Original subtitles

Your Majesty.

Everyone at the Post Offce s delghted wth the new profle ma'am

whch they feel to be an elegant reflecton

of Her Majesty's transton from young woman to...

OId bat?

Mother of four and settled soveregn .

The Postmaster General hmself commented that the two mages

the young and the slghtly older queen,

are almost dentcal .

Postmaster Bevns s very knd .

He's also a barefaced lar.

Just the tnest changes, n the har--

A great many changes.

But there we are.

Age s rarely knd to anyone.

Nothng one can do about t.

One just has to get on wth t.

But somehow Harold Wilson had to inspire the electorate

to thrust a wedge into the Tories to win the floating vote for Labour

and stop the Liberals stealing too much of the cake.

Sir Alec's position could likewise be affected by the Liberals.

They've had quite a revival.

In the 1 950 election the Labour majority crumbled.

Some of øs great figures were already %.

The pressures of Korea and rearmament were growing.

It's never easy to fight an election...

-Louder please. -Sr.

Your opponent's promises often seem so much more enticing.

There are so many unknowns.

Even the weather can wash your hopes down the gutter.

At once Harold Wøson 's life changed.

Oh no!

What?

Wnston's had another stroke.

-Oh poor old thng . -I'Il go and see hm today.

You do know f that man wns today he'Il want us out.

-Who? -WIson .

Half hs cabnet would be made up of rabd ant-monarchsts.

They'd want our heads on spkes.

Except I doubt they speak French

n Halfax or Huddersfeld .

- The old order. -Or wherever he's from .

The old boys' network the cosy...

I even heard a rumour that he's a KGB spy.

Mr Wlson? That's rdculous.

That hs predecessor, H ugh Gatskell was posoned by the Russans,

so that ther man mght take over.

-Who dd you hear that from? -A frend of mne at the Iunch club.

He had a whole theory

about WIson beng turned whle on a trade msson to Russa.

Sad he even had a KGB code name. "OIdng ."

Well , f you know t and your chum knows t,

obvously M I5 wll know t

and they must have come to the concluson that Mr Wlson was fne,

or they would have done somethng about t.

U nless they never expected hm to get ths far.

-. . . The ruthless application -No one dd .

Of scient%c techniques in Soviet industry...

can see clearly that only the state should have this level of control.

Good morning Your Royal Highness.

Sr a remnder that Iunch s at 1 at the Mrabelle.

Tell her I'm not comng .

A Labour prime minister...

-Go on . Off you trot. -Sr.

Good mornng , Your Royal Hghness.

Who are you?

I'm new.

I'm assumng "new" s not your name.

No.

-So when I ask you-- -Volet ma'am.

Where's the other one?

The. . . The fat one.

She left, ma'am .

Nervous exhauston .

Yes?

Morning ma 'am. Lord Snowdon sends his apologies.

-What? -He 's heading out to take photographs.

-What? -Of election day.

-No! -He will try andjoin you for coffee.

No!

Tony.

Open the door.

Your Majesty Your Royal Hghness.

Sr Anthony what's all ths?

Preparatons for the forthcomng exhbton

at the Guldhall Gallery ma'am .

-Of our pantngs? -Portrature n early modern Europe.

I beleve you kndly agreed to say a few words.

-Dd I? -That was a mstake.

Probably.

-Who's that by? -Annbale Carracc .

Never heard of hm.

Ths one?

-Artemsa Gentlesch . -No, never heard of hm, ether.

Her, sr.

I'm afrad we're not great connosseurs of art n ths famly.

No, we're country people really.

-Savages. -I wouldn't say that.

But I just dd say that.

Are you dsagreeng wth me?

I've always sad , both the queen and Queen EIzabeth the Queen Mother

have a very good eye.

What? Between them?

One each .

Rght darlng .

I'm off.

Eyes Ieft.

Good luck wth Wnston .

If I am to say a few words,

I wonder f you mght gve me another of your wonderful tutorals.

Wth pleasure.

Your predecessor had very Ittle patence wth me,

whereas you've always been knd enough to make me feel f not scholarly

then not stupd whch I apprecate.

So to that end , what would you say consttutes early modern?

The end of the Mddle Ages

to the begnnng of the I ndustral Revoluton .

