We’ve got a little more replica bling on hand — and a lot more tempestuous romance — in “Beryl,” the fourth episode of this season of The Crown. Settle in for a look at lots of jewelry and lots of historical clarification (and if you need a quick catch-up on previous recaps, head over here!)…

We begin with Princess Margaret snarling at a society wedding. One of Margaret’s close friends, Colin Tennant, is marrying Lady Anne Coke, who served as a maid of honor at the Queen’s coronation in 1953 (and was also one of Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting). Margaret feels — well, you can see for yourself. I believe the production’s put her in their version of the Lady Mount Stephen Necklace here, a diamond riviere bequeathed to Margaret by Queen Mary (and sold at Christie’s in 2006).

As the guests leave the church, Margaret turns her snarl on the photographer who has arrived on a motorcycle and begun taking strange, artistic photos of the guests, paparazzi-style.

You guessed it: it’s Anthony Armstrong-Jones, snapping away. (He did really take photographs at this wedding.)

More traditional wedding photos are taken by Cecil Beaton, of course. This wedding actually took place on April 21, 1956 (the Queen’s 30th birthday), on the estate owned by the bride’s father in Norfolk. Princess Margaret really did attend the wedding with the Queen Mother. Here, the production’s versions of Colin and Anne are pictured with their aristocratic parents; he was the eldest son of the 2nd Baron Glenconner, and she was a daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester. Anne’s diamond necklace at her wedding garnered major press attention; one American paper described it as “an exquisite diamond necklace with pear shaped pendants.”

At the reception, Margaret sulks with one of her only unmarried friends, Billy Wallace. He was described by Margaret’s biographer, Theo Aronson, as “the most chinless-looking of the ‘chinless wonders’ surrounding” Margaret in the post-Townsend era. His father was a Conservative politician who had served as Minister of Transport, and his maternal grandfather was the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

They’re basically the only single people left in their circle, so Billy proposes marriage, which is apparently something he really did periodically over the course of his friendship with Margaret. She’s so desperate and down that she basically accepts. (This really did happen in 1956.)

Back in London, Elizabeth and Philip are reading in bed. (Nothing like a book called Bloodstock Breeding to help put you in a romantic mood.) Elizabeth says she’s heard that lots of marriages hit troubled patches ten years in. (That means it’s the autumn of 1957 in this episode, not April 1956.) She thinks they ought to have an anniversary party.

The conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Margaret, who breaks the news about the engagement. Elizabeth’s happy about the news, and she suggests that Margaret should announce it at the upcoming anniversary dinner.

We get a more precise time signature in this scene: Elizabeth and Philip are with the Macmillans, watching the Sputnik launch, which happened on October 4, 1957.

We meet Lady Dorothy Macmillan, the prime minister’s wife. She was from circles that Elizabeth was very familiar with: her father was the 9th Duke of Devonshire. She wears pearls here and glances warily over at her husband, who keeps interrupting and talking over the Queen. (Oops.)

Elizabeth’s made a slight concession to jewelry fashion here, wearing a gold necklace studded with pearls. She’s also not thrilled with Macmillan’s conversational tactics.

Later, we see the Macmillans together in a car, with Dorothy wearing a ’50s-style brooch. She references ending a relationship; she’s talking about her longterm affair with another Conservative politician, Robert Boothby. (Spoiler: not ending it anytime soon.)

Engaged and smiling for Cecil Beaton’s camera, Margaret has a portrait taken to mark her birthday. (The timeline is really screwed up in this episode. Margaret’s birthday was in August, months before the Sputnik scene. And the real Beaton portrait that this scene is based on was taken in 1950!)

But we’ve got real jewels replicated here, to varying levels of success. The Cartier Halo Tiara is almost comically oversized. The five-stranded pearl necklace was Queen Mary’s birthday gift to Margaret in 1948. (It was later sold at Christie’s in 2006.)

We get a flash of pearls and a brooch from the Queen Mother here, who is fixated on continuing to present her younger daughter as a fantasy fairytale princess.

Margaret’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, offers her own opinion on the portrait setting — she thinks a birthday portrait should reflect the sitter’s reality. “No one wants reality!” the Queen Mum barks.

(Lady Elizabeth is a really fascinating figure — she was one of Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting from the 1940s until the princess’s death in 2002. Elizabeth, who is only a few days younger than the Queen, is still alive today. She also happens to have been a niece of Harold and Dorothy Macmillan, just to emphasize how stiflingly small this social world was.)

While Margaret poses like a fairy princess, Billy Wallace is at a party hosted by Lord Blandford at Blenheim Palace, relishing the newfound female attention brought to him by his unofficial royal engagement. All the ladies love a royal fiancee, apparently!

