dignity, planning her own funeral arrangements with Elizabeth with touching wry humour.
• Love Martyr: She waits for Peter, only to be told that it won't work out. She then impulsively marries Lord Snowdon, who turns her into one of these through his abusive behavior.
• Mean Boss: Unlike almost anyone else in her family, Margaret treats her staff with terrible rudeness — as a case in point, whenever she’s woken up (almost always hungover) with a nice cup of tea, she always barks “NO” with terryifing simplicity. It's implied that it's partly because of her unhappiness, but she continues to be abrasive even after she gets married.
• Ms. Fanservice: In Seasons 1 and 2, she is the only Royal woman to show off her figure or any skin, wearing dresses that showcase her fantastic cleavage and outfits that show off her hourglass figure. Her pictures by Tony even elicit a "oh la la" from her hated aunt Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.
• Must Have Nicotine: Almost constantly seen with a cigarette in her hand, as per real life.
• Mutual Envy: Elizabeth and Margaret often wish they could trade roles.
• Non-Idle Rich: At least by the end of Season 2, she shows hints of her becoming the famous patron of the arts history would remember her for.
• Not a Morning Person: Typically rises around 11:30 — mostly due to being out partying til 4am.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The events of the Aberfan tragedy, as recounted to her by Tony over a telephone call, shock her to the point that has to try to restrain herself from sobbing.
  • There are times that she lets her guard down, becoming kinder, the rare times her older sister wants to confide in her regarding something that troubles her (regarding the state of Britain during her Silver Jubilee or her distance having negative effects on her mostly adult children).
  • In a far more humorous example, Margaret gives us this little gem after she and Elizabeth wholly unexpectedly both say that they love each other, following a blazing row:
    Margaret: God, that was middle-class, promise me we’ll never do that again?
    Elizabeth: Never — goodnight.
• Odd Friendship: The young, cultured, blue-blooded British royal Princess and the middle-aged, abrasive, Texan President and farmer’s son Lyndon B. Johnson bond in the episode "Margaretology" over their shared rude sense of humour and inferiority complexes.
• On the Rebound: Her getting engaged to and marrying Snowdon is portrayed this way, due to Peter Townsend's announcement of his own remarriage.
• The One That Got Away: In Series 5 episode “Annus Horribilis”, she reconnects with Peter Townsend for the first time since the 50s, and it’s abundantly clear that she’s still in love with him. She regains a good deal of her former exuberance in his company, playing the piano and holding court like the old days. A montage of their love affair (compiled from Series 1) and Peter’s subsequent banishment and letters detailing his plans for remarriage brings back bitter memories for the princess, and she turns on Elizabeth in a drunken rage, furious that she denied them happiness in marriage.
• Only Sane Man:
  • While she is elitist and rude, Margaret is also one of the few members of the family to recognize how being royalty can be a detriment to both themselves and to their interactions with outsiders. For one, she's the one to point out that Elizabeth and Philip leaving their children behind for months at a time is the source for many of their personal issues, but neither of them seem to realize what she's trying to tell them.
  • She's one of the few to recognize that Charles and Diana's marriage is not going to work out like the rest of the family hopes it will.
  • She's also the only person who's willing to outright say how horrible it was that her mother's side of the family kept five intellectually disabled family members institutionalized and lied about them being dead for decades so their blood remained "pure" in the public's eye.
• Parental Favoritism: Knows all too well, and almost explicitly states, that she was the King's favourite child.
• Pet the Dog: While she is rather rude with the naive Diana when she arrives at Buckingham Palace, she does worry for the girl, as Charles is still in love with Camilla and doesn't want to have another young woman and her nephew embark on a doomed relationship. Her concerns prove prescient in just a few years.
• Photos Lie: Has this opinion of the fantastical portraits taken by court photographer Cecil Beaton, whom she despises.
• The Piano Player: Plays and sings "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" with her father the night before he dies, and in general she can often be found hogging the piano when enjoying drunken revelry.
• Precious Puppy: In Season 3, she has a King Charles Spaniel by her bedside.
• Proud Beauty: She is very well aware of how beautiful she is and is annoyed when people tell her that her last birthday portrait made her look like her mother did at that age. She's also openly judgmental of less fortunately attractive people than her, and is seen to rank those she meets on an 'out of 10' basis.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Especially in Season 3, with her dark hair in a beehive and her pale skin.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • She delivers a positively withering one of these to Billy Wallace, after she discovers his cheating ways during their engagement:
    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.
  • In Series 4, when she discovers the terrible family secret that her mentally-disabled first cousins, Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, were hushed up and locked away in a mental institution, she absolutely rages at her mother:
    Margaret: Locked up and neglected. They're your nieces — daughters of your favourite brother. It's wicked and it's cold-hearted and it's cruel and it's entirely in keeping with the ruthlessness which I myself have experienced in this family!
• Rebellious Princess: Unlike the rest of the royal family, who strive to present an image of political neutrality and moral sobriety, Margaret freely gives her opinions and thrives on her party girl lifestyle.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Elizabeth's Blue.
• Rich Bitch: Margaret often behaves like a spoiled snob, and is capable of cutting remarks and hauteur, as per real life.
• Royal Brat: Although not an evil version, Margaret is a very spoiled royal princess who acts out through her deep unhappiness, often lulling people into a false sense of security and camaraderie only then to demolish them with regal, rank-pulling put-downs.
• Ridiculously Photogenic: As Wallis says after the photo taken by Tony appears in the papers: "Ooh-la-la!"
• Sick Episode: "Ritz" portrays her suffering from multiple strokes in minute and sorrowfully sympathetic detail, to the point of being uncomfortably sad to watch.
• Silent Snarker: Often has a little eye-meet with other family members when the Queen or her mother (or anyone in the family who annoys her) says something she takes exception to. Philip sometimes joins her in this.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Her friction with Tony is part of the reason she married him, which later turned into Domestic Abuse-style arguments, which still led to them both appearing turned on at the end of the last one we see, even when they're on the verge of breaking up.
• Slut-Shaming: Is on the receiving end of this from her Mother and Tony in the Season 3 finale — which is rich given that her affair with Roddy begins because he’s been cheating on her.
• Speak Truth To Power: No one, bar herself (and Prince Philip) ever back-chat, argue, or volley insults at the Queen; she only gets away with it because she's her sister.
• Spell My Name with a "The": Very proud of the definite article “The” before her title, a distinction only a child of a King or Queen is entitled to have, which elevates her from those she considers “low-ranking” princesses like her aunt and neighbour Princess Marina.
• Stepford Snarker: Her default tone is withering hauteur, especially over errors of etiquette and protocol, though it’s partly deployed as a means of coping with her deep unhappiness.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: From the viewer's point of view, Margaret is portrayed quite sympathetically as wronged by Snowdon. From the royal family's point of view, Snowdon's actions are somewhat understandable as Margaret is so very, very difficult to deal with, and her own mother calls Margaret a whore, when photos of her affair with Roddy break. Discussed by the Tennants when Lady Anne worries if encouraging the Queen's sister to adultery was really the right thing to do, and her husband replies to the effect that her lover is so similar to her husband that it doesn't even count.^note  And in Real Life, after Margaret's death the Queen actually thanked Lady Anne for introducing Margaret to Roddy, because he was kind (unlike Snowdon) and made her sister very happy.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: As she ages, over-familiarity increasingly becomes her Berserk Button, and her closest friends refer to her as 'Ma'am', without exception. She's also shown to be outraged at over-familiarity on behalf of her relatives, as seen when she explodes at Mrs Thatcher after she refers to Elizabeth as "your sister" instead of 'The Queen'. To her family and the men in her life, she's 'Margaret' or the diminutive 'Margot' but generally only out of public earshot, as seen when she bollocks poor Roddy Llewellyn for calling her "darling" in front of the Tennants and their Mustique staff.
• Too Much Alike: In Season 5, there's a point where she has a Psychological Projection listing all the ways she sees Diana as similar to herself and thus sympathizes with her to an extent, but then immediately clarifies to Elizabeth that it doesn't mean they're actually friends or the kind of people who "share confidences".
• Universally Beloved Leader: Despite her reputation at home for being charming one minute and waspishly cutting the next, Margaret's ambassadorial trip to America in 1965 is an absolute triumph, and the American public love her glamorous yet witty and accessible personality. Her Groupie Brigade even christen themselves 'Margaretologists' and follow her every move. She also manages to charm the pants off the Anglophobic President Johnson — see Crazy Enough to Work below.
• Upper-Class Equestrian: Is seen riding horses on several occasions most notably after her father's sudden death when she rides a horse to a secret meeting with Peter, who in comparison drives to the meeting place.
• Uptown Girl: To Peter Townsend, who's part of her father's staff, and to Antony Armstrong-Jones, who is something of a "backstreet guy."
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Flashbacks show that she was a very cheerful, fun-loving little girl who was close to her older sister. By the time she is middle-aged, she is a bitter Lady Drunk who shoots sharp words like darts.
• Verbal Tic: A very curt “no” when waving away any staff trying to help or fuss over her.
• Went Crazy When They Left: Townsend leaving her is portrayed as the moment where Margaret starts her journey from being a radiant, self-assured (if haughty) young woman to a bitter, unhappy alcoholic.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She is horrified that her mentally invalid maternal cousins were hidden away in a sanitarium and unceremoniously forgotten by the Queen Mother.
• You Never Did That for Me: Bitterly protests that Elizabeth is allowing a divorced Princess Anne to marry again, something the Queen forbade between Peter Townsend and Margaret.
• You're Just Jealous:
  • Accuses Elizabeth of this after every hindrance of her and Peter's relationship. She's not entirely wrong (though she's also not as right as she believes either).
  • Also her reaction to complaints about her constant, noisy renovations from her royal aunts and uncles living next door to her in Kensington Palace.

Lord Snowdon

The Right Honourable Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon

^{Click here}  to see him in Season 3

Played By: Matthew Goode (Season 2), Ben Daniels (Season 3)

"As with a great many artists, the, uh, conventional approach to life doesn't appear to fit. It seems that what makes his work notable is his willingness, his appetite, to break barriers and conventions, as he pushes his medium, photography, I believe, to its boundaries, and, um, so, it would appear, in life. The narrow path, the straight, Christian path, is not to his taste. To the best of our knowledge he is currently conducting no fewer than three other intimate relationships. [These] Are just the natural ones."

— Tommy Lascelles

A British photographer and film-maker, who marries Princess Margaret. Their relationship proves to be turbulent for themselves, the Royal Family, and British society.

---

• Achilles' Heel: Bringing up his polio or anything to do with it will hurt him — psychologically. He's also unhappy and disappointed when he learns Margaret has someone else.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Margaret is attracted to the "contempt" he shows for her family and way of life. (She soon learns that it's not pleasant when It's Personal.)
• Amicable Exes: Somewhat surprisingly, in Real Life he and Margaret famously remained close friends after their divorce, with Tony being employed as an unofficial photographer for the royal family until his death. The famous photo of Diana and Charles after their engagement was taken by him.
• Awful Wedded Life: It's hard to argue that he and Margaret are anything but a Destructive Romance by the end.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In the Season 3 finale, he has a country house where his bathroom is plastered with newspaper pieces detailing scandals of the House of Windsor. He refers to them as the "House of Horrors", all while his in-laws sing his praises at his estranged wife's birthday dinner.
• Boomerang Bigot: Although not perhaps without Freudian Excuse, Tony had enough Jewish or near-Jewish relatives to make saying "you look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you" less 'casual racism of the day' and more an astoundingly awful thing to weaponize on his wife.
• Break the Haughty: He lacks any deference and is incredibly bossy to Margaret when he takes her photo, even getting her to speak of her heartbreak with Peter just for a better shot. The ongoing appeal fuels a romantic and sexual attraction to her.
• The Charmer: People are magnetically attracted to Tony and willing to overlook his character flaws due to his outwardly roguish charisma.
• Depraved Bisexual: Downplayed. Tony's amoral with a very cruel streak and enjoys anything that moves, but he's not kicking puppies. By the time we see how harmful and hurtful he gets as a husband, the focus isn't on his sexuality.
• Destructive Romance: They're cheating on, fighting with, and tearing each other to emotional pieces, but he and Margaret are clearly still attracted to one another, which may be the worst part of all.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Inverted; having had polio is part of Snowdon's large Freudian Excuse, but all we see is Margaret trying to hurt him by calling him "crippled" and "misshapen".
• Domestic Abuse: Princess Margaret can be bossy, irritable and haughty, and Tony is certainly broken in his own ways, but he seems to get off on treating her cruelly — whether that be physically manhandling her when they row, or more sneakily when he leaves vile messages in the books she's reading, savaging her appearance in the most personal way possible.^note  His most infamous notes threw in casual racism on top of everything: "You look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you." Etc. Though it goes both ways — Margaret can give as good as she gets in terms of screaming, insults, and throwing things^note  No one ever said the broken glass was (all) Snowdon's.., and she's never shown as actually afraid of him.
• Double Standard: Snowdon does what and who Snowdon wants. When "his wife" does the same thing? He gets sulky, bitter, and weaponizes it against her.
• Freudian Excuse: Take Tony's plethora of issues with his beautiful, haughty, impossible-to-please mother and connect them straight to his fateful, unhappy relationship with Margaret.
• Hypocrite: Towards the end of his marriage to Princess Margaret, he's blatant about taking a younger lover, but when Margaret understandably follows suit, he resorts to Slut-Shaming.^note They also opted not to show his affair with the daughter of his neighbours, Lady Jacqueline Rufus Isaacs, from a Jewish family. See Domestic Abuse.
• Jerkass: He's suave and accomplished and capable of being pleasant and helpful, but he's largely cold and very unkind. He thinks nothing of bullying Margaret constantly, yet he is also enraged when she takes a lover of her own and cruelly hurts her.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Male version; his unconventional irreverence is Margaret's main draw to "Tony." However, Season 3 reveals that it’s fleeting, as that initial manic attraction didn't last...and only expresses itself now through aggressive fights.
• Manipulative Bastard: His manipulations of Margaret range from the overt to the very subtle, from eroding her confidence to telling Elizabeth that he wants things to work with Margaret, knowing that Margaret has taken a lover of her own and she will be vilified. Above anything else, he's simply excellent at presenting himself as "the good guy" and Margaret is not.
• Mistaken for Gay: Margaret believes he is "simply queer" after their first meeting. It's not that simple.
• Mr. Fanservice: Played by the classically handsome Matthew Goode, and often shown to be in the nude.
• Must Have Nicotine: Is constantly smoking, something he and Margaret have in common.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During the Aberfan disaster he goes to document the incident, showing endless grief and horror for the tragedy. Margaret (and the viewer) have never seen him so shocked, especially when she recounted that he told her (shell-shocked) to kiss their children that night and that she never wanted him to sound that way again.
• Pet the Dog: Witnessing the tragedy at Aberfan, the sight of all the dead children really gets to him and he telephones Margaret, asking her to kiss their kids for him.
• Really Gets Around: Exotic-looking dancers, actresses, young British women, young British men (married to the aforementioned young British women), and Princess Margaret — he’s had them all.
• Rebel Relaxation: He's very laid back, even literally. At one point he's seen resting sprawled on the floor of a large empty room in the Palace.
• Sensitive Artist: Played with. Tony is a successful photographer and filmmaker. He first catches Margaret's attention at a party where he approaches her and the two delight in dissecting the public behaviors and personas of the other people there. When Margaret asks him to take her portrait, he spends most of the time flirting/seducing her by continuing to do so, this time however pointing out Margaret's flaws and emotional walls regarding romance after her failed engagement to Peter Townsend. Margaret finds his brazenness, insubordination, and perceptiveness about her situation captivating enough to propose marriage, despite initially finding his demeanor "queer". However, he can both use his sensitivity and perception to be cruel as well as be massively callous and cold in his own relationships, as Margaret then discovers.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: In spite of mutual infidelity and cruelty, his last fight with Margaret in Season 3 has them seeming rather turned on at the end; possibly a hint as to why they stayed together so long.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Spent a few years as the third person in a throuple with his best friend (who was, incidentally, heir to the Fry's chocolate fortune) and his best friend's wife^note DNA tests revealed, decades later, that he was the biological father of their daughter. Ironically, this is portrayed as the most wholesome and healthy relationship he has.
• Troll: Gets a kick out of sneakily leaving notes in Margaret’s books and in her drawers, which describe her in the cruelest ways possible and are contrived purely to upset her — often totally without reason.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Suffers from a terrible case of this towards his mother, who is shown to be very cold and uncaring to him and to favor his step-brother. Tony sees himself (rightfully so) as The Unfavorite, the son born from an unsuccessful marriage with no title, and tries very hard to win his mother's favor. It's even implied that he married Margaret because he thought it would please his mother and help him to prove himself in her eyes. His mother actually ponders it, on their way to the wedding no less.
  Tony: I suppose I always thought that eventually you'd find it in you to admit that you're proud of me. Perhaps even that you love me.
  Lady Rosse: Darling, I do hope you haven't done all this for me.
  (no answer)
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In Series 3, Margaret despairs that Tony’s going round convincing everyone she's crazy, and he's skilled at keeping those present onside by taking care to conceal his workings, with his mischief delivered by sleight of hand. The Queen and the Queen Mother find him charming, and years of experience had taught them that Margaret was capricious and demanding. Tony plays on this history, goading Margaret into temper tantrums in front of her family, while quietly slipping into the role of long-suffering victim.

