female narrator: Elizabeth II is preparing
for her coronation.
Soon she will be crowned Queen.
[choir singing]
She is just 27 years old.
The future of the House of Windsor
rests on her shoulders.
- All of us here know
that we are present at the making of history.
narrator: As the Queen takes her first cautious steps
as monarch, she is torn between the palace old guard
led by her mother...
and those like her husband, Philip, who want change.
With scandal swirling around her sister Margaret
threatening to tarnish her reign,
the Queen must assert her power...
sacrificing the happiness of those she loves.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
February 1952--
Elizabeth II has been Queen for just a few days
following the death of her father, King George VI.
- Shortly after the King's death, Lord Mountbatten,
Prince Philip's uncle, holds a dinner party at Broadlands,
his house in Hampshire.
narrator: Lord Louis Mountbatten
played a key role in the young life of his nephew Philip.
- When Philip's a child, the Greek royal family
are deposed, and they flee to exile.
And really, his father has no time for him.
- Louis Mountbatten takes over as Prince Philip's guardian.
And so he sort of sees him as his son, really.
- Lord Mountbatten had always had dynastic ambitions
for his nephew Philip.
He was like some sort of medieval character
plotting the advance of his own dynasty.
narrator: Lord Mountbatten makes a radical pronouncement.
The House of Windsor should take Philip's name.
♪ ♪
- Mountbatten asks everyone present to raise a glass
to the House of Mountbatten,
implicitly saying the House of Windsor is dead,
the House of Mountbatten is the next monarchy.
♪ ♪
- But what he hadn't reckoned with
was the wall of opposition from the really formidable
Queen Mary, who was Elizabeth's grandmother,
and she took a very dim view of it.
- "What has this damn fool got to do with the name
of this House?"
- Queen Mary's husband, George V,
was the King who'd begun the House of Windsor.
- Queen Mary goes to Winston Churchill and said,
"Look, this is what Mountbatten is plotting."
- My grandfather was extremely alarmed and upset.
- People are suspicious of Mountbatten.
They're suspicious of his role, of him moving forward,
trying to influence the Queen and Prince Philip.
- It's a huge dilemma for the Queen.
She knows how much it means to Philip,
but on this occasion,
she has to side with Churchill against her husband.
- And, indeed, it came to cabinet,
who decided that the royal house
would remain the House of Windsor.
- I think one has to remember
just how young the Queen was at this time.
She had no experience of being Queen,
and so of course she's going to listen
to the Prime Minister.
- Winston Churchill was a friend of her father's,
and he was the man who people saw as having won the war.
- He's an incredibly formidable figure,
and the idea that this very young, almost childlike Queen
should defy the Prime Minister,
that is completely off limits.
narrator: The Queen issues a proclamation.
The name of the royal house will remain Windsor.
For the first time in British history, heirs to the throne
will take their family name from their mother
and not their father.
- For Philip,
this is a terrible, terrible humiliation.
- A typical marriage at that social rank in the early 1950s
would be one with a superior husband
and a charming, deferential wife.
Had Prince Philip married anybody else,
that's what he would have got.
- He thought to himself, "Well, there's no other father
"in the United Kingdom who can't give his own name
to his own children."
- "I'm just a bloody amoeba," he said.
It's a terrible slight to his masculinity.
♪ ♪
narrator: And there's more humiliation to come.
- While all this turmoil is going on,
Prince Philip at least has one thing which he can cling to,
one place where he can feel sort of safe
and which is his own, which is Clarence House.
- Prince Philip's idea is, "We stay at Clarence House,
and you work from Buckingham Palace."
- But Tommy Lascelles, the Private Secretary,
and Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister,
overruled him.
narrator: The Queen agrees and moves her family
into Buckingham Palace.
- Adding to the Duke of Edinburgh's frustration
is the fact that when they arrive at Buckingham Palace,
still living there, of course, is his mother-in-law.
- The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth,
was very reluctant to leave.
- So that's never easy, however big a place is.
And, you know, she'd been Queen of England.
So that was quite awkward, all that situation.
- The Queen Mother and Prince Philip are not
natural soul mates.
She would have seen him as a sort of brash,
kind of independent type of person.
He would have seen her as very conservative.
- The Queen Mother has a huge amount of influence
over her daughter and says, "I know how things are done."
narrator: The Queen retains her parents' courtiers.