Another houseguest, Colin Tennant, is less than thrilled with Billy’s womanizing. So, as one does when one is an eccentric aristocrat, he borrows Blandford’s pistols and challenges Billy to a duel, and he shoots him!

The next day, Margaret is getting ready for Elizabeth and Philip’s anniversary dinner — and her big engagement announcement — when she gets a message that Billy is indisposed. She barges in on his bloody drunk self and hears the whole story.

So the engagement’s over, then. Margaret, in the gigantic Halo Tiara and production-invented diamonds, can’t believe that even chinless Billy has screwed her over.

(Okay: the real story. After Billy and Margaret got unofficially engaged, he went on a trip to the Bahamas. While he was there, he had a fling with another woman. He confessed to Margaret, she was livid, and she didn’t speak to him for almost a decade. To the best of my knowledge, there were no pistols involved.)

Meanwhile, at Buckingham Palace, everyone notices that Margaret’s not at dinner.

She finally shows up alone — no Billy in tow — and everyone is wary.

Phil and the Queen Mum are visibly annoyed/nervous.

But Philip stands up to make a speech about marriage anyway.

Dorothy Macmillan, wearing teeeeeny-tiny jewelry, sends meaningful glances across the table to her husband.

The Queen has varied reactions to the speech, which discusses the difficulties of marriage. I was too distracted by the replica kokoshnik in this scene, which basically looks like a rake. (Those are production-invented diamonds paired with it.)

When Philip raises a toast to his wife, Margaret is crying. Her mother, who is wearing the same jewels that she wore last episode (the Greville Tiara replica, the Alexandra Wedding Necklace replica, and the invented earrings), is concerned.

Without waiting for the applause to finish, Margaret leaves the room entirely.

(This small anniversary celebration really did take place on November 20, 1957, at the palace. Margaret snubbed her sister mightily by not attending the dinner at all. Instead, she went with friends to see a musical, and then had dinner at the Savoy. She didn’t show up for the dancing portion of the party until close to midnight. People talked.)

Margaret goes Full Meltdown in her bedroom, with her tiara sitting beside her on her dressing table. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Angel Eyes” plays in the background, which provides a good moody soundtrack for Margaret’s background — but also links to Margaret’s genuine love for music, especially jazz.

Also having a bad time: Macmillan, who hears Dorothy on the phone with her lover.

After two failed engagements, Margaret is pretty much done.

The Queen Mother brings in the proofs from the birthday portrait session and tries to cheer Margaret up by offering other suitable marriage prospects, including Prince Moritz of Hesse and Prince Christian of Hanover, who was a brother of Queen Friederike of Greece. Pretty strange to hear a character who denounced Philip’s family as “huns” in the first season suggesting German princes for her daughter to marry, no?

Margaret’s not having any of it. Instead, she goes to a dinner party hosted by Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who is wearing an extremely interesting necklace of pearls.

Margaret’s gone for gold jewelry here, including a rather attractive ’50s-style necklace.

Guess who Margaret encounters again at the party? Yep, it’s Tony. He smokes, needles her, and points out other interesting figures at the gathering. Lady Elizabeth has assembled quite the dinner party. There’s Jeremy and Camilla Fry; he’s the heir to a chocolate fortune. (Tony knew them both very well, as he alludes to in this scene. He was the biological father of Jeremy and Camilla’s daughter, Polly.)

There’s Ken Russell, the famous film director. There’s “Baroness Frankenstein” — Valerie Hobson, the actress who later married the politician John Profumo. He’s there, too, several years before his relationship with Christine Keeler caused a sensational scandal. And then there’s the poet John Betjeman, who had a long-term relationship with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish. (In the episode, Margaret asks if it’s “really true he has two wives” — since one of the women in question was her lady-in-waiting, you’d think she’d know!) They recite some of Betjeman’s poetry together, and Margaret’s clearly hooked.

They go look at some of Tony’s photographs, which are on display in the stairwell. Margaret asks if he’ll photograph her.

So, did this party really happen? According to Theo Aronson, it did. The couple met on February 20, 1958, “at a small dinner party given by Lady Elizabeth Cavendish in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.” Cavendish knew Armstrong-Jones because he’d done some photography work with a revue she’d worked with. Snowdon’s biographer, Anne de Courcy, adds that a few months later, Margaret and Tony met again when she sat for a portrait taken by him.

The next day, Elizabeth is firmly in her Home Queen uniform of pearls-no-brooch for lunch with her sister. She’s paging casually through Tatler when Margaret tells her about Tony.

Margaret, wearing another set of ’50s gold jewelry, is clearly besotted.

And soon, she’s at his studio, having her picture taken. The show, which has played visually with light, frames, and lenses for its entire run, is clearly having a lot of fun with a photographer character.