Queen Elizabeth's Children and their Spouses

Prince Charles

His Royal Highness The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales

^{Click here}  to see him in Seasons 5-6

Played By: Billy Jenkins (Season 1), Julian Baring (Season 2), Josh O'Connor (Seasons 3&4), and Dominic West (Seasons 5&6)

"I have a beating heart. A character. A mind and a will of my own. I am not just a symbol, Mummy. I have a voice."

The oldest son of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and heir apparent to the throne.

---

• '60s Hair: Has parted conservative hair for the decade but with longer sideburns, a style he kept up into his old age (hairline permitting).
• Abusive Parents:
  • Philip subjects him to what would now be considered emotional abuse, because of his disappointment at Charles's disposition.
  • Elizabeth is also very distant with her son, implied to be because she can not see anything in Charles other than her own mortality as her heir and successor.
• Affectionate Nickname: Camilla calls him "Fred", and he calls her "Gladys", names taken from The Goon Show.
• Amicable Exes: He genuinely tries to be congenial with Diana after the divorce, for the sake of the children, seeking to move on positively with Camila and no longer relishing when Diana receives negative criticism. He has some success, despite the constant bad press she is engulfed in makes it quite difficult. Series 6, which begins in 1997, shows that he and Diana have come to view each other as "partners", especially when it comes to co-parenting their sons, and their interactions are genuinely congenial, affectionate, even.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: The first time he admits onscreen that he loves Diana is two years into their troubled marriage, while they're fighting about Camilla, amazingly. Despite turning into a genuine Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moment and temporarily bringing them much closer together, their mutual insecurities and issues soon drive them back apart.
• Arcadian Interlude: Has an all-too-brief one with Diana in the middle of their tour of Australia, beginning with the above Anguished Declaration of Love on a sheep station.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Asks a few (politely) to Edward Millward on the sensitive subject of Anglo-Welsh relations in their first meeting.
• Awful Wedded Life: With Diana. While there are hints in the beginning that the marriage could've worked out under different circumstances, in the end Charles' refusal to let go of his torch for Camilla, his jealousy over Diana's popularity, and their sheer incompatibility all swirl together and ultimately poison their relationship, rendering it unsalvageable despite all of their (though mostly Diana's) attempts to make it work.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • The series teases a moment that kicks off his Arcadian Interlude with Diana in Australia, but ultimately subverted — it's temporary and doesn't last the episode.
  • Played straight with William; he bemoans how hostile his son is to him after Diana's death, and it takes William expressing a lot of anger and bewilderment plus Philip's intervention before they finally have a much-needed hug.
• Baddie Flattery: Middle-aged Charles always has something positive to say to his interlocutor when he's trying to gain favor from antagonistic figures that hamper him and his agenda, usually evoking some mutual grounds with the PMs or some happy family memories with fellow Royals and kins. It's borderline smarmy, but the soft-talking is not entirely insincere, just self-serving.
• Better as Friends: One year after his divorce with Diana, the animosity between the two of them has settled enough for them to conclude they really are better off as friends and call a truce. Naturally, when Diana dies mere weeks later, he's completely devastated.
• Birds of a Feather: With Camilla Shand. They are both outdoorsy people who share a mutual passion for horses and country life, and have similar irreverent senses of humour.
• Blame Game: After their divorce, he ends up paying a visit to Diana at Kensington Palace and they briefly seem closer, more comfortable and even more attracted to each other than they did throughout most of their marriage — but it still ends badly, with Charles storming out and Diana winding up in tears after an escalating back and forth row.
• Boarding School of Horrors: The harsh and disciplined Gordonstoun, Philip's own alma mater, is hell for the empathetic and sensitive Charles, who described it as "Colditz in Kilts."
• Break the Haughty: A rather casual one against Andrew, after he cuts his brother off mid-tantrum about not being given the respect of a major royal. Charles outright tells him he no longer is, after the births of his sons. Given his diminishing place in the succession of the crown, he is merely a fringe member of the family now, in Charles' view. Andrew is appalled, but both Anne and Edward find this rather amusing.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting:
  • An epiloguous message at the end of Season 2's "Paterfamilias" notes that he found Gordonstoun (Philip's alma mater which he demands Charles attend) "hell on earth" and decided to send his sons to nearby Eton College.
  • It's also noticeable in Season 4 that he's impressed by how hard Diana fights to have their children close by and be a hands-on parent, even if he initially doesn't say anything. He later publicly praises her as a wonderful mother.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: With the much Closer to Earth Camilla, and at the very beginning with Diana, who offers him straightforward sympathy when he's grieving, which then kickstarts their relationship.
• Calling The Old Lady Out: Launches into an impassioned tirade at the Queen in Season 3 after she upbraids him for adding alterations to a speech that noted comparisons with his plight as heir to the plight of the Welsh people. He impresses on her that he shares sympathy with Welsh national and cultural identity and tells her he is not just a symbol, like he feels she is.
• Cool Big Bro: To Anne, obviously. The two have a very close and supportive relationship. Possibly to Edward as well, as Edward does seem to respect him very much. Less so to Andrew, but that's mostly due to Andrew being Andrew.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Played with. He gets his security detail to spy on Diana hoping she'll resume her affair with Hewitt and give him a way out of the marriage... but is still quite irrationally angry when that's exactly what happens.
• Death Wail:
  • After receiving news of Lord Mountbatten's death, he collapses on a riverbank alone and screams.
  • After hearing of Diana's death, when alone in the countryside outside Balmoral, he completely breaks down in agony.
• Desperately Craves Affection:
  • Almost tragically, it's not surprising that he bonds with his great uncle the Duke of Windsor, stemming from the perceived coldness they both receive from their family.
  • This is actually a factor in the growing toxicity of his marriage to Diana in Season Four. Charles' desire for affection is not just relegated to his family, but also to the British and wider Commonwealth people in general. So, to see them shower Diana with their love while basically ignoring him hits him very hard, and thus leaves him unreceptive and hostile to all of her attempts to express her own love for him.
• Domestic Abuse: While he's never physically abusive, his treatment of Diana definitely falls on the emotional spectrum. She can never seem to do anything right in his eyes, and all of her attempts to please him fall flat because of it.
• Doomed by Canon: You can't fix a marriage with as many problems as his and Diana's even if you have some genuine feelings or a few happy days on the other side of the planet. Status Quo Is God and they're both thoroughly wretched by the time they return to Britain.
• Easily-Overheard Conversation: In Series 5, an amateur radiographer happens upon his private telephone conversation with Camilla and records the whole thing, later selling the tape to The Daily Mirror, which transcribes and publishes the contents. The subject matter is squirm-inducingly intimate and, as Princess Anne delicately puts it, “gynaecological”, with Charles at one point wistfully comparing himself to Camilla’s Tampax. It’s so horribly embarrassing that he takes to his bed the next day.
• Everyone Has Standards: As unfaithful and emotionally abusive he could be to Diana, he would never do anything to physically hurt her and indeed is actively horrified and resentful at any suggestion that he would. When the police investigating Diana's death ask him if he took part in any plot to deliberately harm her, he's aghast and heartbroken (especially after learning that Diana herself entertained such thoughts before her untimely loss), and when his son William accuses him of being responsible for his mother's death, he's outright driven to tears.
• Evil Prince: By Series 5, he has grown tired of being the eternal heir and begins to postulate himself as a better alternative to wear the crown ahead of time, surveying the PM's inclinations on the subject and forming his own "rival" court.
• Foregone Conclusion: By Season 5, the first released after the real Elizabeth II's death, contemporary viewers do know him as King Charles III, so the plot threads about Elizabeth abdicating and him or his son becoming the Sovereign ahead of time are mostly alternative history and narrative license sustained by Rule of Drama.
• Freudian Excuse: He grew up with an incredibly distant family where his father never hid his disappointment in Charles' less masculine interests and his mother never showed him much affection, he had and still has almost no close friends or confidants, he was bullied terribly in school and has spent his whole adult life under the unforgiving eye of the public in a marriage he was forced into and to prepare for a role he seems to hate. It's really no surprise that Charles ended up the way he did.
• Friend to All Children:
  • Like his uncle and father, he is fond of children, such as Professor Millward's young son Andras. Season 4 also shows that he built a close enough relationship with younger brother Edward, who is 17 years his junior.
  • In Series 5, his work for (and surprisingly adept mingling with) disadvantaged young people via his Prince's Trust is showcased as one of his much more positive qualities in a series that generally focuses on Charles' (often self-inflicted) negative aspects. 
• Generation Xerox: Upon becoming Prince of Wales, he very much sees himself in the former title holder, his great-uncle Edward VIII — wanting to make drastic changes to the entire concept of the monarchy but stifled by the establishment. In absolute parallel, he vows that he too won't let himself be driven from his true love, Camilla, which, after some dramatic twists and turns, turned out to be true. It's an enormous Psychological Projection on Charles' part, though.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe: For their 7th anniversary, Charles presents Diana with a first edition of Aedes Althorpianae, a history of her family home commissioned by her great-great-great grandfather in 1822. Given that he knows Diana's reading material is typically 'light', and that she's absolutely not a bookworm, this is a sweet but woefully mismatched gift, despite her politely cheerful thanks. 
• Going Native: Absorbs the Welsh culture to an unprecedented degree for a modern Prince of Wales, after making it a point in his education. As an adult, when his father asks him the motto of the Royal Regiment of Wales, Charles seamlessly replies in Welsh instead of using the English wording initially.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Season Four shows him gradually become more jealous of the attention and good press his wife gets, while he, the future King, is basically relegated to the background.
• Happy Marriage Charade: With Diana. They present themselves as the perfect fairytale couple to the press, but behind closed doors their relationship is an absolute mess. Rapidly becomes public as the press starts to catch on that all is not well.
• Has a Type: Diana and Camilla are both upper-class, athletic blondes with natural intelligence but are Book Dumb, making up for it with social charisma.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: While Josh O'Connor does bear a striking resemblance to the real life Charles, he noticeably is still more conventionally handsome than the real man, who has constantly been mocked for not inheriting his father's good looks, and particularly for his big ears, and for initially marrying a woman far more beautiful than he is. The same trope applies to his middle-aged self, played by the very conventionally attractive Dominic West.
• Humble Goal: By the end of Season 5, Charles, increasingly unpopular after divorcing Diana, has lowered his grand ambitions about supplanting the Queen and mostly just wants to be allowed to marry the woman he loves. In the grand finale of Series 6, the show's final episode, he gets his wish and the Queen's support and blessing.
• Hypocrite:
  • He is absolutely furious when he discovers Diana's affair with a major. He conveniently forgets all the years he has been stepping out on her for Camilla, and the fact that he continued to ignore his wife, driving her into the arms of another man.
  • For all his talk about despising the selfishness of others, when he comes whining to Elizabeth about his marriage, he focuses on how "he" is suffering, without any mention of his neglected wife.
• Internal Reformist: He has his own agenda of progressive, modern ideas to change the monarchy. In Series 5, following a series of crises, he's seemingly the only member of his family to detect that the mood of the nation is changing, and that the institution of which they are a part must modernise. It's partly self-preservation, part genuine passion to do good work, but there's no doubt his approach and attitude lend him a more grounded, socially-aware vibe than his relations. He faces the problem that the scope of the reforms he would like to implement is limited by the constitutional boundaries set in place to preserve the separation of powers and to prevent the monarchy from actively meddling in politics. He proposes among other things: ending the Civil List entirely, making all Royals be self-sufficient, and ending male primogeniture in favor of purely birth order. He’s also unmoved and pragmatic when it comes to the decommissioning of HMY Britannia, as well as the handing back of the Crown colony of Hong Kong to China, viewing both as archaisms.
• It's All About Me: Well, me and Camilla to be more accurate. One of the reasons why his and Diana's marriage falls apart, is that he refuses to let get go of his love for Camilla and lacks any sympathy or empathy on how this might affect his wife. It is rather telling that when he tells Elizabeth about it he proclaims that he is suffering, without any concern for Diana.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As self-centred as he can be, Charles isn't without his moments of insight:
  • As unfaithful and emotionally abusive as he is, he's right that he never wanted to marry Diana and was basically forced into it by his family and it's hypocritical of them to lambast him for failing to honor a relationship they refused to respect his disinterest in.
  • While he refuses to take responsibility for his part in the failure of their marriage, he's correct that he wasn't the only one who was unfaithful and that Diana is far more immature and self-centred than she likes to admit and later to be angry at how the media has painted him as nothing but a selfish adulterer and Diana as a perfect victim.
  • He's dead on in his assessment that the Royal Family don't have the luxury of privacy when Diana is killed and that the nation needs them to be part of the mourning, however much they may not wish to be.
  • While it's driven by jealousy, his view of Andrew as a selfish brat who thinks the world revolves around him and who relies on his charm to cover up how awful he really is is absolutely correct.
• Jerkass Realization: Diana's death serves as a major wake-up call for him. His grief and devastation finally forces him to accept the blame for the failure of their marriage and makes him more determined than ever to make sure that her legacy is honored. After her loss, he gradually becomes more self-aware of his flaws and does his best to step up in raising William and Harry, knowing that he is the only parent they have left.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Philip is driven to frustration by Charles' sensitive nature and dislike of physical activity^note Artistic License – History as Charles is well-known as a competitive sportsman who enjoys hiking around the Scottish highlands in little more than a kilt and a tweed jacket. He also legitimately qualified as a military pilot and paratrooper, both extremely tough things to do. That said, Charles was noted in his childhood for having less of a killer instinct when playing football and rugby, and is definitely less of a classic "rugged man's man" than his father ever was—though that speaks more to Philip being hyper-physical and masculine than the other way 'round.. Philip's attempts at trying to connect with Charles are shown to fail as Philip can't help but start berating his son to become tougher.