These royal advisors are traditionalists,
determined to keep an iron grip
on the running of the palace.
- And, of course, these courtiers think that because
the Queen is just a woman, she's a young woman,
that they can have all the influence because she'll be
so easy to control, and Philip is shut out.
♪ ♪
- For quite a macho chap,
that secondary role, always a step behind his wife,
I think was a difficult role.
- He was observed to be at a very low ebb.
He just seems very depressed.
- The Queen realized that Philip has to do something.
She can't expect a man of his energy to be unemployed.
narrator: Against the advice of the palace old guard,
the Queen puts Philip in charge of organizing
the ceremony in which she will be officially crowned.
- St. James's Palace was the meeting place
of the newly appointed Coronation Commission,
presided over by the Duke of Edinburgh.
He was received by the Duke of Norfolk,
Earl Marshall, and Deputy Chairman.
- These courtiers, they have very, very traditional ideas
about how things should be done.
They want everything to stay exactly the same.
But Philip thinks the Royal Family
needs to modernize to survive.
- Now Philip's been put in charge,
and things are going to change.
They are on a collision course.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
[fanfare plays]
narrator: June 1953--
journalists from around the globe descend upon London
to cover Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
- The world's finest equipment will be used,
including the largest telephoto lens in the world,
to bring the complete magnificent spectacle
to this theater.
♪ ♪
narrator: Months earlier, the BBC had made
an unprecedented request--
to televise the coronation, live.
Previous ceremonies had been filmed
but always edited, before being broadcast.
- The Queen's instinct is to exclude
television from the abbey.
She feels that the whole coronation
is going to be an enormous strain,
and to have her every movement spied upon by the lens
was too much for her.
She thinks, "I really don't want this."
- And, of course, with the courtiers,
there's a lot of snobbery.
- There's a terrible feeling that people might be watching
the coronation in unsuitable modes.
They might be having their feet on the sofa
and not being sufficiently dignified.
narrator: The Queen agrees with her advisors.
Buckingham Palace announces the coronation
will not be broadcast live.
There is a public outcry.
- The British newspapers, notably the "Daily Express"
and the "Daily Mirror," both take the side of the public.
They suggest to their readers that the politicians
and the Palace don't want you to see the coronation,
and, if you like, they stir up trouble.
narrator: But the BBC, the press, and the public
have a surprising ally.
- Prince Philip felt very strongly
the coronation should be televised.
He could see times were changing.
You couldn't continue to do things
behind closed doors all the time.
He understood that this was an unbelievably good opportunity
to make the nation feel closely connected to the monarchy.
- There is, and always has been,
an interesting difference between the Queen
and the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Queen is naturally a conservative individual.
She believes in tradition.
She likes to do things the way they've been done before.
The Duke of Edinburgh is dynamic.
He's forward-looking. He's a young man in a hurry.
- She was anxious, but Philip tries to persuade her
that this is a way for her to reach millions and millions
of her subjects.
- He plays a key role in helping to bring the Queen
round to the idea and make her comfortable with it.
- Eventually she says yes.
[upbeat music]
narrator: On Coronation Day, crowds line the streets,
hoping for a glimpse of their queen.
♪ ♪
And across the nation, people gather to watch it
live on television.
- Now, like a great seventh wave,
the cheering grows to its climax.
Into the forecourt of the Palace comes the gilded coach,
bearing the young queen to her crowning.
♪ ♪
- We were waiting in Westminster Abbey,
and we suddenly hear this roar.
And then slowly round the corner came this golden coach.
It was like a sort of Walt Disney film,
absolutely extraordinary.
And there we saw the Queen for the first time.
Her dress was so beautiful.
The train had little satin handles under it,
so it sort of flowed over our hands.
- We then all got in place,
and then the Queen turned round
with a radiant smile and said, "Ready, girls?"
We said, "Yes, ma'am." [chuckles]
And off we went.
[orchestral music playing]
[choir singing]
♪ ♪
- All the peers and the peeresses
were all dressed up in their ermine.
It was like a medieval tapestry.
- She comes now to the altar to confirm before God
the promises which she has made.
- The coronation is a very ancient religious ceremony.
And at the heart of it, there is this sacred rite
of the anointing of the monarch
by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
- There you saw her.
She looked very vulnerable and alone.
And I thought, "Goodness, what a weight
is on this girl's shoulders," 'cause she was only a girl.