Roughly Iate 1 5th century to Iate 1 8th century.

And what era are we n now, do you suppose?

The frghtenngly modern?

I thnk that all depends on the result of the general electon today.

Oh yes. Have you voted? I know one shouldn't ask.

I have, ma'am .

-Conservatve. -Really?

I always had you down as a man of the Ieff.

Perhaps once. Not anymore.

-Who's ths? -Rembrandt.

An Old Man in Military Costume.

Wonderfully engmatc character.

Speakng of engmas, what do we make of Mr WIson?

-One's heard the rumours of course. -Rumours, ma'am?

Yes whlst on a trade msson to Moscow, the KGB got to hm .

Nonsense I know.

I wouldn't dsmss them so quckly.

For a young socalst to vst Russa n those days...

wth an mpressonable mnd .

It's not unthnkable he mght have been turned to more radcal deas.

But Mr Wlson s an older man now...

and I'm sure a wser one.

Harold Wilson 's life changed dramatically.

From being a prominent oppos%on pol%cian

Harold Wilson became the opposition politician.

The potential prime minister and a servant of the crown.

The Conservatives can afford to lose...

Sr the queen .

...a small but workable majority.

-Dear Wnston . -Your Majesty.

Don't move.

How are you?

Grpped , ma'am .

It's a proper nal-bter.

...key battleground seats. The Midlands...

-You thnk Mr Wlson has a chance? -I'm afrad I do.

I thnk we must face the cold wnd of socalsm

blowng through ths Iand once more.

I probably shouldn't tell you ths.

When I was prme mnster...

a young Mr WIson came to me,

askng my permsson to go to Russa.

On behalf of the...

Board of Trade.

Yes. Board of Trade.

One of the frst Western poltcans to go behnd the Iron Curtan .

I remember thnkng then we'd better keep an eye on that one.

...see a clear picture emerging of who might be the likely winner.

I can't magne what that would be lke...

havng a prme mnster one ddn't trust...

when one thnks what t was Ike wth you .

I was a terrble bully.

You were my guardan angel .

The roof over my head .

The spne n my back.

The ron n my heart.

You were the compass that steered and drected me.

Not just me, all of us.

Where would Great Brtan be wthout ts...

greatest Brton?

God bless you , Wnston .

After the generation of Conservative rule

in which we have seen recession scandal national divide...

Go on , Margot. Do us one more song .

Yes Margot. Your turn .

Jesus Chrst.

Another gain for Labour there.

We 've seen a 3. 5 percent swing from the Conservatives so far tonight.

The haves and have-nots

and the fact that neøher party

has been able to secure the confidence of a large major% of voters

is symptomatic not only of fundamental dissatisfaction with government

but of the faøure of the entire political class.

Bravo!

Thank you .

...arriving into us now.

Yes it's a Labour ga%

The Labour Party will form the next government.

People will be waking up tomorrow in a new Britain

a Britain whose destiny lies firmly in the hands of Mr Wilson.

We now go over to Transport House

where Labour staff and supporters are gathered to hear their celebration.

Sir, the protocol is as follows.

When you're announced you bow from the neck.

Frst tme you see the queen , you say, "Your Majesty."

After that t's "ma'am ." Rhymes wth "ham ."

U ntl you Ieave. Then t's "Your Majesty" agan .

Don't sit untø Her Majesty does. Don't talk until she does.

Absolutely no physical contact other than taking her hand

if and only if she offers ø.

No small talk unless she nvtes t.

At the end , she'll buzz, and I'Il come and get you .

Bow from the neck and walk back towards me.

The Ieader of the opposton , Your Majesty.

Mr Wlson .

Thank you .

Your Majesty.

The country has spoken . Your party has won the electon .

The duty befalls me as soveregn ,

to ask you to form a government n my name.

Congratulatons, Prme Mnster.

Well , I suppose I should kck thngs off wth an apology.

-Whatever for? -Well , wnnng .

I'm aware of your affecton for my predecessor,

and doubtless you'd have preferred hm to have contnued n offce.

It s my duty not to have preferences.

Well , we all do, though don't we? We can't help t. It's human nature.

And I can see the attracton of someone lke Posh AIec.