• Let's Get Dangerous!: In the first half of Series 5, he endures a sequence of humiliating experiences (some self-inflicted), beginning with the final breakdown of his marriage to Diana, her subsequent tell-all book being published, his reputation being trashed in the press and, most humiliating of all, having his intimately private conversations with Camilla taped and published in The Daily Mirror. However, as Princess Anne notes, Charles proves to perform surprisingly well under pressure, setting his jaw and orchestrating a comeback interview to give his own version of events, and throwing himself into good works such as his young people-focussed Prince's Trust organisation and championing a multi-faith United Kingdom. After presenting him in a fairly grim light over the course of the series, episode 5 relents a little, concluding with a positive epilogue detailing the important work and the huge amount of money his Prince's Trust has raised.
• Like Mother, Like Son: Elizabeth subtly compares him to his "dull and shy" great-grandfather, qualities that she herself has been described as in her youth.
• Lonely Rich Kid: He's depicted as an extremely isolated individual, with a distant relationship with most of his family and seemingly no close friends. His one confidante is his sister, Anne, and his one consistent parental figure is his uncle, Lord Mountbatten.
• Love Dodecahedron: The path of his and Camilla's relationship was famously convoluted. Initially they start dating after Camilla broke up with Andrew Parker Bowles. At the same time Parker Bowles hooks up with Charles' sister Anne, only for Camilla and Parker Bowles to marry anyway a few years later. Then you add in Diana to the mix, and then the list of affairs she has with other men to fill the void in their relationship, and you can see why it would take so long for Camilla and him to finally get married.
  Anne: There was a beautiful girl, who fell in love with a prince. Only, the prince was in love with another woman, who in turn was in love with another man. And they all lived unhappily ever after.
• Marriage Before Romance: He was indeed charmed and genuinely had some affection for Diana before their wedding, he just didn't love her in the same way as he did Camilla. While Elizabeth promises her son that given time he will grow to love Diana, and indeed for a time he did, it wasn't enough to negate how he felt about Camilla, and actually began to despise his wife, for how much more popular she was with public than him.
• Military Salute: Adorably does this when presenting Philip with his new rank insignia.
• Modest Royalty: He was the first-ever British royal heir to be sent to public school^note fee-paying rather than be educated by a private tutor. Unfortunately, his classmates all being well aware of his status leads to horrible bullying.^note While not shown in the series, it was reportedly popular among his classmates to be able to brag that they'd punched the future king in the bollocks.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • After Diana dies, Charles admits to his failures regarding their marriage, which motivates his actions in ensuring Diana's funeral is public, as he felt she would have wanted it to be.
    Charles: I failed her in life. I will not fail her in death.
  • His regrets regarding Diana only intensify when the police reveal to him that, prior to her death and over the course of their rocky relationship, his ex-wife's mental state had deteriorated to the point that she started entertaining the possibility that the royal family really were conspiring to have her killed. This revelation crushes him, and he can only lament that he didn't notice and didn't do more to help her.
• Never My Fault:
  • When called out on his deteriorating relationship with Diana, he immediately blames either Diana or the rest of the family for the cause. While he does have a point that his marriage with Diana was essentially forced upon both of them, his jealousy for Diana's popularity and inability to let go of his feelings for Camilla are also root causes for this wretched married life. He essentially sees himself and Camilla as blameless, while the others are interfering with their love life unfairly.
  • He blames his mother for the Royal Family's declining popularity, but as she points out, the decline is largely due to Charles' own scandals than anything she's done or hasn't done.
• Nice to the Waiter: Even after a fight with his father has been distressing him, he is still well-mannered, even cheerful with some members of the Royal staff. In Season 3, after returning to his investiture, he is greeted by a member of the staff and it's implied they have had a friendly chat.
• Only Sane Man: Emerges as such in later Series. Following Diana's death, Charles judges the mood of the nation exactly, compared to his mother (unwisely stoic) and father (detached to the point of cold). While much of his hostility is mainly rooted in his grief over Diana's death, he's completely correct when lecturing his parents that, as much as they might wish otherwise, they don't have the luxury of choosing when they get to be a public family and when they get to be a private one. All their privilege is given to them with the expectation that they fulfill their duties as leaders and symbols when it's required of them, and they aren't allowed to shirk that just because the occasion is so close to home.
• One True Love: Sees Camilla Shand as his. As history bears out, he's right about this; their love will stand the tests of time and everything that comes between them, but it will take decades before they can marry.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Due to a combination of emotionally distant parents and being sent away to boarding schools, Charles turns to others for emotional support including Lord Mountbatten — they affectionately called each other "Honorary Grandfather" and "Honorary Grandson" until the very end — and Donald Green, the detective assigned to guard him at Gordonstoun.
  • The end of "Paterfamilias" seems to imply he has a closer relationship to the children's governess than with either of his parents.
• Parting-Words Regret: Has this after his argument with Dickie and Dickie's untimely death from an IRA assassination.
• Pet the Dog: He takes a dramatic level in jerkass during Season 4, but still has a couple of these:
  • At Woomargama, off the track from their tour of Australia, he sits down with Diana and says "I'm listening" when she says she wants to be heard, points out he's not ignorant or indifferent to her self-harm and that in fact he's "horrified" by it, sympathizes with her about needing to be appreciated and understood and not overlooked and finally admits he does actually love her — and while that seems to magically fix everything and they're much happier for several days, the predictable happens.
  • He also travels to Mustique to spend time with his convalescing "Aunt Margot" out of love and concern for her physical and mental health, and recommends psychotherapy to her as helpful.
• Prince Charming: Played with. The public, and more importantly, Diana, want to believe him as this. While he does begin as thoughtful, polite, and dedicated, he can be increasingly selfish. Diana slowly learns more of his Prince Charmless tendencies, especially when he begins to emotionally abuse and scar her.
• Psychological Projection: Believes that he sees his own values of individualism, reform, and courage for love in his great-uncle David during Season 3.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • He’s on the receiving end of a vicious one, courtesy of Edward Millward — his Welsh tutor who's also a Welsh nationalist and republican — for not taking his time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, seriously.
  • Later, he gives one to his mother about how she doesn't respect him and what he has to offer, or his romance with Camilla.
  • Receives one in posthumous letter form (of all things) from Dickie Mountbatten. While Mountbatten does express affection for him, he basically reiterates everything Charles is failing at in regards to his romantic life and to being a model prince and future king.
• Refuge in Audacity: Upon being made the Prince of Wales, he gives a speech in Welsh declaring his intention to respect the country's autonomy and identity in stark contrast to previous holders of the title. The rest of the family are clueless until later, due to not speaking the language.
• Royal Brat: Young Charles is often percieved as selfish, disrespectful, and entitled by his own family, not so much the case for middle-aged Charles.
  Elizabeth: spoilt, immature man, endlessly complaining unnecessarily, married to a spoiled, immature woman endlessly complaining unnecessarily. And we are all heartily sick of it.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He is socially conscious and by Season 5, he has set up several foundations and programs to help the people.
• Self-Deprecation: As seen in the Tampax-gate conversation, he has a good sense of humor about himself as he declares that with his luck he would not be born as Camilla's knickers but a tampon destined to be "circling the bowl" and flushed into the sewer^note  For such a dedicated environmentalist, he obviously had no idea how feminine hygiene products are properly disposed of.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He usually expresses himself using big words and complex sentences. Even during a shouting match with Diana, he refers to their marriage as a "grotesque misalliance".
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Charles and Philip.
• Settle for Sibling: Downplayed, but as the show notes, he dated Lady Sarah Spencer (although not seriously) and met Diana in the process. He even calls an engaged Sarah wanting more information about her sister, which she unhesitatingly supplies.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Charles is a perennial ambassador for British sartorial flair. It's another page that he takes from his uncle David's book. Before Charles receives the news that he will be going to Gordonstoun, Lord Mountbatten takes him on a visit to "the finest house in Savile Row" to buy some very snappy clothes for Eton.
• Shrinking Violet: He's very shy and has difficulty socializing, evidenced by how he's perpetually stooped, turning his body away from others.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Utterly deconstructed. As stated above, he is utterly in love with Camilla, and only wanted to marry her. But Diana is utterly in love with Charles, never willfully tries to displease or mistreat him, and as she rightfully points out is the mother of his children and his wife. Camilla herself says that she should forever be his mistress, saying that Diana will always be viewed as the wronged one.
• Took a Level in Badass: He is an awkward Lonely Rich Kid, but he manages to form a tough enough skin to withstand the boos of critics, and a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from a Welsh nationalist professor. He also learned how to excel at Dartmouth naval college, and to stand up for himself to his family.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Gradually over the course of Season Four. Although the series has shown the entire family in an increasingly critical light as it’s worn on, he’s become the most unsympathetic of the lot. Season 4 portrays him as a spoiled, entitled man who acts like a petulant, jealous child as his marriage falls apart. Diana, for all her flaws, at least tries to make the situation better but he just gives up. Phillip tells her that they all think he’s acting like a baby and his mother lays into him for his abhorrent attitude and persecution complex. The root of it can be traced to his family members interfering in his love life, with him losing the woman he loves to another man in the process. We don't get to see Charles discussing such matters before Season 3 ends, but at the very start of Season 4, he harshly makes it clear just how hurt he is.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Series 6 presents Charles in a kinder light, firstly as a caring co-parent in his brief, though congenial interactions with Diana, and showing him to be utterly devastated by her untimely death, rallying to support his sons and acting as a voice of reason on behalf of the nation in his interactions with the Queen and Prince Philip, advising sensitivity, compassion, and (for her) maternal outreach.
• Too Much Alike: He and Diana are both too needy, immature and self-centered to be of any real help or support to each other, dooming their marriage.
• Troubled Abuser: He is emotionally abusive towards Diana, but being a prince and the fact that he has a lot of expectations on his shoulders is enough to give him grief. It's also one of his many redeeming qualities that prevents him from becoming a complete Hate Sink.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: At age 8, Elizabeth is distressed to see how formal he is with his father, even away from the cameras.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: A rare deconstruction. Charles is fit and well-dressed, but he's awkward in looks and manner and almost no one's idea of handsome. (When he finally tells her he loves her, though, even in the middle of an unhappy and turbulent marriage, Diana quite sincerely replies that he's gorgeous.) However, the fact that Diana was soon widely considered one of (if not the) World's Most Beautiful Woman in Real Life just crushes his self-confidence further and makes him even unhappier.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Initially downplayed and then massively subverted. While Charles is originally intrigued by some of Diana's less-conventional ways, he quickly starts being hugely unsettled by her and accusing her of doing everything as an Attention Whore — and while he's not entirely wrong, either, the fact that they have nothing in common except for their children dooms them all the faster and harder.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Earlier in the show, he was a fun-loving, albeit shy, polite boy. As an adult, he is bitter, jealous, abuses his young wife, and whines.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: With the media hype around his and Diana's "fairy-tale romance," Charles decides that he and Camilla should try for their actual fairy-tale happy ending. Camilla accurately tells him that Diana, the beautiful princess who would be having her princely husband stolen by another woman, would be the hero in that fairy-tale and the two of them its villains.
• Youthful Freckles: His close-up in "Tywysog Cymru" reveals him to be a young adult male example of this trope.