In her biography of Snowdon, Anne de Courcy describes Margaret’s first sitting with Tony in 1958, and it’s clear that the show used it as a model for this scene: “Tony took charge of the sitting in his usual way. With the utmost politeness, he made her change her clothes, her jewelry, and her pose as if she were any other sitter, at the same time chatting away with his mixture of jokes, gossip about mutual friends, and stories of the theatrical luminaries he had photographed.” He also makes her wait alone in the studio for long minutes, just to unsettle her.

As he gets her into the pose and attitude he’s looking for, he casually tells her that she doesn’t know who she is.

(Okay, a qualm: this is a show that is very focused on characters self-reflecting — hence all of the scenes of various characters looking into mirrors and other reflective surfaces. The thing that bothers me here? Margaret’s been looking ponderously at her own reflection for more than a season now, but the show is asserting that it takes a male character to really show a woman where her true self lies. I don’t love that at all. Anyway.)

Speaking of reflective surfaces, Tony’s got a mirror in his studio that he has visitors sign with a diamond-tipped pen. (This is true.) People use nicknames, and he invents one for Margaret to use as she signs: “Beryl.” He says it’s because the name rhymes with peril, but of course I think it’s interesting that he’d give her a gemstone name. (Lots of familiar gems are actually varities of beryl. Green beryls are emeralds; blue ones are aquamarines; and light pink ones are morganites.)

And then there are some moody darkroom shots as he develops her photograph — literally producing her image.

He caps off the date with a motorcycle ride through London, evading her protection officers and nearly causing a catastrophic traffic accident in the process.

Meanwhile, at the palace, Elizabeth and Philip are on diplomatic duty. (I’d try to tell you which diplomatic people they’re hosting, but the timeline in this episode is so wacky that I have literally no idea what month or year it’s supposed to be.)

They’re bored out of their gourds. (This show is such a soap. It really, really loves passion and drama over duty. So much of the lives of royals is repetitive and boring — they can’t all go zipping around London on motorcycles with fascinating weird photographers. Who would meet with the ambassadors then???)

Margaret, on the other hand, is absolutely exuberant after returning from her date.

She puts “I Only Have Eyes For You” on the record player and boogies in her gold jewelry.

Philip and Elizabeth are united in their boredom, but the show is keen to remind us that they are still having Marital Difficulties.

We get a good look at the Lover’s Knot Tiara, the Gloucester Earrings, and the Golden Jubilee Necklace as Elizabeth is undressed for the evening. (I think the necklace is perhaps the most successful royal jewel replica presented on the show — it’s just about right.)

Down to just her engagement and wedding rings, Elizabeth continues her routine, washing her face before bed.

All the while, Tony develops Margaret’s pictures. She’s given him strict instructions on where to send at least one of the images.

Morning dawns, and everyone’s focused on the newspapers. In Paris, the Duke of Windsor giddily hands over a copy to Wallis.

These two love a scandal, especially when it’s about other people, so they’re very intrigued by the contents of the news. (Note to the Queen: look, Wallis wears brooches on her sweaters!)

“God,” Tommy Lascelles thinks, chewing on his spectacles, “will none of these idiotic Windsors just behave properly?”

The Queen Mum gets the paper along with breakfast in bed. (Note the Gloriana portrait popping up again on the beside table here, placed beside literal religious iconography on the walls.)

At Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth (wearing a lovely, production-invented flower brooch) makes this face when Philip hands her the paper.

Because, of course, Tony and Margaret have colluded to start a scandal by having the very non-fairytale portrait printed in the papers. (This picture is almost certainly based on this portrait of Margaret taken by Snowdon, and I’m so disappointed that they left off the earring.)

Time for another installment of our bejeweled recaps of The Crown, magpies! Today, we’re looking at the replica jewels and the historical realities of episode three of the second season, “Lisbon.” This episode forms a sort of a finale to the first three episodes of the season; if you’ve missed any of our previous recaps, you can find them here!

We begin with a geography lesson in the royal nursery. Elizabeth, Charles, and Anne are examining a giant, fancy globe, looking for places that Philip has visited on tour. (They’re definitely at Buckingham Palace here, which is a little odd — the Queen generally stays at Sandringham until the anniversary of her accession, February 6. Not sure when the writers intended the episode to be set.)

Elizabeth, who is wearing pearl earrings, is pleased to hear that Philip has sent several canisters of film from the tour. Maybe that camera wasn’t such a bad present after all?

A less happy delivery arrives for Michael Adeane in the press office.

Now that she’s got her evidence, Eileen Parker has officially initiated divorce proceedings. Her solicitor (who, again, apparently isn’t responsible for or doesn’t care about attorney-client privilege) has passed along the news in advance out of respect.