Someone you can chat wth about the racng

someone well-bred hgh-born who knows how to hold hs cutlery,

as opposed to a ruffan Ike me.

Hardly.

Stll , the country sad otherwse.

They'd had enough of the mess those Conservatves leff us,

and the havoc they wreaked .

Soarng land and house prces

race rots, sex scandals

Iarge-scale unemployment rejecton from the EEC,

and an annual trade defct of 800 mllon .

Yes t's an unenvable legacy.

What wll you do about the balance of payments? WIl you devalue?

No, ma'am .

A Labour government devalued the pound once before wth Ittle success

and my party cannot rsk beng seen as the party of devaluaton .

It s also a matter of natonal prde.

Ths s stll a great country

and the pound s a powerful symbol .

Can't have been an easy one to get used to.

What's that?

Well , you beng part of that symbol .

Your face on every con and banknote.

No.

I remember seeng my father's face on a shllng for the frst tme,

and thnkng how odd t Iooked .

At the same tme realsng

I would probably one day have to Iook at my own face.

But one never knows what destny has n store for one.

Dd you ever magne you'd be prme mnster?

-Goodness, no. -How could you have done?

-Mr Gatskell was stll such a young man . -He was.

No one could possbly have foreseen hs death .

No.

-So sudden . -Yes.

And unexpected .

Yes.

Stll , we make of our destny what we can .

I ndeed .

I'm not sure what I was expectng .

Each of hs predecessors

Churchll Eden Macmllan , even AIec,

each n ther own way was formdable.

Statesmanlke.

But WIson s nether old nor young ,

tall nor short Ioud nor quet,

warm nor cold .

He seems to have come from nowhere and s entrely unremarkable.

Best qualtes n a spy.

What dd you say?

Aren't those the best qualtes n a spy?

Well , to be forgettable unremarkable.

Not stand out n a crowd .

We used to say that about Henry, ddn't we dear?

What?

That you would have made the perfect spy,

because no one could remember havng met you .

I'd say that was margnally better

than everyone havng nghtmares havng met you !

We do tease each other.

Wth Tony one never knows qute who one's gong to get

from one moment to the next.

He's changeable.

He goes from Iovng to hatng . Mummy!

You're not lstenng .

Of course I am, darlng .

Tony doesn't hate you .

I thnk he may be startng to.

You must try not to Iet hm consume you Ike ths.

The two of you have your trp to Amerca comng up.

Yes.

You'Il be wth each other round the clock workng together as a team .

Your father and I always found those trps very bondng .

Well , I hope you're rght.

-Thank you . -Sr.

-From Margot. -Marvellous. Very good .

-How dd you know? -Margot!

Seventeen mnutes door to door. A Iand-speed record .

Is there any food Ieft or have you eaten t all? Your Majesty.

Your Majesty. A thousand apologes.

-Happy brthday, Henry! -Tony, where were you?

Oh look.

-Hello. -Tony.

Tony, darlng come and st next to your wfe.

Why would I do that? I see her all the tme.

Well , she was just sayng she sees you none of the tme.

Because he's always workng travellng or waterskng .

It's my new passon ma'am.

Your Majesty there's a telephone call for you .

-Oh t's Iovely there. -It's a ghastly lttle pond .

I thnk you'Il fnd we own that pond .

I share a speedboat there wth Smon Sansbury.

You have to wnd t up.

Well , the general dea s to stay out.

That's really charmng . EIzabeth, thank you so much .

Really, really charmng .

-Hurrah ! -That's enough .

Wnston s dead .

Fre!

Sr the CIA's drector of counterntellgence on the phone.

-I'Il call hm back. -He called on J ulet, sr.

Heads of state from around the world are arriving crowding into...

Gentlemen .

...this great mother church of the Commonwealth.

-Jm? -Martin.

A man by the name of M chael Straght has surrendered hmself to us at the DOJ .

I need to speak to a senor ntellgence offcer.

He claims to be a sleeper agent working for the Russians.

He says he has nformaton that wll uncover a senor KGB mole

at the top of the Brøish establishment.

-Where s he now? -Washington.

We can have him flown in to you by tomorrow.