- It is the moment of the anointing...
a moment so old,
history can scarcely go deep enough to contain it.
- The anointing means so much to the Queen
because she truly believes that she has divine sanction
for her power, that she was chosen by God.
- The anointing with the holy oil--
it's a symbol, really,
which I think she felt changed her
from being an ordinary person into being a queen.
all: God save the Queen!
- 2/3 of all adults in the UK are tuned in via television
to the coronation.
- People were thrilled, and everybody crowded
around these miniscule television sets to watch.
- This was completely revolutionary that people
could get up close and personal with the Queen.
- 27 million people watched this ceremony.
The use of the new medium of television,
it vindicates Prince Philip,
and it vindicates the idea
that we need to modernize the monarchy.
- The coronation was a magnificent pageant.
But as people were coming out of the abbey,
a little event took place,
which was to cause the Queen terrible anguish
in the years to come.
narrator: When Queen Elizabeth's
younger sister, Princess Margaret,
is caught shattering a royal taboo,
it threatens to undermine the monarch's young reign.
[dramatic music]
narrator: The coronation is a triumph for the young queen.
But as the guests leave Westminster Abbey,
an incident takes place
that jeopardizes Elizabeth's reign
before it's hardly begun.
♪ ♪
- The Queen's sister, Princess Margaret,
was seen brushing a bit of fluff off the uniform
of a household official, a senior household official.
- She picked it off his uniform,
but it was such a loving gesture.
- Standing nearby is a very sharp-eyed journalist,
and she recognizes
that this is an act of such intimacy...
that there is something going on
between Princess Margaret
and royal servant Group Captain Peter Townsend.
♪ ♪
narrator: It's a scandal.
Peter Townsend is not only a royal servant,
he's also 16 years older than the princess
and divorced with two young children.
- There is a horror of divorce in the royal family.
They regard divorce with a sort of...
almost superstitious dread.
narrator: 17 years earlier, the Queen's uncle,
Edward VIII, abdicated to to marry American divorcée
Wallis Simpson.
♪ ♪
Elizabeth's father reluctantly took on the throne.
♪ ♪
- I think we have to remember that the Queen is not only
a devout Christian, but she's also the head
of the Church of England.
- The Church of England at this time
does not recognize divorce.
It means that the Queen is very conflicted.
- The Royal Court reacts very badly
to the news of a romance between Margaret and Townsend.
- But a lot of ordinary people very much sympathized
with Margaret and Townsend, and I do think
that the senior courtiers were really rather out of step
with the mood of the nation.
- So, when the press does start talking about it,
there's a great divide between those who think
divorce is unacceptable and those who feel
"let love prevail."
♪ ♪
- Margaret's profile in the 1950s
is of a beautiful,
iconic princess.
- She was a real star.
Really, almost like the Hollywood stars.
- She's very beautiful. She photographs marvelously.
She's always in the papers,
and there is constant speculation,
"Who is the Princess' favorite suitor?"
- Peter Townsend was a war hero--
very good-looking.
- He was known as this dashing Air Force pilot.
His reputation was a wonderful one.
- Margaret desperately wants to marry Townsend,
but the problem is that she is 22,
and any member of the Royal Family
under the age of 25
needs to have the consent of the ruling monarch.
The decision is not in Margaret's hands,
it's in the hands of her sister, the Queen.
♪ ♪
- The Queen is in a terrible bind, really, over this,
'cause she loves her sister.
She would like her to be happy.
But the Queen's instincts were
not to do anything that would undermine the monarchy.
The Royal Family traditionally was supposed to be an image
of ourselves behaving well.
And if the Royal Family started to behave badly,
then it could cut at the root
of the people's loyalty to the crown.
- So, once that image of kind of perfect family life
becomes tarnished,
can we justify all that taxpayers' money going on them?
♪ ♪
narrator: Margaret's fate lies in her sister's hands.
- The Queen decided to say, "I'm not saying no,
that you can't marry him, but I'd like you to wait."
♪ ♪
narrator: On the advice of her courtiers,
the Queen agrees to banish the man her sister loves.
- The British Embassy in Brussels recently attracted
a number of cameras, which focused on the arrival
of Group Captain Peter Townsend,
having driven his own car from Boulogne,
to take up his new appointment as air attaché.
narrator: Peter Townsend is exiled
to Belgium for two years.