Princess Diana

Diana, Princess of Wales

^{Click here}  to see her in Season 5

Played By: Emma Corrin (Season 4) and Elizabeth Debicki (Seasons 5-6)

"The greatest act of service that I can give to the Crown as princess is not to be some meek little wife following the great prince around like some smiling doll, but to be a living, breathing, present mother, bringing up this child in the hopes that the boy that will one day become king still has a vestige of humanity in him."

Formerly Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer. Prince Charles’ first wife and mother of his two children.

---

• '70s Hair: She starts the series with a short Dorothy Hamill-esque cut that's essentially Boyish Short Hair that frames her face and maintains it well into the next decade.
• '80s Hair: Her short haircut gets more teased and feathered, becoming increasingly bouffant as the decade progresses. In Real Life her appearance spawned many trends and imitators.
• '90s Hair: As the decade dawns, Diana famously has her hair cut much shorter into a teased pixie crop for a shoot for Vogue magazine. Later in the decade, she sports a soft (though still fairly bouffant) side-parting.
• Accidental Misnaming: After her marriage, she was formally The Princess of Wales. However, since she was still a princess (by marriage), the entire world took the incorrect Affectionate Nickname "Princess Diana" and ran with it. Note that neither the palace nor Diana ever uses it once.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her family and flatmates also occasionally call her "Duch". It proves to be an Ironic Name when she ends up being not a duchess but a princess, and married to the heir to the throne. Her name is also shortened to "Di", especially by the media, despite Diana having apparently disliked it in Real Life.
• Age-Gap Romance: Deconstructed. While they're both young, Diana is only 18 when her relationship with Charles starts and thirteen years his junior. This proves to be one of the reasons why their marriage falls apart, especially, as Princess Anne notes, because of the fact that Charles is an old soul for his age, and Diana reads younger.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Diana is hopelessly in love with Charles. Charles at times does have some sincere feelings for her, but his one true love is always Camilla. She also has very strong feelings for Dr. Hasnat Khan, but believes that she scared him away.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: After it seems that Charles has died she declares that she had a Love Epiphany and insists that she loves Charles and wants their marriage to work.
• Arcadian Interlude: She and Charles have one while touring Australia, but it doesn't last until New Zealand, let alone the end of the tour.
• Arranged Marriage: In essence. Charles is firmly dragooned into marrying her by his overbearing immediate family, in particular his father the Duke of Edinburgh.
• Attention Whore: Foreshadowed when she both meets (and tries to hide from) Charles in costume the first time, then holds up traffic the second. Diana is a natural performer who takes the world by storm, both reveling in and craving attention — but she picked precisely the wrong job and company for someone to do that, and her painful marriage doesn't help her realize she's not a solo act.
• Awful Wedded Life: With Charles. He emotionally abuses her and there's seemingly nothing she can do to please him, which is fodder for many of her issues, including her bulimia.
• The Beautiful Elite: She’s an English earl’s daughter of ancient lineage who marries into the world’s most famous royal family and becomes a globally beloved, much-celebrated beauty. Diana’s personality is, however, democratically unpatrician and accessible.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: The British and global public fall in love with her almost immediately, without any evidence of good character, purely driven by her classically English gentle beauty and ability to look stunning in a beautiful dress, as Princess Anne (perhaps fairly) snarks.
• Beauty Is Best: Played straight in public, subverted in private.
  • Diana is a natural with children, and focuses on bringing to prominence at-the-time controversial charities, but it's always her beauty that the public rave about.
  • Philip also notes that "as a man", she is beautiful and will only become more so, so Charles will certainly fall in love with her — and he does, to an extent, among other things. Charles even says her beauty is "a great shining miracle". It's just not enough to overcome all the other issues they're dealing with.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite coping with untreated bulimia and a thoroughly miserable marriage, Diana stays radiantly beautiful.
• Best Friends-in-Law: She and Sarah Ferguson are seen drunkenly larking about and hugging each other fondly at the Balmoral Ghillies Ball. In Real Life, the pair were good friends.
• Big Fancy House: Her family estate of Althorp. The entrance hall of the house alone is gymnasium-sized.
• Blame Game: Diana receives a post-divorce visit from Charles that's initially quite sincere, regretful, and friendly — but still ends up in a raging back and forth argument. She breaks down in tears afterwards over her part in it.
• Blithe Spirit: Emotionally driven and completely unafraid to express her feelings, she’s utterly unlike the other senior royal women in that regard — she even glomps the Queen at one point.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Diana is the blonde with her friends/flatmates (a redhead and two brunettes).
• Blue Blood: The Spencers are one of England’s most ancient and preeminent aristocratic families. As the daughter of an earl, she bears the title Lady.
• Book Dumb: Diana is woefully ill-read, poorly-educated, and at-times undiplomatically uninformed, but she compensates for it with things like excellent observational skills (stalking), spatial and kinesthetic skills (dancing), and extraordinary interpersonal skills (she dazzles most of the planet).
• Brainless Beauty: Viewed outright as this by Charles and some of his staff, at times. Diana is stunningly gorgeous, but also immature, impulsive, did poorly at school, and can make very bad decisions as a result of all of it. However, even when she could deride herself as a "featherhead", she has other, major strengths, so almost no one in the public would characterize her this way.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: When Diana’s mother, Frances, left Viscount Althorp, their relationship became strained because the two didn’t have good co-parenting skills. They endured a nasty custody battle after which Frances was forced to give up the children, which contributed to Diana's need for love and attention and her motivation to be hands-on and affectionate in the upbringing of her own children.
• Broken Bird: Diana was massively affected by her parents' divorce in her childhood and her mother being considered a 'bolter'. She never really manages to get past it.
• City Mouse: Played with. She grew up on the Spencers' vast country estate but preferred living in London where she would go to work and party with her Sloane-ranger friends ^note  The press originally coined the term to refer to Di and co; upper-class country girls with London flats (often on Sloane Square), enviable wardrobes and fabulous party lifestyles. After she and Charles marry, they move to the country where she gets depressed (especially because of Charles being a Jerkass wanting to be close to Camilla).
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Played with. Furiously jealous of Camilla after their marriage despite Charles insisting she was just an old friend. In Real Life Charles also infamously stated his adultery with Camilla had not resumed until 1985 when the marriage had irretrievably broken down, a timeline Diana didn't dispute. However, Charles is having what would now be seen as an emotional affair with Camilla prior to that, so even if he's not actually unfaithful, Diana has a point.
• Commonality Connection: Quickly establishes a friendly rapport with Mohammed Al-Fayed based upon the disdain they mutually receive from the Royal Family.
• Compromising Memoirs: In the early 90s, journalist Andrew Morton ingratiates himself with Diana’s trusted friend, Dr James Colthurst, and uses his relationship with the princess to encourage her to write a tell-all story about her life behind the Palace walls. Diana, via recorded messages sent to Morton, details harrowing personal incidents and perceived mistreatment at the hands of her in-laws, which in the end are published as if gleaned from Diana’s close friends, so inflammatory are her revelations.
• Cool Aunt: Despite being unhappy that Charles invited other people on what what supposed to be a family trip and second honeymoon, she manages to put a cheery and welcoming face to her goddaughter who is in remission from cancer.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: Corrin has Diana’s doe-eyed, chin-lowered coquettishness down pat, and Charles is soon spellbound.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Diana and Charles discuss how they are very much alike in this regard, but still end up undermining each other. She settles for being adored by most of the rest of the planet — and still not being remotely happy. She also self-harms when she feels she isn't getting it.
  Diana: All I want is to be loved.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • Having endured Charles' infidelity all throughout their marriage, the final straw comes in 1990 when he abandons a last-shot family holiday to Italy — supposedly, Diana suspects, to be with Camilla. This spurs her into collaborating with journalist Andrew Morton to produce an explosive tell-all book — Diana: Her True Story — in which she details harrowing personal incidents and perceived mistreatment at the hands of her in-laws. Although her part in the creation of the book is officially kept secret, the Palace is well aware of her involvement.
  • After Charles hits back with his own revelations in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, Diana completely pulls the press focus back onto her by attending a benefit at the Serpentine Gallery in an exquisite Christina Stambolian black velvet dressed dubbed her "Revenge Dress".
  • Diana's most devastating act of revenge occurs in 1995 when she agrees to give an interview to Immoral Journalist Martin Bashir for the long-running BBC Panorama series, titled An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales. Having been utterly manipulated by Bashir and reduced to a paranoid wreck by his lies, Diana, looking haunted and plastered in mascara, spills her guts, openly detailing her struggles with postnatal depression, bulimia, and, most shockingly, her husband's affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. She has a My God, What Have I Done? moment when the dust settles, realising she may have gone too far after formerly loyal friends steadily abandon her.
• Doomed by Canon: What makes her story all the more tragic. It's impossible to watch Season 4 without remembering that this kind, beautiful, complex life will be cruelly cut short by fate. Series 6, the first part of which details the events in the run up to, and in episode 3, her death itself, can be harrowing to watch.
• Dude Magnet: According to her sister Sarah Spencer, not only do the children at the kindergarten she works at love her, but so do their fathers.
• Dumb Blonde: Charles perceives her as this, given her "incurious" nature and her Book Dumb traits. She strives to prove this wrong by invoking her far more superior social and emotional intelligence.
• English Rose: A definitive, celebrated example, due to her natural grace and delicate beauty, it's even name-dropped when she starts wilting from the heat in Australia. Her actress Emma Corrin was labeled as such in the October 2020 issue of British Vogue.
• Everyone Is Related: It's not touched upon much in the series, but nonetheless Diana is the sister-in-law of Private Secretary Robert Fellowes, married to Diana's sister Lady Jane Spencer, and a distant cousin of Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill.
• Fairytale Motifs: Larded on with gay abandon in Series 4 opener "Fairytale" during her introductory scenes; — handsome young prince arrives at castle for date with 'wicked stepsister'. Poor young Diana is banished out of sight. The prince, momentarily left alone, happens across Diana (dressed as a nymph for goodness sake), and they chat dreamily whilst she flirtatiously peeps from behind a huge potted plant (increasing her dryadic quality). Handsome prince must sadly go, riding off with wicked stepsister, whilst nymph!Diana stares after him wistfully. In Real Life, she and Charles met in the middle of a muddy plowed field during a pheasant shoot, but that perhaps wouldn't have had the same dramatic zing.
• Fairytale Wedding Dress: The ultimate example. Diana’s David Emanuel-designed dress, recreated for the series, was pure 80s sumptuousness combined with a traditional Victorian ballgown silhouette, a vast train, and the Giant Poofy Sleeves prerequisite to any Princess Classic worth her salt.
• The Fashionista:
  • Her outfits in Season 4 run a full gamut of British 80s fashion. From her Sloaney uniform of a piecrust shirt with sweaters, Laura Ashley-esque floral print outfits, the floaty skirts and dresses with large Peter-Pan collars she wears as a royal, all the way to the more curve-hugging outfits she wears towards the end of the season (her tweed suit in saturated colored checks that she wears to New York with the shoulder pads is peak 80s), by which time she had firmly cemented her place as a global fashion icon.
  • Even her casual wear after becoming a mother is the epitome: colorful sweaters, button down blouses and turtlenecks, coats and blazers, high-waisted jeans with boots and loafers are of the era and stand her out in contrast to her cardigan-and-pearls with a skirt or jodhpurs (even while hunting) wearing in-laws.
• Fish out of Water: Despite her august, upper-end-of-the-upper-class heritage, the royal family are a moon-leap in status from even her family. Diana struggles enormously with etiquette and order of precedence when she first moves into Buckingham Palace, as her grandmother (the one member of her family who is part of this elite circle) quickly finds out.
• Flirty Voice Ploy: Diana’s natural tone is breathy, clipped and low, and she’s prone to adopting a slightly sulky, sultrier variation, combined with her classic doe-eyed stare, when looking to get her way.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: With her younger brother Charles. Although Spencer initially trusts Martin Bashir enough to introduce him to Diana, re-reading his careful notes lets him realize Bashir's story doesn't hold up. He then tries to warn his headstrong sister, who's too emotional and determined to listen to him.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: One of the very few things she and Charles have in common is an interest in Islam and Islamic cultures, although only Diana's interest is presented in-series. She snarks to Pakistani Dr Khan about how being a proper British Princess Classic isn't too different than some traditional Islamic practices (inaccurately; she did not have to call her husband "Sir" after she married him or walk behind him), and although she speaks of it all bitterly, perhaps it was being such a wildly-successful royal that lets her think she could adopt the lifestyle pretty easily. That being said, she does have an interest in Muslim men, for whatever reason.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Her initial relationship with Charles lasts a very short time^note In Real Life, Charles and her went on a grand total of thirteen dates before he popped the question before they're soon rushed to the altar by his family. This proves to be one of the primary reasons the relationship failed, as neither of them had enough time to really get to know each other or fall in love, with Charles in particular having almost no time at all to sufficiently detach himself and move on from Camilla.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Her neediness and perhaps, her love of children and Mama Bear tendencies, came from a childhood where her parents had an acrimonious divorce and her mother lost custody of her children, thus separating her from a young Diana.
  • In Season 6 she specifies that her adored father Johnnie was more-or-less indifferent to her and she did many things to seek his approval, becoming the world's most famous Attention Whore in the process.
• Friend to All Children: She was once a nursery assistant, loves engaging with her young subjects during royal tours, and during a tour of an AIDS facility, she openly hugs one of the orphans, after learning of their unwanted status due to the stigma around the disease. She's also far more affectionate with her own children than it is usual in the royal family. Likewise, while she is at first annoyed that Charles has invited friends on what was supposed to be their second honeymoon, she immediately changes her tune when remembering her Goddaughter Leonora is one of the guest, and shows the child, who has recently had her cancer declared to be in remission, love and affection. She also sheds public, tender tears during Leonora's funeral.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe: Organising a surprise personal appearance on stage dancing with Wayne Sleep, and then on another occasion presenting Charles with a surprise VHS copy of herself on-stage (again) singing with the full cast of The Phantom of the Opera reveals her poor spousal insight over what Charles would actually enjoy as a gift, and her propensity for self-indulgence.  
• Gilded Cage: Buckingham Palace certainly is for her, in contrast to the Althorp Estate where she grew up and the flat she shared with her warm and fun-loving friends. She is isolated from Charles, her future mother-in-law the Queen, and her grandmother shows her no affection — which leads her to start binging and purging.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Wears a lilac chiffon gown to Prince Charles's birthday celebration.
• Granola Girl: Despite being thoroughly jet-set and glamorous, Diana also has a faddy, new-agey side to her character, which is played for laughs when she reels off a list of sources for Andrew Morton’s book, including her aromatherapist, astrologer, acupuncturist and “body-worker”.
• Groupie Brigade: Diana soon forms a massive following, and crowds in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia are seen going absolutely wild when she turns up at events or greets the public. Soon after her marriage, she becomes the most-talked-about, written-about, headlined and interest-compelling person in the world. In these respects no woman in history has thus far ever equaled her.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Or rather, the palace pastries and mousses for her. She starts eating them secretly at night to stave off the loneliness she feels since moving into the Palace.