We are assembled here as representng the people of ths Iand

to %n n prayer on the occason of the bural of a great man ,

who has rendered memorable servce to hs country

and to the cause of freedom .

We shall think of him with thanksgiving

that he was rased up n our days

of desperate need

to be a leader and inspirer of the nation

for his dauntless resolution and unt%ng v%lance.

My name s Mchael Straght.

And snce all men are subject to temptaton and error...

we pray that we, together wth hm

may be numbered among those whose sns are forgven ...

and have a place n the kngdom of heaven .

I attended Cambrdge U nversty...

and it was during this time that l was first approached

by members of the Communst Party.

Rght.

Rght.

I'Il confrm wth Her Majesty and come back to you straght away.

Drector General of M I5 Mr Furnval Jones Your Majesty.

Your Majesty. Thank you for seeng me.

It gves me no pleasure to tell you

that we have been approached by a former Russan agent

who has dentfed a mole at the top of the Brtsh establshment.

So t's true.

-Ma'am? -I'd heard the rumours.

I ntally I dsmssed them

but spendng tme wth hm personally n close proxmty

one had become more and more suspcous.

I ndeed .

And that he should have been able to carry on for so Iong , undetected

s a subject of enormous embarrassment to all of us.

Ths obvously needs to be handled very delcately.

That's what I've come to talk to you about,

to see f we mght fnd a way to contan t.

What? We can't do that.

Have a Russan spy n Downng Street?

Those rumours. You're talkng about Harold WIson .

-Yes. -I'm so sorry ma'am .

Yes t's wdely accepted

that repeated attempts were made by the KGB

to recrut WIson when he was younger workng on trade mssons.

He travelled to Russa a great deal n those years,

but the evdence for the Russans havng succeeded s so weak,

we dscounted t some tme ago.

And the posonng of Gatskell?

Gatskell wasn't posoned . He ded of lupus.

The fact s even f the Russans had posoned Gatskell ...

the most Ikely benefcary would have been George Brown not Harold Wlson .

WIson was not favourte to take over the Ieadershp at the tme.

We don't have a Russan spy n Downng Street?

No.

But t seems...

we do have one n Buckngham Palace.

We look at a painting and immediately want to know it.

U nderstand t.

But can anythng ever be fully understood?

Take our bearded trckster here.

A Venetan cardsharp orgnally ascrbed to Ttan ,

untl new evdence came to Ight

provng the pantng s actually by Lorenzo Lotto.

As tme passes so we Iearn .

Truths are revealed .

In the late Renaissance

painting after painting masterpiece after masterpiece

seemed full of hdden ntentons, multple meanngs.

Annbale Carracc's Allegory of Truth and Time

panted n 1 584 or 1 585.

Ths wnged fgure here...

rescues a young woman , hs daughter,

from the darkness.

He s tme.

She s truth .

And ths fgure below trampled by truth , s decet.

Carracc's message s clear.

Be patent. The truth wll out.

I'm afrad I can now confrm that the Surveyor of the Queen's Pctures

Sr Anthony BIunt, was the fourth man n the Cambrdge spy rng .

The message encoded in the painting is repeated in reality.

As with the Lotto

tme passed , and the pantng was restored

to reveal decet s two-faced .

She has a second , monstrous vsage.

And that alongsde conductng a dstngushed career as an art hstoran

and member of the royal household ...

he spent 1 5 years as an actve KGB mole,

and passed almost 2000 documents of senstve mltary secrets

to the Kremlin.

Truth may Ie beneath the surface, bured , forgotten

but tme has a way of uncoverng t.

One thnks of The Merchant of Venice.

"Truth wll come to lght.

Murder cannot be hd Iong .

A man's son may...

but at the Iength , truth wll out."

Thank you .

We had ntally hoped the nformaton was false.

We get these sorts of clams all the tme. But...

we subsequently detained and interviewed Blunt and...

l'm sad to say he has confessed.

I n full .

What's the next step?

Well , he's a trator to hs country.

He should of course, stand tral be put n prson ,

and the key thrown away qute frankly.

U nless t was felt that exposure of Blunt's treachery

could cause even more damage.

What then keepng t slent?

How?

It could have a catastrophc effect

on the reputaton of our ntellgence servces.

