The Crown

 Season four of the great Netflix series 'The Crown" has just come out.  I am again struck by the loving care with which the secondary characters are portrayed.  The Duke of Edinburgh (the queen's husband), Princess Anne (the rambunctious tomboy), Prince Charles (who we get to actually sympathize with), and, most of all, Princess Margaret.

I realized that one of my favorite episodes was the episode in season 3 in which Margaret and her husband visit the U.S.  The relations between the two countries were quite strained at the time, and Britain needed U.S. help to stabilize its currency.  After initial efforts to repair the relationship fell through (Johnson was not enthused about visiting Balmoral Castle, an honor never extended to JFK), the queen called Margaret, who was then in San Francisco, and asked her to visit the White House to try to repair relations.  Margaret said no way, that her husband was opening an art exhibition in New York on that day, and she had to be there for him.  Eventually the queen had to tell her straight out that this was not a request, it was a "command".

Well, Margaret and her husband did visit the White House, and they were feted at a black tie dinner.  Accounts at the time confirm much of what is depicted in "The Crown's" telling of it; the president and the princess did dance, and the president did give the advice to Lord Snowdon (the husband) about how to keep a wife happy:  "First, let her think he's having her way.  Second, let her have it."  There is no mention of the dirty limerick contest, but it is thought that that is not something that reporters at the time would have publicized.  

The depiction in "The Crown" shows Margaret making a snide comment during dinner about the late President Kennedy.  The whole room grew silent with horror, and then Johnson broke the silence with a comment and things moved on.  The Princess then made a private comment to Johnson about how stifling it was to be the number two, always subservient to a higher-up.  This definitely boke the ice and the two of them bonded from there on out.

In thinking about what it would be like to be living your life under a microscope, as the royal family does, I keep going back to a comment Gloria Steinem made when I heard her speak in the early 70s.  She said, "A pedestal is just as confining as any other small space."  That's always stuck with me.