• Head-Turning Beauty: She is universally renowned for her beauty and after Charles' initial attraction fizzles, the rest of the world can't take their eyes off Diana and she's never short of attention, ever.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Downplayed to the point of parody. To protect her children, in particular the shy William, from the paparazzi she sometimes manipulates and courts, she offers herself to them in exchange for leaving her sons alone. When she impulsively promises them they'll get a big surprise from "what she does next", she later regrets having said it.
• Hot Consort: Tragically to her own detriment, as she begins to out-dazzle Charles in effect, causing her husband to begin to despise her for it.
• I Can't Believe A Girl Like You Would Notice Me: Dr Khan lists all his flaws to her and says he can't understand why the World's Most Beautiful Woman has an interest in him. Diana counters with how she doesn't feel particularly special after her separation and how she just wants to be loved; the guy doesn't have to be anything special, either.
• The Ingenue: As a beautiful, English, aristocratic virgin, Diana fits the bill perfectly for Charles' bride — or so his family thinks — and they are soon firmly propelled, with a huge degree of naivete on her part, into each other's arms.
• It's All About Me:
  • Diana inconveniences scores, if not hundreds, of people in Australia and disrupts carefully-made security arrangements while threatening not to do the tour at all, all because she instantaneously needs and demands the presence of her infant child. (William is fine without her.) Later in the episode the tour does become all about her, anyway, with Australians flocking to see her.
  • Whilst accompanying her long-term friend Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo to hospital as her husband undergoes major heart surgery, Diana ends up Distracted by the Sexy she sees in his surgeon, Dr Khan, airily asking if Oonagh thinks he's handsome (and single) and wistfully talking about his "lovely hands". Oonagh rather tersely replies that she only cares if Khan's hands can save her husband's life.
  • Philip, after telling her he was also an outcast once too, accuses Diana - and not without merit - of being too individualistic, egotistic, and not understanding she is part of an institution bigger than herself where only the Sovereign matters.
• I Was Never Here: How she meets Charles in this telling, scurrying through a hall in a play costume, behaving like a naïve, nervous child, and swearing that her sister made her promise not to speak to him. Aside from the obvious fact that she's wearing a mask, it hints at Diana's not strictly-truthful or reality-tethered nature when Sarah then laughingly says Diana was obsessed with meeting Charles. Diana is quite cunning, and good at disguises.
• Jealous Romantic Witness: The Tampax-gate controversy. While everyone is obsessed over the prurient details, Diana is heartbroken by the public exposure of Charles' infidelity because, as Princess Anne deduces, it's a sincere moment of genuine love and sexual chemistry between him and Camilla. Having always adored Charles, Diana wanted just a fraction of this type of love from him and is reduced to tears, heartbroken at seeing him capable of such easy intimacy and passion with Camilla.
• Love Martyr:
  • Genuinely in love with Charles, and while he did love her early in the marriage, his feelings for her quickly died out, as he never gave up the torch for Camilla.
  • At the end of Season Four, Philip actually commends her for her devotion to Charles—but then tells her that devotion is directed at the wrong person. The person she should actually be martyring herself for is the Queen, because the entire Royal Family, in essence, exists to prop her image.
• Maid and Maiden: When she begins her relationship with Charles, and when she moves into the Palace, her formidable grandmother, the Lady Fermoy, is on hand to ensure nothing improper happens. (Diana does joke that Charles could probably get away with anything because her gran is a huge snob who would love nothing better than a connection between Diana and the Prince of Wales.)
• Mama Bear:
  • She’s a loving, hands-on mother (very much not the royal way) and chews out an over-zealous aide who contrives to separate her from baby Prince William during the couple’s first Australian tour.
  • She openly bashes the Paparazzi for hounding her children, and makes thinly veiled warnings towards them should they continue to harass them.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Very early on, but it's soon brutally deconstructed. Diana may well be the quirky girl Charles first meets dressed as a nymph, who roller-skates around Buckingham Palace with promises of bringing understanding and enlivenment to his stuffy ways, but they're both deeply miserable before and almost immediately after the wedding.
• Meet Cute: When Charles first meets Diana it’s at her home estate, and she’s actually trying her best to avoid bumping into him (under strict instructions from her older sister, Sarah, who the Prince was seeing). The problem is that she’s been rehearsing a school play whilst dressed as a nymph, and her adorably bashful darting about behind various potted plants and naively sweet chitchat only goes to entice the Prince’s interest even further.
• Meet the In-Laws: Diana has two memorable encounters with very different vibes. The first is her visit to Balmoral — a triumph, as the royals are relaxing on holiday and she wins them over with her self-deprecating humour and by helping Prince Philip to bag a prize stag. The night she moves into the Palace is a far more tense situation, as a very nervous Diana is clumsily thrust into a circle of senior, chatting royals, interrupting the cantankerous Princess Margaret mid-anecdote and making a number of errors over who to curtsy to first in order of precedence ^note  1. The Queen, 2. The Queen Mother, 3. Prince Charles, 4. Princess Margaret — then all the rest. Diana makes an additional gaffe when she curtsies to Lady Susan Hussey, whom Princess Margaret is quick to designate as "not royal, just grand" in chilling tones. She’s left flailing mid-circle for a good few minutes before taking her place next to Charles.
• Missing Mom: In Real Life her parents had a contentious divorce after years of strain trying to produce a male heir, with her mother's infidelity being the final nail in the coffin. She lost custody of her children, thus separating her from a prep-school (grade-school) aged Diana.
• Ms. Fanservice: She gets to show off her slender, hourglass figure in couture, sweaters, swimsuits, and dance costumes.
• Naïve Everygirl: Diana is innocent, rather childlike, and has no idea what she’s getting into when accepting Charles’ marriage proposal, and what becoming a member of the House of Windsor truly entails.
• Non-Idle Rich: An earl's daughter with her own spacious London flat, but after her schooling she began making her own money as a nanny, her sister's cleaner and as a teacher's assistant at a kindergarten. She then graduates to Royals Who Actually Do Something when the boys reach school-age.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: The formidable Duke of Edinburgh asks her to accompany him stalking, on the face of it ‘to get to know each other’, but undoubtedly to assess her suitability as Charles’ potential bride. Diana is a seasoned country girl at heart and helps the Duke bag a prize stag, which, along with her self-deprecating charm, seals his (and the whole family’s) respect for her.
• Pink Is Feminine: One of the colors that she wears on her tour through Australia to adoring crowds.
• Posthumous Character: Series 6's fourth episode "Aftermath" details the events immediately after her death, though she still makes an on-screen appearance, holding a (presumably imagined) Dead Person Conversation with both Charles and the Queen, which is framed as a way for both of them to achieve some sort of peace or closure following her passing.
• Princess Classic: Beautiful, charming, virginal and from a well-respected aristocratic house, Diana undoubtedly represents the classic concept of a fairytale princess in the early stages of her relationship with Charles and his family.
• Properly Paranoid: Diana is quite right to exhibit concern that her phone-lines are bugged, as every time she takes a call, a mysterious clicking is heard on the line.
• Rebellious Princess:
  • Crosses over into this territory after a couple of years of marriage to Charles, refusing to toe the line, pushing back constantly against royal protocol and challenging him (understandably) over his continuing relationship with Camilla.
  • Gradually deconstructed throughout Season 5: her increasingly elaborate ways to get back at her estranged husband and, by extension, the Royal Family, are sympathetic but also shown to have dire consequences not only for "the system", but for her loved ones and herself as well. While she's convinced she'll invoke this trope with her inflammatory interview for Panorama, it ends up blowing up in her face, prompting the Queen to order a divorce from Charles, alienating most of Diana's closest friends and collaborators, plummeting her social status and power (leaving her with only the paparazzi's morbid curiosity), and worse, causing a rift between her and her son, Prince William.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: Proving Diana learned her lesson from her Fourth-Date Marriage with Charles, she almost immediately rejects Dodi Fayed's attempt to propose, pointing out that they've only been dating for a summer and that he's only proposing to her for the same reason Charles did — to please his family. In addition, Diana's divorce was only finalized a year ago while Dodi just ended his engagement to Kelly Fisher (only weeks before they were supposed to walk the aisle no less), so neither of them are in any headspace to even consider getting any more serious with their relationship.
• Sexy Sweater Girl: Her ivory-colored sweater with a turtleneck in the finale shows off her figure without revealing much skin (and worn with her high-waisted jeans, it continues to help her stand out from her in-laws in their tweeds and patterns).
• Silent Snarker: Charles berates her over her unfair penchant for mugging to the crowds behind his back during speeches.
• Slut-Shaming: Is on the receiving end of this from her (hypocritical) husband and her mother-in-law the Queen for her affairs after trying (and failing) to patch up a flagging marriage.
• The Social Expert:
  • Diana may be lacking in academic smarts, but she more than makes up for it with her keen emotional intelligence and the ability to instantly make any member of the public she greets feel special, and at ease. This is perfectly encapsulated during her walkabout in Brisbane for her and Charles’ Australian tour, where she greets a group of ladies all positively busting with excitement, one of whom remarks “I love your dress!” Diana instantly replies “I love yours!” — the look on the lady’s face is a picture of surprised delight. It's moments like this, and Diana's overall Popularity Power, that instantly crushes any rumblings of Australian republicanism.
  • John Major, when elucidating on the various issues of the Royal Family, notes that despite their issues, Diana is Charles' greatest asset, balancing him out by making up for all his perceived shortcomings. Charles is a naturally awkward person and his interests lean toward the intellectual and oftentimes obscure, which hampers his ability to connect with the common people. Diana's social adeptness and association with him makes him seem more approachable and accessible to the public, covering up these weaknesses. Naturally, when their marriage reaches its breaking point and their relationship falls to pieces, Charles' popularity falls with it.
• Squee: Diana's marvellously jolly Sloane-ranger flatmates absolutely shriek the place down when she tells them that Charles has proposed. Later on, when they head out for a night at Annabel's, they shriek with delight again as their taxi speeds past Buckingham Palace, Diana's new home.
• Stalker with a Crush: Downplayed. After she spots Dr Hasnat Khan, she continues to show up uninvited at his work for weeks and socialize with patients simply in the hope of catching his attention — behaviour that wouldn't be tolerated in a hospital from anyone other than such a beloved public figure, and even then, she's pushing it^note  although the real Diana was known to visit hospitals and hospices without any attention or personal motive. However, the simple fact she makes his patients feel so much better means that Khan doesn't mind the intrusion and they do begin a relationship.
• Statuesque Stunner: One of the many enviable features of Diana’s that Princess Anne reels off to Charles are her famously long, shapely legs. In series 5 & 6, she's portrayed by the 6'3" Elizabeth Debicki.
  Anne: Those legs. Cow.
• Stylistic Suck: Diana's well-meaning but slightly self-indulgent private, anniversary-present performance of "All I Ask Of You" from The Phantom of the Opera that she has filmed for Charles (on stage in London, full costume, full cast) is met by him with bemusement at first then with utter horror.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: After trying and failing to be loved by Charles and putting up with emotional abuse, she finds some comfort in the arms of three other men — including, famously, Major James Hewitt. Notably, she is shown decisively ending the affair with Hewitt in a sincere attempt to fix the marriage and only phones him again after it becomes clear that Charles isn't going to return the effort. It can be seen as a parallel to her bulimia — she does it when she's bored and frustrated and feels unloved, and is similarly impulsive and harmful.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She is very sweet, feminine looking and dressed, shy, quiet, and romantic and stands in contrast to some of the other royal women:
  • To Princess Anne, her sister-in-law, a snarky, grumpy Tomboy Princess who is considered "dumpy" and less likable in comparison to Diana's Princess Classic persona.
  • To Camilla Parker Bowles, who still dresses down as befitting her horsey, jolly hockey sticks personality and has more common interests with Charles.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: How many of her mourners view her in the wake of her tragic death, leading to undercurrents of hostility against the royal family. While the older generation is inclined to dismiss it as hysteria, Charles realizes the need for a public acknowledgement of what Diana and her many positive qualities meant to people.
• Too Much Alike: Despite having nothing in common, she and Charles are still too similarly needy, self-centered, and immature to help or support one another, dooming the marriage.
• Took a Level in Badass: She starts asserting herself to aides and Charles after the children are born and making her own choices.
• Trophy Wife: She is young, beautiful, and adored by nearly everyone she meets, as well as having fantastic houses, jewelry, and a wardrobe to die for, but chafes against the expectation that she be steps behind Charles and let everyone else regulate her life.
• True Blue Femininity: A favourite colour that she wears to announce her engagement to Charles, to Australia, and whilst pregnant with Harry. She in fact picks out her famous sapphire engagement ring precisely because the blue color matches her Innocent Blue Eyes and because it looked like her mother's.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: She is a dazzling Princess Classic while her husband is awkward, publicly mocked, and pales in comparison to her great beauty. As much as she finds him to be "the most handsome man in the room", he starts to resent the attention that her looks, warmth, and charisma attract from people.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Charles' family are all thoroughly taken with her after their first meeting at Balmoral — later the entire world would be as well. A visit to Australia in the early eighties helps to firmly quash any rumblings of republicanism and the adoring crowds preview the goddess-like status she later achieved. After her death, both Elizabeth and Phillip admit that despite their recent difficulties with her, they never wanted Diana to leave the family and blame Charles for insisting on divorcing her to finally be with Camilla.
• Unkempt Beauty: Even when roused early in the morning to go hunting, and having trawled through muddy grass whilst stalking, her page-boy cut looking disheveled, she's still beguilingly beautiful. Even after the end of their marriage, Charles says she looks "more beautiful" when she's just hanging out at home.
  Diana (sardonically): What, a mess?
  Charles: Natural.
• Unwanted Spouse: Famously so. Prince Charles has been in love with someone unavailable (Camilla) for years, but married Diana out of duty. With time, it's more and more evident that the two were not suited to be together at all.
• Unwitting Pawn: Desperate to bag an interview with Diana, Immoral Journalist Martin Bashir gets his tech guy to mockup a whole folio of fake invoices for payments made to a variety of parties (including Diana’s Private Secretary, Patrick) which he claims are compensation for spying on her. Via a combination of this fake evidence and Bashir's catalogue of lies and flattering manipulations, both Diana and her brother are instantly taken in, and Diana agrees to go ahead with an infamously explosive Panorama interview with Bashir.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Played straight, then subverted. Diana falls in love with Charles and agrees to marry him despite knowing how conservative he and the royal family are, but rapidly decides he's cold, distant, uncaring and stifling her — and horrifies him by publicly performing and drawing attention for anything and everything she does. They clash about this again and again.
• Verbal Tic: When Emma Corrin was asked how they perfected Diana's distinct speaking voice, they explained — "she goes down at the end of everything she says, which makes everything she says sound quite sad."
• Warts and All: One of the most beloved figures of her generation, quite possibly the most beloved, the series posits that along with her genuine compassion and kindness, she was also rather immature and somewhat selfish.
• Weight Woe: Diana’s real-life struggles with bulimia are graphically presented when she sneaks down to the Palace kitchens, gorges herself, and later purges, though always with a Vomit Discretion Shot.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal:
  • As a substitute for her own Missing Mom, she wants to meet with Elizabeth's approval and gain her love, but the Queen is far too reserved and undemonstrative to reciprocate.
  • Diana herself mentions she did everything from learning the piano to marrying the Prince of Wales just so her father would give her some attention and approval.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: As in Real Life, she is firmly considered this by Season 5, but Kelly Fisher actually mentions her as such in Season 6.

