The Crown S4 Part 2


 “The Balmoral Test” is the meeting between Prime Ministers and the Royal Family. Margaret Thatcher’s stay in Balmoral is dominated initially by the hunting of a Stag which has been wounded on a neighbouring estate and stumbled onto Balmoral. So the rules of whatever dictate that it must be pursued only by the Royal Family. At the same time Lady Diana Spencer is in Charles’ life, he having met her in episode one as he romances her older sister Sarah.

The Thatchers don’t really fit in with rural life or Royal Life. In stalking the Stag, Thatcher joins the Queen but her footwear is as unsuitable as her blue outfit, and she retires to be schooled by Princess Margaret, who is the one that doesn’t mince words. The whole gathering does come together to play a ridiculous parlour game, and it’s here where Thatcher seems most out of place. 


This sense of being out of place goes to The Crown’s take on Thatcher: She considers the extended ‘break’ to be a waste of time which could be better spent fixing the state of the country. One of her speeches coins the verb “wet” as applied to her Cabinet. She opposes privilege, and actually confronts The Queen about entitlement and privilege, which certainly is a courageous sell. Thatcher goes on to wield her pen and get rid of those Cabinet Ministers who she thinks look down upon her, and oppose her economic thinking. The point in the episode where Gillian Anderson disappears entirely into a depiction of Thatcher at her most radically fiscally conservative is like ASMR for Milton Friedman stans.


Which leaves Charles and Diana. Diana passes the test that Thatcher fails, even though it’s not really a test on her. The Queen and Prince Philip—everyone really has Charles’ love live on one side. Camilla is on the scene, of course, and it’s accepted that Charles has rather foolishly dallied with her but it’s never going to become anything much. Diana on the other hand partakes in the killing of the stag, thus ingratiating herself to the Duke. This is part of the story where the series is going to have its greatest challenge: the early 80s “Charles and Di” was all tea-towels and the awkward interview is going to be weird viewing in the context of what happened, and particularly given that the Diana interview is now back in the news, with the BBC reinvented at the villain of the peace.

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