- It's a case of getting rid of Townsend,
getting him out of the way.
- My father was asked to leave the country,
the country he served as a fighter pilot
during the Second World War,
and I think that was very difficult for him.
- Princess Margaret finds this incredibly hurtful.
Two years--when you're 23,
two years is a long time.
narrator: The Queen hopes she has defused the scandal.
But two years later, Townsend returns.
- Excitement bubbles like champagne in London
as Group Captain Peter Townsend returns
from diplomatic duties in Belgium
to call on Princess Margaret.
Another, possibly a climactic, phase
opens in the much-publicized royal romance
that has the Western world agog.
- Margaret is now 25
and legally able to decide who she should marry.
She doesn't need the consent of the Queen.
- The Queen does what she always does in a crisis,
which is to bury her head in the sand.
So she tries not to get involved,
to leave it to her advisors.
narrator: And her advisors,
as well as the British government,
are still opposed to Margaret marrying Peter Townsend.
- Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister, said,
"If you marry Townsend, you've got
to abandon your royal status."
- People of the city were thrilled and delighted...
- Margaret will become plain Mrs. Peter Townsend.
For somebody who's been brought up
like she has been brought up,
this is not a very alluring prospect.
For three weeks, they are harried by the press.
They go from place to place.
They're agonizingly trying to make up their minds.
- It sank into frantic sensationalism,
and the whole thing turned into a circus.
- Whenever Princess Margaret went to open a fete
or something, people in the crowd shouted,
"Go on, Maggie, marry him anyway!"
♪ ♪
- At this stage, it was still asked,
"Will they become engaged?"
- Royal duty and consideration for her sister's position
comes into her feelings very strongly.
She wouldn't knowingly do anything
that would damage the Queen
or damage the idea of the monarchy.
- Princess Margaret wavered, I think, tremendously.
One moment she thought she could.
The next moment she thought she couldn't, you know?
narrator: Finally, on October 31, 1955,
Princess Margaret issues a statement.
- We are interrupting programs for a special announcement.
"I would like it to be known that I have decided
"not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend.
"Mindful of the Church's teaching
"that Christian marriage is indissoluble,
"I have resolved to put these considerations
before any others."
- I think there was a sadness for a long time after that.
I mean, I always think that the first person
that one falls in love with--
one always has a twinge of regret,
a sort of longing, you know?
And I think the first person you fall in love with
is something rather special.
narrator: Princess Margaret sacrificed her happiness
for the institution of monarchy.
♪ ♪
But soon, the Queen's own marriage
will suffer the same scrutiny.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Philip and Elizabeth are a golden couple.
They're young. They're beautiful.
Already they have a very practiced double act.
But behind scenes, the people around the Queen
can sense that he's restless.
♪ ♪
narrator: Philip is struggling with living in the shadow
of his powerful wife.
- Her idea was that she would wear the crown,
but he would wear the trousers.
You know, he organized the home.
He decided where the children should go to school.
All the domestic matters were decided by Prince Philip.
Here is a young, spirited man--
huge energy, his whole world becomes circumscribed.
And, of course, he does itch for a bit of freedom.
- He let off steam by going to what was known
as the Thursday Club in Soho, which was more or less
the red-light district, actually, of London.
- The Thursday Club is a predominantly sort of,
you know, male luncheon club.
It was a place where Prince Philip felt
he could sort of escape and let his hair down in private.
And there was a lot of drink drunk
and a lot of dirty jokes told
and a general sort of air of dissoluteness.
- And of, course, Prince Philip
occasionally would go out of an evening with friends,
and once or twice, he found himself, you know,
in a nightclub late at night.
He was seen dancing with an attractive young actress.
He might only have met her that evening.
But some of his behavior was considered a bit fast
and reckless by courtiers at the time.
narrator: But the British press,
deferential towards the Royal Family,
largely ignores rumors of Philip's partying.
- It's a very difficult problem for the Queen.
Because of the way that she'd been brought up
in this royal bubble, she had no idea
of the sort of Bohemian world
that existed outside the walls of Buckingham Palace.
- And we get a slight feeling, I think,
within the royal marriage of a kind of separateness.
- So, when he came back
smelling rather heavily of drink,
I think she was uneasy about it,
and she retreated rather into herself.