Princess Anne

Her Royal Highness The Princess Anne, Princess Royal

^{Click here}  to see her in Season 5

Played By: Amelia and Grace Gilmour (Seasons 1&2), Lyla Barrett-Rye (Season 2), Erin Doherty (Seasons 3&4) and Claudia Harrison (Seasons 5&6)

"The majority of marriages survive because the majority of people aren’t fantasists. They are realists and accept the imperfect reality of being human."

The second child (and only daughter) of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Due to the laws of the time, she is fourth in line to the throne at the start of Season 4.

---

• '60s Hair: Wears her thick, long hair teased and blown out, in voluminous 60s style.
• '80s Hair: As she ages, she starts wearing her hair up in the bouffant chignon she famously continues to sport today.
• Aggressive Categorism: Indulges in some casual Celt-bashing in an attempt to cheer up a miserable Charles, who has been sent to university in Wales to improve his Welsh, in preparation for his investiture.
  Anne: How are the other students? Short, hairy and angry? Isn't that what the Celts are like? Furry and furious? Big eyebrows, red-faced, stooped under the weight of an ancestral grudge?
• All Girls Like Ponies: But no girl likes ponies more than her. She is a passionate horse enthusiast and rider, even representing the United Kingdom in three-day eventing at the 1976 Olympics. Her first appearance in-series as an adult is shot from her waist down as she strides through the palace in jodhpurs and boots.
• Awful Wedded Life: Anne's marriage to the scarcely-seen Mark Phillips is so bad, she tells her mother that an affair with one of her protection officers is the only thing that makes her happy.
• Blunt "No": When the Queen firmly requests that she waits before marrying her Second Love Tim Laurence, Anne immediately and without hesitancy shuts her down, striding out of the room insisting that she’s given enough of herself to duty, and that The Crown cannot have all of her.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Like her aunt, the egalitarian movement and youth culture of the 60s and 70s appeal to her, from the music (Fontella Bass and David Bowie) to the clothes (unlike most Royal women in the show, she is seen in the mini-skirts of the era, long trousers and jeans). In Real Life, she even attended a production of the at-the-time risqué musical Hair, where she danced in public.
• Brutal Honesty: A prominent trait of hers in the series, as in real life, adding to her snarkiness and savvy.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In Season 4, her resentment over Elizabeth's absence as a mother comes out in snarky comments and she derides her mother as being all but useless when confiding to her about her marital issues.
• The Confidant: Serves as this (mutually) to Charles in "Tywysog Cymru" when discussing the pros and cons of being comfortable but ignored by their mother (Anne), or the important heir yet treated more harshly (Charles).
• Cool Big Sis:
  • With her older brother Charles. He feels free to confide in his more confidant, more mature and self-aware sister. She can be very sardonic about it, but she always has supportive advice and insight for him.
  • Implied with Andrew and Edward when they are children, as she encourages them to shake hands with their heroes the Apollo astronauts. She and Edward maintain a implied bond of being the younger half of their combative and Attention Whore brothers.
  • In Series 5, after Charles and Camilla’s “gynaecological” phone call is transcribed in the press, Anne is furiously and resolutely supportive, bucking him up with her own special brand of “just get on with it” advice, and even noting that she almost admires just how teenage and in love her brother seems.
• Daddy's Girl: The end of "Paterfamilias" shows her to be thoroughly excited at seeing her father home from a long tour abroad and he is much more affectionate with her than with Charles. In adulthood, she’s unequivocally Prince Philip’s favourite child and the pair are both similar in character and closely bonded.
• Deadpan Snarker: Anne’s default tone is brisk, no-nonsense and utterly deadpan. It must be a Mountbatten thing because she can snark with the best of them.
  The Queen Mother: 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?
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • She admits to Andrew Parker Bowles that she was checking him out when he was playing polo, despite the fact she was supposed to be cheering on her father and brother.
  • She also checks out her future second husband, equerry Timothy Laurence, and doesn't care when her mother reminds her she's still married.
    Anne: Only technically.
• Establishing Character Moment: Our first glimpse of the grown Anne is as she strides briskly through the hallways of Buckingham Palace in jodhpurs and riding boots. Moments later, when speaking with Philip about the planned Royal Family documentary, she wastes no time breaking out her iconic deadpan snark.
• Fanservice: After she sleeps with Andrew Parker-Bowles, we are treated to a scene of Erin Doherty's slim, leggy figure in bra and panties.
• Generation Xerox: Much like her Aunt Margaret, she's much more media-savvy than some of her relatives, which leads to bitterness that her place in the family relegates her to the sidelines (even worse in her case as she's stuck behind two much younger brothers). And when her father, Prince Philip, upbraids her for her blunt, no-nonsense attitude, she snarks right back with this little gem:
  Anne: Well, where do you think I get that from?
• Green-Eyed Monster: Highly uncharacteristic, but she’s driven to feeling this way about Diana, as the press begin to heap praise on her for “putting on a fancy dress”, whilst hard-working and charity-minded Anne is viewed as tetchy and difficult.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Anne is understandably tetchy that her dutiful work toiling away for African charities in the heat and mud goes unnoticed, being outshone by the universal praise Diana receives, without any evidence of good character, purely driven by her ability to look stunning in a beautiful dress. It paid off in Real Life for Anne, dubbed “Britain’s hardest-working royal”, and she’s highly respected and admired because of it.
• Hero of Another Story: The 1970s was a far more eventful decade for Anne than shown, while the show left her Out of Focus, all things considered. She was almost kidnapped at gunpoint (when her kidnapper told her he was going to abduct her, she retorted with "No, you bloody won't"). She also toured the world with her parents and Charles and participated in the 1976 Olympics. She married a fellow equestrian, Captain Mark Phillips, and had her first child in 1977 — none of which was mentioned during the third season, or even alluded to.
• History Repeats: Her desire to marry while a previous spouse of the union (Mark Phillips) is still alive is a situation that once again can be vetoed by Elizabeth, Head of the Church of England.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Anne's sass and her affinity to speak her mind come straight from Philip, as she promptly brings up when her father laments her tendencies. He's quick to concede the point, proud of her.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: In an attempt to buck her up, Prince Philip reminds her, sotto voce in case he upsets any nearby relatives, that Anne, like him, is a Battenberg (not even using the anglicised Mountbatten) and is therefore made of tough stuff.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Not in the same way as Charles, as she enjoys an active social life, but she does feel isolated from her mother.
• Middle Child Syndrome: She is the only girl and in the middle between Charles the heir and two baby brothers.
• Never Gets Drunk: Or at least is exceptionally good at holding her liquor. She destroys the rest of the family at Ibble Dibble, a favorite drinking game at Balmoral.
• Out of Focus: She is prominently featured in Seasons 4 and 5 and has her own storylines, but in the final Season (6), she is mostly a Demoted to Extra background character.
• Parental Favoritism:
  • Philip is shown to be much more affectionate to her than with Charles; but while her mother can be distant with Charles, she ignores Anne.
  • Come season 4, Philip tells Elizabeth that Anne is his favorite child without a moment of hesitation.
• Rank Up: The title 'Princess Royal' is customarily granted to the eldest daughter of the Sovereign. However, although the title is held for life, Anne waited until 1987, several years after the death of her great-aunt Princess Mary — with the implication she took it in order to be referred to something independently of her marriage.
• Rebellious Princess: She’s a tough cookie, always speaking her mind in an often curt tone, even to her own royal parents. Additionally, the Queen and Queen Mother are shocked at her frank admittance of promiscuity.
• She's All Grown Up: To Andrew Parker Bowles's delight, she has developed into an attractive young woman and she calls him on his surprise, albeit in a flirtatious manner. In typical Anne-deadpan, she notes that the dress she's wearing is an old gown of her mother's that makes her "look like a hydrangea."
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: She engages in verbal jousting matches with her father, who is seen thoroughly enjoying the badinage.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Arrived at this after having Used to Be a Sweet Kid. A lot of Anne's unpleasantness and acidity is because she isn't happy — for things ranging from being overlooked and sidelined for being female to an Awful Wedded Life with Mark Phillips to envy of Diana — and she feels she has no other way of coping other than being tough and "getting on with it", although Philip showing her affection does give a boost to her riding career.
• Spare to the Throne: She spends most of Seasons 1 and 2 as the spare to Charles. By the end of Season 2, and the births of her younger brothers Andrew and Edward, she's been bumped down to fourth in line. In Season 3, she feels emotionally neglected by her mother because of this, despite being free from Elizabeth's criticisms.
• Speak Truth To Power: No one back-chats the formidable Duke of Edinburgh — except his daughter.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's a tough, snarky Tomboy Princess who prefers horse-riding and country sports to balls, while her sister-in-law Diana is a feminine, idealistic girly girl who enjoys roller skating, dancing and is a romantic at heart.
• Tomboy Princess: Philip complains that "our daughter's a boy and our son is, God bless him, a girl." In adulthood, in personality, she’s tough, deadpan and utterly no-nonsense. It’s also reflected in her wardrobe as a point of contrast between her mother, from a older generation, wearing sensible skirts while hunting, whilst Anne wears a similar outfit albeit with trousers and a man's cap instead of a headscarf.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She’s more interested in riding horses than Royal protocols but also has a stylish bouffant hairdo and takes to wearing the body-con fashions and mini-skirts of the 1960s.
• Tough Love: Gives it to her brothers, either telling them to cheer up after snarking with him (Charles) or giving them a shove when they’re too shy to say hi to the astronauts (Andrew or Edward).
• True Blue Femininity: Like her mother, she favors blue tones, though often in bright shades.
• Upper-Class Equestrian: Loves horse riding as much as her mother and aunt. In the third season she's introduced walking through the palace in her jodphurs and boots.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: She was a playful little girl in the earlier episodes but while she retains her good humor and love for fun, she hardens up over the years, becoming brisk, dour and cynical.
• Verbal Tic: A blustery "Christ!" when expressing surprise or annoyance.

Mark Phillips

Captain Mark Anthony Peter Phillips

Played By: Geoffrey Breton

Princess Anne's husband, who is only introduced in Season 4, after their marriage had hit the rocks.

---

• '70s Hair: Has a "Dry Look" side parting as befitting his military background.
• Awful Wedded Life: He and Anne constantly cheat on one another.
• The Cameo: He makes only a brief in-series appearance during Series 4.
• Military Brat: He was born into a family with involvement in the military on both sides. His father was Major Peter Phillips and his mother, Anne Phillips, served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II. His maternal grandfather, John Tiarks, served in both the First and Second World Wars as a brigadier and personal assistant to George VI during the later years of his reign.
• Remember the New Guy?: In Real Life he and Anne were married for six years by the start of Season 4 and have had their first child, Peter. But Season 3 (which covers the family from 1964-1977) skips over their wedding and other key moments of Anne's life.
• Upper-Class Equestrian: He was in the equestrian teams representing the United Kingdom for several Olympic Games.

Tim Laurence

Captain Timothy Laurence

Played By: Theo Fraser Steele

A naval officer and former equerry to the Queen who catches Princess Anne's eye and begins a serious affair with her. He becomes her second husband in 1992.