The fact that he had gone undetected for so Iong

whch could , n turn, serously affect our relatonshp wth the Amercans.

We're on our last reserves of goodwll wth them as t s.

One more operatonal falure

and our credblty would be completely shot.

What are they suggestng?

That we turn a blnd eye and allow a trator...

an enemy of ths country to reman free wth hs career and reputaton ntact...

just to spare M I5's blushes?

-The man should be shot. -I agree.

But nstead I have to get up and pay trbute to hm at ths exhbton .

How am I supposed to get through my speech?

I mght choke on my words.

We stand here tonight

surrounded by some of the Royal Collection 's greatest treasures...

to admire the genius of Rubens Titian Rembrandt and Holbe%

but that we are able to make sense of it all

appreciate it understand it...

speaks to the genius of another man

whose exceptonal scholarshp and vson have brought us together today.

Sr Anthony BIunt.

Thank you .

It s he who has curated ths exhbton ,

and gven meanng to mystery

and revealed what really does le beneath the surface.

I , for one had never thought of art hstory n that way.

As the art of nvestgaton

solvng rddles fndng clues

unlockng secrets.

It's been qute an educaton .

I partcularly enjoyed the portrat

whch turned out to have another person Iurkng beneath the surface.

Have I descrbed that correctly, Sr Anthony?

Or am I stumblng around n the dark as usual?

Not another person ma'am. The same person .

It was not uncommon n the early modern perod

for an artst to fnsh a portrat,

and the patron would take a Iook

and ask for a more flatterng verson of themselves.

And the artst would pant another verson over t.

So not two dfferent people.

Two dfferent versons of the same person .

Whch mght as well be two dfferent people.

The dealzed verson of themselves they want to be seen

and the Iess desrable person they really are hdden away.

There's even a word for t. Palmpsest.

That generally apples to manuscrpts ma'am .

"Pentmento" for pantngs.

Pentmento.

Well , I thnk I speak for everyone here

when I say none of us wll be able to trust

or Iook at anythng n the same way ever agan .

Prme Mnster.

Your Majesty.

I'm so glad you came.

It gves me the chance to apologse n person .

-What for? -There's no need to understand .

AII you need to know s that I msjudged you terrbly

and I'd Ike to take ths opportunty to say sorry.

Are you an art man?

-Art? -Yes art. Pantngs.

Well , actually, no. No.

I'm an economst a statstcan at heart.

I'm happest wth numbers.

You can trust numbers. They're honest.

There's no mystery,

or decepton or allegory.

You know where you stand .

What you see s what you get.

And I prefer thngs that way.

I qute agree.

H s Royal Hghness would lke to see you sr.

Excuse me a moment.

The very Ieast you could do s quetly crawl away...

not force us to Ive wth you under the same roof.

But dong the rght thng

the decent thng the honourable thng ...

you wouldn't have the fantest dea what that was.

Well , I am gong to be watchng you ,

and one wrong step, you treacherous snake...

and I wll expose you and have you thrown n %l .

I would thnk long and hard before I dd that sr.

You would do well to reflect on your own poston .

What are you talkng about?

You may remember at the heght of the Profumo sex scandal ,

there was talk of a member of the royal famly beng nvolved .

No one knew who...

but t was rumored to be a senor member of the royal famly.

Very senor.

When the osteopath at the centre of the scandal , Stephen Ward

took hs own lfe...

there was speculaton that a number of portrats

of that senor member of the royal famly had been found n hs apartment.

Naturally, a great many people were keen to get ther hands on those portrats.

Mercfully someone respected and well-connected n the art world ...

was able to make sure they ddn't fall nto the wrong hands.

I never saw Stephen Ward n any capacty other than as an osteopath .

If he made drawngs of me, he would have done so from photographs.

We all tell ourselves all sorts of thngs

to make sense of the past.

So much so that our fabrcatons

f we tell them to ourselves often enough ,

become the truth .

I n our mnds and everyone else's.

And beleve you me I'm happy for your truth to be the truth .

It would be better for everyone.

I magne how awful t would be, for example

f those pctures saw the Ight of day now.

The storm t would create.

And for what?

It's the past.

-Would you excuse me? -Of course Your Majesty.