♪ ♪
- And there to see off the Duke of Edinburgh
are the Queen, Princess Anne, and the Duke of Cornwall.
narrator: In October 1956,
Philip leaves for a solo tour of the Commonwealth,
triggering widespread speculation.
- The official reason for it is that he's opening
the Olympic Games in Australia.
But he's away for about four months
and very, very slow to come home.
- Even at the time, there were people asking questions
about why the Duke of Edinburgh was away for so long.
Was he trying to get away from the Queen?
What was happening?
To that is added a scandal--
not just a whiff of scandal, but a real scandal.
- A shadow falls on the last stages
of the Duke of Edinburgh's tour.
Lieutenant Commander Michael Parker,
his friend and secretary, has resigned.
- Mike Parker,
who was Prince Philip's private secretary,
leaves the tour early.
He's actually being divorced by his wife for adultery.
- Certain London papers have given front-page publicity
to his family troubles.
- So what's going on here?
I mean, his best friend is getting divorced.
He's his closest companion and ally.
Is something similar going on in the life of Prince Philip?
- Mike Parker had introduced Prince Philip
into this slightly disreputable Soho world,
and people think, "Well, you know, they're all at it
in the Thursday Club."
- This led to an enormous amount of rumor
and speculation that the Duke was playing away from home,
you know, that he was having affairs.
- In the 1950s, divorce is seen
as a form of social suicide.
And I think in the Queen's social network,
the expectation was that whatever happened,
you had to, you know, put up with it,
grit your teeth, and carry on.
- The rumors that there might be cracks
in the Queen's marriage
threatened to undermine the moral authority
of the monarchy in British society.
- Well, the usual response of Buckingham Palace
to speculation about the royal marriage
is basically neither to confirm nor to deny.
- But Buckingham Palace felt that it was important
to just lance the boil,
and they did issue a statement
saying there is no royal rift.
♪ ♪
- There was a concerted effort, both on their part
and on the part of the establishment,
to show that their relationship,
and therefore the monarchy, was a unit.
narrator: In a public display of commitment to her husband,
the Queen honors Philip with a more senior title,
elevating his status within the Royal Family.
- Before he married the Queen,
he was Prince Philip of Greece.
Then he was made the Duke of Edinburgh.
But as a direct result of this controversial trip
to the Commonwealth,
the Queen made her husband a prince
of the United Kingdom.
That's when he became Prince Philip.
- We don't actually know what went on
inside their domestic lives because everybody
is magisterially discreet about it.
Shortly after that, two more children were born--
Prince Andrew and Prince Edward--
living proof that they had a solid relationship.
narrator: But the Royal Family is soon under attack again,
and this time the criticism is leveled at the Queen.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
narrator: Summer 1957--
a once deferential British press has a new target...
Queen Elizabeth.
- John Edward Poynder Grigg,
2nd Baron Altrincham, is in hot water.
In an article in his journal,
"The National and English Review,"
he voices criticisms of the Queen and her court,
which roused the wrath of much of the national press.
narrator: The attack comes from a committed monarchist.
Lord Altrincham is the son of a former royal courtier.
- I think my father had real concerns
in a world where republics had become the norm
and monarchy the exception,
that the monarchy would become seen as an anachronism.
- Lord Altrincham is very unhappy
with the stuffy, old-fashioned way
in which the monarchy is run.
He's critical of the courtiers,
the old guard around the Queen.
And he's particularly critical of the words they put
into the Queen's mouth.
- I thank you for inviting me and my husband here tonight
and for the kind references you have made to my family.
- He said that she was forced to speak platitudes
and that she spoke in the voice of a priggish schoolgirl.
- I give you the toast of the Royal Air Force.
all: The Royal Air Force.
- These criticisms were received
with absolute horror by the Palace.
- It was absolutely not done to criticize the Queen
in the 1950s.
She was almost a deified figure.
- The tabloid press, in particular,
sensationalized it and represented him as a traitor.
He was given a fierce grilling on national television.
As he was leaving the broadcasting studio,
he was struck quite hard round the face
by a member of the League of Empire Loyalists.
- But one or two of the courtiers said,
"Altrincham has a point.
"We really must begin to move the monarchy
"in a slightly more modern direction,
"that is less looking to the past
and more looking to the future."
♪ ♪
narrator: Once again, the Queen is torn
between maintaining tradition
or reinventing her monarchy.
♪ ♪
Two months after Altrincham's very public critique,
the Queen arrives in America on an official visit.