---

• Lust Object: For Princess Anne, it’s lust at first sight, and she even playfully spies on him with a pair of binoculars when she and the Queen take a tour of a lighthouse. In Real Life, the pair met around 1986 while he was working as an equerry, and not in 1990 during the royal summer holiday to Scotland as the series depicts.
• Military Brat: His father was Commander Guy Stewart Laurence, also a naval officer.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Attained amongst the highest of naval ranks and is a presented as a loyal, dignified man.
• The Reliable One: The Queen designates him reliable, sensible, and agreeable when Princess Anne enquires.
• Second Love: For Anne, after her marriage to Mark Phillips fails, and he’s afforded more screen time and dialogue than his predecessor, although we still see very little of their relationship.
• Uptown Girl: Tim is of good military stock, but there’s still a veritable class-chasm between him and Anne, a royal princess of the world’s most prominent monarchy.
• We Need a Distraction: The Queen’s Private Secretary sends him tear-arsing through the royal yacht in order to intercept The Sunday Times newspaper before the Queen can see it, as it contains a headline suggesting a good portion of her subjects would rather she abdicate in favour of Charles. Tim manages to snatch the paper practically out of Princess Anne's hands, but his beleaguered befuddlement and cooked-up story has the desired effect of drawing her attention.

Prince Andrew

His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew, Duke of York

^{Click here}  to see him in Seasons 5-6

Played By: Tom Byrne (Season 4), James Murray (Seasons 5-6)

"People tell me I put my foot in it from time to time – at least I don’t put it in someone’s mouth..."

The third child of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and, due to being male, the second in line to the throne at the start of Season 4.

---

• Awful Wedded Life: By 1992, his marriage has collapsed and the Duchess of York is cavorting about with a gaggle of lovers — including John Bryan, with whom she was photographed in St Tropez, leading Andrew to deliver the following hilariously shocking Wham Line to his mother when he insists on telling her what "unspeakable" thing they were photographed doing:
  Andrew: Sucking Sarah’s toes, Mummy!
  The Queen: What??
• Big Entrance: In line with his contemporarily necessary portrayal as a complete tosser, he a) flashily arrives for lunch with his mother via Royal Navy helicopter, b) buzzes Windsor Castle, and c) is the only person who could do (a) and (b) and not get shot down.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Charles gives him a blunt dressing down on his wedding day, letting him know that he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things now that Charles has an heir and a spare.
  • In his only major scene in Season 5, he rather humbly tells his mother that he fully understands why Sarah cheated on him due to his long absences, and that he actually sympathizes with her and to an extent doesn't mind — but he still has to divorce her as the publicity is humiliating him too much.
• Butt-Monkey: He is treated with derision and is deemed as insubstantial by his own family. By Season 6, he just bumbles around.
  Charles: But you know Andrew... he drew a complete blank.
• Cheerful Child: In his few appearances in Season 3, he appears to be very playful and excitable, in contrast to the serious and dramatic issues going on amongst the elder members of his family.
• Dead Guy Junior: His parents briefly considered naming him George, but as there were so many previous Georges, and nobody could live up to Elizabeth's Papa in any case, they end up naming him for Philip's father.
  Margaret: Yes, the bankrupt philanderer.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • On the topic of potential nepoticide, Andrew's lunch conversation with the Queen both manages to correctly establish that his nephew Prince William has not yet been born and incorrectly assume that the infamous king Richard III was Duke of York. As people more familiar with history or Shakespeare would know, Richard of York was Duke of Gloucester.
  • Elizabeth also tells him he'd have to murder any sons Charles had in order to be king. As she should know, daughters count too.
• Establishing Character Moment: Andrew’s very first scenes as an adult are heavy with Foreshadowing. Firstly, he arrives at the Palace by helicopter just to go to lunch, causing unnecessary commotion, and then, before flippantly joking about murdering Charles’ offspring, he describes to his mother the details of the erotic movie his girlfriend Koo Stark is making, The Awakening of Emily, in which a "17-year old girl is introduced to sensual pleasures by some older sexual predators."
  The Queen: Are you sure it was even legal?
  Andrew: (airily) Who cares?
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He doesn't listen to Elizabeth and it's unknown if he's actually the favourite, but his good looks, charm, confidence, and gregarious nature seem to mean that he gets along better with her than her other three children do, and he does respect her, appear to care about her, and wants to maintain this status. They're also in complete agreement about him going into potential combat — and in an inversion of this, while Elizabeth is fond of him, the fact that he could be killed doesn't appear to faze her at all.
• Expy: He and Mark Thatcher are basically the same role (and have come to similarly-legally ambiguous places in Real Life). Highlighted by having their scenes in "Favourites" follow each other.
• Foreshadowing: Andrew’s louche, deviant nature is immediately apparent when he goes into lurid details (to his mother of all people) about an adult film involving an underage girl that he enjoyed, which leaves her reeling and undoubtedly references his current, disgraced position following the Epstein scandal.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: In the early 80s, Prince Andrew was something of a heart-throb, painted as a Millionaire Playboy in the press, and considered by some to be rather exciting and dashing — particularly due to his serving active duty as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War. However, in-series this playfulness has been drastically played down, and a lunch with his mother in Series 4 heavily implies that his future as a seeming sexual criminal/deviant, and his eventual involvement in the Epstein scandal, was already apparent to the Queen.
• It's All About Me: He is utterly furious that his mother's feud with Margaret Thatcher over South African sanctions takes headlines from his wedding to Sarah Ferguson.
• Jerkass: Andrew is handsome and carefree – and coarse, callous, selfish, and grasping. There's almost nothing to admire about him, and his current Real Life pariah status heavily colors his depiction, whatever the viewer may think of him.
• Mummy's Boy: It is revealed that he is his mother's favorite child — or so Prince Philip believes, which may have added to his current Spoiled Brat and sleazebag persona. Tellingly, the Queen always greets Andrew with the greatest and warmest affection, which she tones down a notch for Anne and Edward, and further still for Charles.
• Princeling Rivalry Incarnate; Andrew is openly disdainful of his eldest brother, and the limelight showered upon him and his beloved wife. He also keeps mentioning that he'd really like to be king, and how much better he'd be at it than Charles, and it's perhaps a mark of favor (or poor parenting) that Elizabeth keeps uncomfortably deflecting these remarks rather than bluntly telling him to shut up.
• Royal Brat: Andrew is painted as one, and unlike his siblings, he's not portrayed as struggling with anything, making him worse. However, one of his unopposed desires is to go straight into combat. It's the only thing keeping him from being a Hate Sink.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Pretty much his only admirable quality is that he does legitimately pull his own weight as a naval officer. Even when his status would easily allow him to get a cushier, safer position during The Falklands War (indeed, in Real Life the government wanted him to take a desk job while the war was on), he insisted on frontline service, and with the Queen's support he got his way.
• Sickening Sweethearts: With Sarah Ferguson. They are very tactile and Andrew, rather smugly, contrasts their amorousness with Charles and Diana's splintering union.
• Spanner in the Works: His very conception forces Margaret to delay her wedding announcement, as royal protocol is that no other family news can precede the birth.
• Spare to the Throne: Due to British male primogeniture laws of the time (overturned to become absolute primogeniture in the 21st century), he displaces Anne to become second in line to the throne at the moment of his birth. Andrew himself is then later displaced to irrelevancy by the births of William and Harry, to his chagrin and Charles's amusement.
• Unknown Rival: Andrew is always jealous of Charles and thinks that it's mutual as he's closer to their mother. But on Andrew's wedding day Charles gives a "Reason You Suck" Speech stating that Andrew isn't a significant member of the Royal Family now and will continue to grow irrelevant. Clearly, Charles has rarely given any thought to Andrew's obvious jealousy.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In Season 3, he's an innocent and happy young boy. Once he grows up, he's a crass and spoiled man who shows signs of becoming even more depraved with age.
• Villainous Valor: Even if it also gives Andrew shades of being a Glory Hound, his request to be transferred to frontline service in the looming Falklands War is heroic by itself.
• Warrior Prince: Like most modern royals, Prince Andrew served active duty for Queen and country, but endangered himself far more than is typical for royal princes, serving as a helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. During the Falklands War, he flew on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation.
• Would Hurt a Child: Completely unfazed and undeterred when Elizabeth tells him he'd have to make sure to murder Charles' children in order to be king. Possibly an oblique reference to his current-day troubles, or just another sign of his callous nature.

Sarah Ferguson

Sarah, Duchess of York

Played By: Jessica Aquilina (Season 4), Emma Laird Craig (Season 5)

The wife of Prince Andrew and mother of their two children.

---

• '80s Hair: Like in Real Life, she wears her famously red, curly permed hair down and long with the fluffy bangs so prevalent of the decade.
• Affectionate Nickname: The former Sarah Ferguson was almost always referred to as 'Fergie' in the press.
• Awful Wedded Life: By 1992, her marriage to Andrew is so strained that she starts looking to her accountant for romantic solace, even getting her toes sucked by him while on holiday in St Tropez — a deeply embarrassing incident that makes national news.
• Best Friends-in-Law: She and Diana are seen drunkenly larking about and hugging each fondly at the Balmoral Ghillies Ball. In Real Life, Sarah and Diana were good friends with Sarah encouraging Diana to come out of her shell.
• Blue Blood: Just about — she bears no title, nor do her parents, but she was of 'landed gentry' stock.
• The Cameo: She's introduced in a passing line about Andrew's upcoming wedding, and outside of the wedding — shown in a news report — she makes a few background appearances, but doesn't really feature in any key scenes and has no speaking lines of note. In Series 5, she makes a very brief background appearance at Balmoral, and after the toe-sucking incident, she's never seen or referred to again.
• Happy Holidays Dress: In the Season 4 finale, set at Christmas, she wears a rich red gown in velvet with puffed sleeves for the Royal Family portrait that sets off her fiery locks nicely.
• Out of Focus: Her engagement and wedding, which is heavily glossed-over in-series, almost certainly as a creative snub to the disgraced Prince Andrew, drew almost as much praise and popularity for her as Diana's did, with many Brits initially drawn to her fun-loving, jolly hockey sticks personality (though it went awry fairly quickly).
• Non-Idle Rich: Like Diana, she was working salaried jobs and living a normal life before she married into the Royal Family.
• Sickening Sweethearts: With Andrew. They are very tactile and Andrew, rather smugly, contrasts their amorousness with Charles and Diana's splintering union.
• Verbal Tic: She may well be relegated to the background in Series 4, but her infamous snorting laugh precedes her very brief on-screen appearance. Her laugh is brought up again in Series 5 when Andrew breaks the news of their divorce to the Queen.
  The Queen: That laugh.
  Andrew: I know! So infectious.
  The Queen (sardonically): Yes…

Prince Edward

His Royal Highness The Prince Edward

^{Click here}  to see him in Season 5

Played By: Angus Imrie (Season 4), Sam Woolf (Season 5), Sebastian Blunt (Season 6)

The Queen and Prince Philip's youngest child, and at the start of Season 4 he is third in line to the throne.

---

• Actually Pretty Funny: After Charles' cutting remark to Andrew, about his insignificance in the grand design of the succession of the Crown, on his wedding day no less, Edward can't help but comment on his eldest sibling's wit.
  Andrew: (aghast) Did he actually just say that? On my wedding day!?!
  Edward: (with a rather amused smile on his face) That was impressively cunty.
• The Baby of the Bunch: He is the youngest of Elizabeth and Philip's four children. Four years younger than his brother Andrew, fourteen years younger than Anne, and finally sixteen years younger than Charles.
• Birthday Episode: "The Hereditary Principle" in Season 4 shows his 21st birthday party in 1985 – setting up a very strange Series Continuity Error later the same episode^note  Charles talks to Margaret about Diana being pregnant with Harry, which we see. Harry was born six months before Edward's birthday.
• Boarding School of Horrors: As of Season 4, he is attending his father and older brother Charles's alma mater Gordonstoun, which hasn't changed since their day, and has rendered him pragmatic and hard.
• Cheerful Child: Excitable, innocent, playful. This is in great contrast to the dramatic and serious issues facing his family.
• Do Wrong, Right: He admits he expelled an underclassman for smoking and "not being clever enough" to not get caught and admired the ingenuity of his tormentors chilling a wine-bottle of urine for him to drink.
• Drunk with Power: He admits to some inebriation with power once he became Guardian (Head Boy) at Gordonstoun. He describes himself as a strict disciplinarian to those who used to torment him and to those he catches breaking the rules.
• Last Episode, New Character: The Season 2 finale covers Elizabeth's especially troubled pregnancy with him.
• Out of Focus: He’s by far the least prominent of the Queen’s children. Justified in that he’s so much younger than his siblings and has had a much less turbulent personal life than they have (such as being Happily Married to his first and only spouse). His first child wasn’t even born until 2003.
• Prank Gone Too Far: He was given a wine bottle full of urine as a boarding school prank. He admits it was impressive they went to the trouble of chilling it.
• Precision F-Strike: Drops the biggest one of Season 4 completely casually with "cunty".
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He's unconcerned with his average grades because he met the Cambridge admissions people and he knows they'll happily welcome a royal prince. He has the same attitude with other institutions like the Royal Marines.
• Spare to the Throne: Like his brother Andrew before him, he displaces Anne to become third in line to the throne at the moment of his birth.
• Stiff Upper Lip: In a frank but entitled manner, he tells the Queen that he knows he will get into Cambridge purely for being royal and makes demands of her about his royal allowance, but he explains his status means that he also has to take being bullied frequently at school. As a true Brit, he simply shrugs it off as par for the course to a stunned Elizabeth.
• Teens Are Monsters: Downplayed, but Edward is still at school in Series 4, and the Queen is alarmed at the vengeful, bullying streak he exhibits in his capacity as Guardian (Head Boy) at Gordonstoun — something he openly admits comes from his own experiences of being bullied.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As compared to the Used to Be a Sweet Kid of before. He's prominently portrayed as having a picky, cynical, and ruthless, even sadistic streak. In real life, Edward is generally viewed by the public as an inoffensive and affable man compared to his more controversial siblings — however 30 or 40 years ago he was viewed as demanding and difficult, so this is quite accurate.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Was an enthusiastic, rambunctious kid who was charmed by astronauts but now as Guardian (Head Boy), after bullying at school and his family's dysfunction, he's taken a level in cynic and become rather entitled and demanding, even brutal to the underclassmen at Gordonstoun.
• The Voiceless: In Season 5. Although Edward appears in the background, he only has lines in the very last episode.

