Original subtitles

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!

God save the Queen!

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]

[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.