- New York's ticker tape greeting
is like nothing else on Earth.
Among it, there is quite a lot of real confetti,
so that after the first few yards,
the Queen looks like a bride again.
narrator: She uses the trip to experiment
with a more informal way of interacting with the public.
♪ ♪
- When it was announced that the Queen was coming to see
a University of Maryland football game
and visit a shopping center in the area,
it sort of caught you by surprise.
- Following the criticisms made by Lord Altrincham,
the Queen seeks to sort of modernize
and update her style.
♪ ♪
- She took a lot of time greeting people,
shaking hands--
fascinated by the size of the grocery store,
fascinated by the carts,
by the way people shopped and got food and everything.
♪ ♪
- The whole thing was extraordinary alien to her.
She's shy, she's very stiff, but she tries.
- What's happening here is something
that's very characteristic of Queen Elizabeth,
which is that when people criticize, she listens,
and she changes.
narrator: But will this modern Queen
approve of her sister's latest romance?
Four years after parting from Peter Townsend,
Princess Margaret has a new and unconventional boyfriend.
- Tony Armstrong-Jones is a brilliant photographer.
Long before he meets Princess Margaret,
he's made his name.
He has a very good social background,
but he's not an aristocrat.
Tony is absolutely at the cutting edge
of the approaching '60s revolution.
♪ ♪
- The 1960s is a decade that witnesses
great social, cultural, and political change in Britain.
There's a real liberalization,
in terms of how ordinary people are behaving.
- Tony wears a polo neck sweater when he goes out
instead of a collar and tie.
His assistants have to stitch up his jeans so tightly.
Tight jeans were just coming in then.
- He was a real breath of fresh air--
completely different from anybody she'd known
or gone out with.
Of course, he had huge sex appeal,
huge sex appeal.
- Tony has a room in Rotherhithe.
It overlooks the river. It's old and romantic.
It's a place he can get away from everybody.
And he takes her down there on his motorbike.
- Can you imagine a royal princess
getting on a motorbike and driving down to a flat
in Rotherhithe?
[chuckles] It's quite--
sort of unthinkable, really.
- Tony would cook perhaps a steak and salad,
and Princess Margaret would then put on the rubber gloves
and do the washing up.
[orchestral music]
- When the announcement of the betrothal was made
from Clarence House,
the reaction everywhere was not only one of surprise
but also of the greatest pleasure
throughout Britain and all over the world.
- It was a tremendous shock to everybody.
We all expected her to marry some aristocrat or other,
you know, because in those days,
they didn't really marry commoners.
[sweeping music]
- It was a very happy wedding.
I mean, by that time,
we were used to the idea of her marrying him,
and we were thrilled.
♪ ♪
- Since Westminster Abbey was first built on Thameside
there can hardly have been a more beautiful May wedding
than this.
♪ ♪
- The Queen likes Tony very much.
He is very personable. He can be extremely charming.
- The Queen was delighted that her sister had found somebody
that was going to look after her and love her.
♪ ♪
- But some people can see
that this is not going to be a marriage made in Heaven.
- Tony very much embraced the sexual freedoms of the '60s,
every way, really, you can think of.
Loads of girlfriends and, I think, a few boyfriends.
He did lead, we have to admit, a rather louche life.
Many of the Court had heard stories
of Tony's goings on.
They were frightened that he might mar the Princess
in some scandal.
♪ ♪
- Here they are, intensely in love, wildly in love,
but there is danger ahead.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
narrator: By the mid 1960s,
the Queen and Prince Philip are increasingly eclipsed
by Princess Margaret and her husband, Tony.
- In 1965, Margaret and Tony go off to the States
for a three-week, five-city tour.
This glamorous couple
take the United States by storm.
♪ ♪
narrator: They are on an official visit
representing the Queen
and are treated like movie stars.
- Margaret is possibly the first royal celebrity.
She and Elizabeth Taylor
are the two most photographed women in the world.
- They touch down in San Francisco to mobs,
and the best glimpse that they got of them
was when they took a ride
on the famous San Francisco cable cars.
- Appealing to the Americans is the fact this
is a very informal visit, and every newsreel, newspaper,
and TV company did its best
to supply the all but insatiable demand
for pictures.
- People were running alongside the cars,
just trying to get a glimpse or something.
narrator: Princess Margaret's next stop
is the epicenter of fame and glamour--
Hollywood.