Queen Elizabeth's Grandchildren

Prince William

His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales

^{Click here}  to see him as a child

Played By: Lucas Barber Grant (Season 4), Timothee Sambor (early) and Senan West (later) (Season 5), Rufus Kampa (early) and Ed McVey (later) (Season 6)

The firstborn son of Charles and Diana, and second in line to the throne.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: Charles always calls him “Willy”, Harry and his mates usually “Wills”.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: As he becomes older, William begins to notice his mother's fragile state, and is increasingly affected by his parents' constant Cycle of Revenge splashed across the gutter press.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Following his mother’s death, William is rendered understandably dour and full of anger — most of which he directs at his father, whom he accuses of refusing to talk about Diana, and, worse still, insinuates Charles’ treatment of her led to her death.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: After William heads off to Eton College, the most prestigious school in England, he's thereafter often seen sporting the school's archaic (but awesome) uniform, unchanged since his ancestor Queen Victoria was on the throne, which consists of a black tailcoat, white tie, a waistcoat, and striped trousers, complete with a top hat added for special occasions.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The majority of "Willsmania" has William struggling with his emotions and relationship with Charles after Diana's death, ranging from withdrawal to sullenness to overt hostility. It takes Philip — who remembers what it was it was like dealing with Parental Abandonment as an angry teen (and in a Continuity Nod, also likely recalls Dickie Mountbatten's 'you hate your father, one day your son will hate you' lesson, from Season 2) — to intervene enough to get him and Charles to finally come to a very rare and cathartic royal hug.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He is polite, friendly, and his natural charm and kindness is no act. He's also very shy, and tends to snap at people when the public gets too much for him.
• Blue Oni: Shy and reluctant to be on-camera, he is also much calmer compared to the passionate Harry.
• Dead Guy Junior: Named after his first cousin twice-removed Prince William of Gloucester, when his parents couldn't initially agree on a name.
• Dissension Remorse: After William is upset enough to accuse Charles of being indirectly responsible for his mother’s death, a visit from Philip gives him enough perspective to want to change things, and the episode closes with William desperately hugging his father and being embraced in return.
• The Dutiful Son: In a touching gesture, having been given a free pass to spend the Golden Jubilee with the Middleton family, William speeds back to London from Berkshire Just in Time to join his grandmother on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, knowing that she needs him by her side.
• Easily Embarrassed Youngster: Given who he is, and his family's shenanigans in the press, it's understandable teenage William is a little withdrawn and deadpan. In a pre-Bonfire Night lesson at Eton, the master discusses Guy Fawkes and his Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and the anti-Catholic James the First — William's direct ancestor. William uncomfortably listens while the rest of his classmates whisper and openly stare at him.
• First Day of School Episode: In episode "No Woman's Land", William begins his time at Eton College and soon after, he and the Queen bond over the school's unique terminology; school terms are 'halves', classes are 'divs' and the masters (teachers) are 'beaks'.
• Groupie Brigade: As seen in Series 6 episode “Willsmania”, teenage William attracts adoring crowds of young women who go absolutely WILD when he turns up to his first official engagement following his mother’s death. In Canada, the crowds are just as effusive, and he receives huge sacks of letters from young women from all over the world, professing their love.
• Heroic BSoD: He's understandably devastated by the death of his mother, and when he overhears his father stating that regardless of his own grief, he will have to be a symbol to the British People and publicly aid in the mourning of the nation for Diana, he is so upset that he goes off walking in the rainy heathland of Balmoral alone for hours.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: In his later teenage years, William receives an enormous surge in popularity and global press-interest which, on multiple occasions, is a factor of his life that he notes he absolutely hates. It takes him a good few years to settle into the role of the beloved public figure he is to become.
• Insecure Love Interest: Despite his feelings for Kate, William is reluctant to pursue her because he thinks she's out of his league. Yes, him — The Future King.
• Kid Has a Point: William, who's picked up on the fact that his mother is being courted by some millionaire playboy who's appeared from out of nowhere with a massive yacht and has been trying a little bit too hard to impress everyone, tells her that he thinks Dodi is "weird".
• Lovable Jock: He's a rugby star at prep-school and a sweet little boy who adores his parents.
• Love at First Sight: From the moment he lays eyes on Catherine, he’s smitten, and as she’s currently in a relationship with fellow undergraduate Rupert, he spends his first Christmas at home from uni in a love-sick funk.
• Modest Royalty: William is down-to-earth and humble, and on his gap year, spent getting his hands dirty improving the infrastructure of Belize and Botswana amongst other locations, he takes on a variety of distinctly un-royal duties, including scrubbing toilets.
• Mummy's Boy:
  • Diana dotes incessantly on him as a baby, and as he grows older, Charles' increasing disinterest in the marriage leads him to remain much closer to her. In his teens, the Queen enquires after his relationship with his father, to which he simply replies with a hint of despairing: "Pa? He's just Pa..."
  • During a family holiday in his preteen years, he sticks up for his mother when Charles attempts to make her look foolish in front of their guests over her choice of holiday activities, with William joining his brother in supporting her request to have a family shopping trip, whilst everyone else remains uncomfortably silent.
  • Reaches a new level after Diana's death. William is so shattered by her loss that he directs all his anger toward his father, whom he holds responsible for what happened to her, and for making her so miserable when she was alive.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: At 13, he has to remind Diana not to discuss her love life with him on one of her nightly calls to Eton, as it (understandably) makes him feel awkward.
• Prince Charming: When he reaches his late teens, William becomes desired by young women from all over the world, and is described as ‘Prince Charming’ word-for-word by a besotted Fangirl.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: William tells Harry to "fuck off" in Canada in 1998, the first time we hear either of the brothers swearing... but in line with their generational status, it's not a Precision F-Strike like other members of the family, but just the first of many instances of both him and Harry employing the word with a more casual frequency than the entire rest of the family combined, including, amusingly, their grandpa Philip^note  who had this status in Real Life and did use the word in semi-public, but not on the show.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: On top of his status as a Prince and future heir to the throne of England, as time goes by it becomes glaringly obvious he's inherited Diana's beauty, which makes the public go even more wild, something the very shy William bemoans. He even believes that it causes issues in his relationship with his father.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Like his immeasurably popular mother Princess Diana, William soon forms an enormous global following due to his blond, film star good looks and status as a real-life fairytale Prince Charming. Camilla notes how handsome he is — and how similar he looks to his beautiful mother. Philip also comments on his resemblance to his late mother, though he takes care to note that he is not a Generation Xerox, as William is no Attention Whore and a far more grounded individual than Diana. William angrily discusses this with Charles, believing his father views him with hostility due to inheriting Diana's looks and public acclaim; Charles responds that that isn't so.
• Twice Shy: Both he and his Love Interest Kate Middleton are so naturally reticent and insecure despite being blessed with good looks and popularity that it takes months and Romantic False Leads for them to finally confess their feelings and kiss.
• Uptown Girl: Downplayed. The difference in class between William and his future wife Kate is briefly touched upon when Kate sees him out on a date with his girlfriend at the time, the blue-blooded Lola, and one of her coworkers remarks that's the only kind of girl who will only ever have a chance with him. However, since they live in a more accepting and progressive time than their parents did, none of William's family make any attempt to interfere with the budding relationship and instead encourage him in his pursuit of her.
• Unwanted Harem: Just about every teenage girl on the planet wants to jump his bones, much to his embarrassment and later aggravation. In the end, the only girl he's shown to have any serious feelings for is his future wife, Kate Middleton.
• Wild Teen Party: The brothers host a textbook one at Highgrove for William's 18th — and the young prince gets utterly paralytic, as many an English boy traditionally does.
• The Wise Prince: He struggles initially with all the attention — positive and negative — that comes with being royal, but as the series closes, William is presented as a dutiful, contemplative, and responsible heir who's attempting to follow his grandmother's faultless example.

Prince Harry

His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales

^{Click here}  to see him as a child

Played By: Arran Tinker (Season 4), Teddy Hawley (early) and Will Powell (later) (Season 5), Fflyn Edwards (early) and Luther Ford (later) (Season 6)

Charles and Diana's second son.

---

• Adorably Precocious Child: At just four years old, he sings along to Queen with tremendous gusto.
• Black Sheep: In a grim Foreshadowing of the brothers’ real-life fractured relationship, Harry acknowledges that he is the lost, frowned-upon black sheep of the family, particularly after a recent drugs-bust discovered by their father, whereas William is the perfect son and heir.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Foolish to William's responsible. While William is not without his own faults or his own wild moments, he's more grounded and sensible than Harry, whose antics escalate from smoking marijuana to attending a party dressed as a Nazi. As much as he resents the leash Charles tries to keep him on, his father's concerns are proven to not be unfounded.
• Green-Eyed Monster: One of the reasons he acts out is to get attention from his family, as most of the attention is given to his dutiful, polite older brother, whom the entire world seems to be in love with.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He does know some English history, as he mentions that William will have a better future than William II, who was killed by his younger brother Prince Harry, which current-Harry half-jokingly says he'd never do. Doubles for also showing Harry's occasional flirtations with conspiracy theories, as it's not certain that Henry I killed William II. Triples for being an extra allusion, as the Norman Prince Harry was highly preoccupied with his own status in his family, coming up with a justification for why he was more worthy than William –– although given Henry I's fame as as a scholar, the parallel stops there.
  • He expresses an interest in life and socializing outside their bubble and Gilded Cage when he asks William if he has any university friends "not from Eton"
• Historical Villain Upgrade: According to Harry in his own autobiography "Spare". He claims that he detested theme parties — especially “cringy” ones like “colonials and natives” — and that it was William who loved them and insisted Harry attend, with Kate offering to help find a costume and them all agreeing he should go with the Nazi one. In-series, it’s presented fully as Harry’s idea, and Kate questions his taste-level.
• Hypocrite: Gives a glare at the irony of the words spoken by Charles and Camilla during their wedding of acknowledging their sins and repenting, which is rich coming from his behavior.
• Mummy's Boy: Even at a young age, he's the first one to vote for Diana's scoffed-at suggestion to have a shopping trip as part of their holiday, when everyone else assembled, bar his brother, remains silent.
• Never My Fault: Harry struggles to accept responsibility for his often reckless, and occasionally downright moronic actions, and as per the stance he's taken in real-life according to his memoirs, he portions blame onto William for the fact that he wore a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party and the resulting nuclear fallout, even though it's presented as his own foolish decision.
• Only Known By His Nickname: It was announced at his birth that despite being named Henry, he would be called Harry. In a more unusual royal variation, he is known to the public as this, not just by family and intimates.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Or Politically Incorrect Villain, depending on POV, but he pushes back when William mentions "colonials and natives" isn't a great or particularly appropriate Themed Party in the 21st century, rolling his eyes at the concern and griping about how William would never have spoken like that before going to university; probably shorthand for how Real Life Harry was known to employ this sort of attitude in and after serving in the army.
• Punishment Detail: Despite other members of the family having therapists (including both his parents) and his own father recommending therapy as helpful, while many people seem to worry about Harry and his troubling behaviour, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that Harry might have benefited greatly from seeing one; instead his father forces him to visit an addiction treatment centre as a punishment for smoking marijuana, and later on, after the Nazi uniform fiasco, sets him to work mucking out the Highgrove pigs.^note  Which seems really odd, taking into consideration that in Real Life Charles made him go see a rabbi; his friend the incredibly-respected Chief Rabbi of Britain Lord Jonathan Sacks, in Harry's words, a "holy man", who gave Harry a cup of tea, a very long talk about The Holocaust that Harry says turned him from embarrassment to "self-loathing", and enough forgiveness and perspective that he told Harry he could try and do better, and Harry has indeed avoided quite this sort of absolute idiotic infamy. It's understandable if they didn't want to put it in the story, but one of the writers seems to have really fallen down when considering Rule of Symbolism and letting Harry muck a different animal.
• Red Oni: Much more outgoing and energetic of the two Princes.
• Redheads Are Uncool: With Self-Deprecation and a touch of the Green-Eyed Monster, Harry notes to William that screaming throngs of girls would never go nuts over someone with ginger hair, and William should think himself lucky.
• Sad Clown: He's the family prankster and likes to think of himself as a Lovable Rogue, though it's clear that all of his bluster and antics mask deeply-held insecurities about his role in the family and unresolved grief and trauma about the abrupt, tragic loss of his mother, fueling those insecurities.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both he and William are extremely typical teenage boys and young men and hew to this trope, employing "fuck" with a regular frequency.
• Spare to the Throne: Serves this purpose to his older brother William, just like his uncles and aunt.
• Take That!: During one their weekly audiences, Tony Blair gives Elizabeth an insight into Diana’s philanthropic activities following her divorce from Charles, relaying the princess’ wishes to let her retain her HRH title to “make a change on a broader level”. Without batting an eyelid, Elizabeth clarifies that Diana cannot be a part-time royal — “I always say it’s hard to be half in anything; you’re either in or out,” and goes on: “Diana is now learning the difference between being officially in the Royal Family and out”. The thinly-veiled comparison to Harry and his wife’s infamous real-life exit is hard to miss.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Compare his earlier appearances to his appearances as an adult.
• Upperclass Twit: Teenage Harry is presented as a flip and sardonic but vulgar and ill-mannered variation; a louche, sex-obsessed prankster with a penchant for mischief, illegal drugs, swearing in front of his elderly relatives, and hedonistic poor judgment, culminating in him infamously sporting a Nazi uniform at the "colonials and natives" Themed Party.
• Wild Teen Party: He and William host a massive one at Highgrove for William's 18th; Harry naturally parties harder.