She and Tony tour the movie studios.
- Hollywood may be the city where dreams are made,
but it doesn't leave much time to relax.
- They received an open-arm welcome
on the set of the Hitchcock film "Torn Curtain."
They're meeting Paul Newman and Julie Andrews,
and Margaret, who loves the stars,
is just in seventh heaven.
They are having a ball.
- Just as they like to party back in London,
they also like to party in the States,
and they never gave up for the entire trip.
- Hollywood laid out its red carpet in what was perhaps
the most important social event
in its illustrious history.
It was the night the real-life princess and her prince
went to a Hollywood ball.
- They were usually the last to go at parties.
They stayed till 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m.,
when everyone else was exhausted.
♪ ♪
After one very select party, Princess Margaret,
it was reported, was a little bit indisposed the next day.
- There is considerable criticism in the British press
that they are partying a lot.
narrator: When news breaks
of Margaret's extravagant behavior,
the Queen faces a serious problem.
- In the 1960s,
the Royal Family are essentially funded
through public payment.
That is essentially taxpayers' money
that is reallocated to the Royals.
And the public start wondering,
"Why is it that we're paying
"for Royals to go and enjoy themselves, cavorting abroad?
Are we getting value for money from the Royal Family?"
- The Royal Family is having some image problems.
[upbeat music]
narrator: By 1968, the Queen understands
she needs to transform public perception of the monarchy.
She approves the filming of a documentary about her family.
♪ ♪
Elizabeth, Philip, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward
will be the subject of a television special
following them over the course of a year.
♪ ♪
- The idea of a fly-on-the-wall documentary
is seen as a good way for the Royal Family to demonstrate
that they are an ordinary modern family
and that the Royals were value for money.
Philip, being the modernizer that he is,
encourages the whole thing.
[lively music]
- And I had the most terrible trouble in keeping--
You know, he had short body, long arms...
[laughter]
And I had the most appalling trouble.
[laughter]
- This is an intimate glimpse of the Royal Family,
so we're going to be introduced to them as personalities
as opposed to distant personas.
- The salad is ready.
narrator: The documentary is the first time the Queen
has allowed her family to be filmed in such a relaxed
and informal way.
- [speaking indistinctly]
- The barbecue scene caught everybody's imagination,
I think, 'cause it was about as cozy a family scene
as I think one could imagine.
Prince Edward sitting on the top of a Land Rover
and Charles making a salad dressing.
- Oh, why have they done that?
- I thought it was a nice thing to do,
just to show, you know, they're different
but not so different as all that.
They're still family people.
- And the other one was to see her taking Prince Edward
into the shop at Balmoral to buy him an ice cream.
- Well, would you like to go and get one?
[chuckling] Just a ten. It's all I've got.
- One of the golden rules had been that their conversation
was not to be recorded when they were out and about
doing public events.
- May we offer you... - Exhange.
- A very small... - Ah, well, I am...
- Token as a memento of your visit here?
- So the public saw and heard them, I think, in a way
which was entirely new.
- The public are ecstatic.
They've never believed that the Queen,
Prince Philip, and their children
could be just like them.
- Huge ratings-- I think 24 million people
in Britain watched.
And then the extraordinary thing about it,
the puzzling thing is that now you cannot see it at all.
- It's been almost sort of wiped from the archives.
And I think that was a tipping point
at which members of the Royal Family felt
that perhaps they had let their guard down too much.
- The point of the Queen is there's mystique about her,
and if you get too close and find out too much,
you lose that,
and I think that was something that worried them.
- There is this terrible balance
that they've got to strike
between being extraordinary and being ordinary.
And they came to the conclusion
that they were being too ordinary.
- The Queen succeeds in withdrawing the documentary,
but by then, it's really too late.
The damage is done.
- The public and the press have got a taste
for this more intrusive style of royal coverage.
After the 1969 documentary,
we see a much more explosive form of media coverage
develop very quickly,
which is set on exposing the impropriety that exists
behind closed palace doors.
[dramatic music]
narrator: Next on "The Windsors"...
- Charles had no choice in his life at all.
- Everybody is pressuring him to find a wife.
- But this was not a love match.
- Till death us do part. - Till death us do part.
- Diana feels lost and abandoned.
- She was so thin. She was painfully thin.
- She is, in essence, a ticking time bomb.