There’s only one person Adeane can call: TOMMY. Not sure exactly why he’s practicing with his scope in his house, but he soon has his sights on Eileen and the divorce case that could potentially ruin the royal marriage.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, the entire royal family has gathered to watch Philip’s films from his royal tour. He’s even written a little letter with commentary to accompany the home movies.

And here he is with a beard and a penguin.

Much more adorable: little Prince Charles with a penguin.

Pearl-clad Elizabeth is enjoying the footage immensely.

Princess Margaret, who is wearing more fashionable ’50s earrings, thinks that the beard makes Philip look “shifty.”

The next day, Tommy arrives at the palace to try to help Adeane clean up the Parker Situation. He runs into HM on her way out the door.

She’s wearing a gold-toned brooch with a leaf-and-branch motif — another production-invented piece. She’s a little puzzled to see Tommy there, as she’s just been given a few days off to go spend at Sandringham, but she heads off without asking many questions.

The intrepid duo of Lascelles and Adeane decide that there’s only one possible solution: try to stop the divorce altogether.

At Sandringham, Elizabeth happily writes to Philip in response to the films. She even makes a cheeky little joke about Queen Mary and King George V and husbands with beards.

On board Britannia, Philip (whose beard has officially reached “mangy” status) reads part of the letter aloud.

After their own little politically-expedient health vacation, Anthony and Clarissa Eden have returned to England. Although this episode takes place after Christmas, the Edens actually came back to the UK on December 14, 1956.

The press is less than excited to see the PM back in London.

And the cabinet isn’t thrilled, either. The meeting turns into a shouting match over the Suez crisis, and Macmillan — who had agreed with Eden in a previous episode about the need for military intervention — turns on him. Eden’s tenure as prime minister is officially doomed.

This is Elizabeth’s face when she’s informed that Eden has called an emergency audience during her Sandringham vacation.

The Edens arrive in Norfolk by train, and they’re shouted at by people on the platform.

Eden tells Elizabeth that his doctors have recommended that he resign, fearing that he’ll put his life at stake if he tries to stay in office. (Many agree that Eden’s health problems provided him with a plausible reason to resign and avoid continuing political fallout.)

Elizabeth accepts his resignation — and basically tells Eden that she knows he went to war to try to best Churchill’s legacy. (A note on the historical timeline here: the Edens went to Sandringham on January 8, 1957; they stayed the night, and then returned to London the following day. The Queen also returned to London and Buckingham Palace on January 9, and Eden officially resigned at the palace that evening.)

Back in London, Tommy Lascelles has tracked down Eileen Parker. He tries to convince her to hold off on the divorce announcement.

But no dice. He telephones Adeane to let him know that they can’t avoid telling the Queen about the Parker divorce any longer.

Adeane breaks the news to the Queen on the train back from Sandringham to London.

The Queen, wearing a feathery invented brooch, makes this face in response to the news.

But when Adeane leaves her alone, she looks considerably more pensive.

The Queen’s third prime minister, Harold Macmillan, arrives for his first audience at the palace. He’s a little more weasely in this version of reality than he really was, I think.

Sidenote: I’m really surprised that the show, which was super into government intrigue with Churchill last season, didn’t get in to the unusual way that Macmillan was chosen for the job. The Conservative party was super divided following the disaster that was the Suez crisis, and it wasn’t clear whether Macmillan (who was Chancellor of the Exchequer) or Rab Butler (who was Leader of the House of Commons) would succeed Eden. The press thought it would be Butler (and that was Eden’s choice), but the cabinet took a secret vote, and Macmillan won. Meanwhile, the Queen called good old Winston Churchill to the palace to get his opinion. (Can you believe the show actually missed an opportunity to include their favorite character???) Churchill also advocated for Macmillan. That was that — Macmillan it was.

In their initial audience, Macmillan tries to put all the blame for the Suez policy on Eden, but HM isn’t having it — she knows Macmillan was involved, too. (This audience happened in real life on January 10, 1957.)

Speaking of crises — Mike Parker finds out aboard Britannia that his wife has started divorce proceedings against him.

He interrupts Philip’s me-time aboard the ship (he’s painting a tropical bird) to let him know about the developments. Phil’s not happy — not really because of the divorce, but because Mike was so indiscreet in his letter to Baron. (Which, remember, was not actually a thing, because Baron was, well, dead.)

After meeting with her new PM, Elizabeth heads over to the Parker residence for a chat with Eileen. She offers her help, and carefully asks Eileen to delay any official filings or announcements.

But Eileen’s had quite enough of all of this royal stuff. If it hadn’t been for the Townsend affair — and her desire to help protect the monarchy — she would have filed for divorce years ago, she claims. And then she gives HM the letter that implicates Philip in the royal tour infidelity rodeo, too.

HM reads it and then quickly returns it, remaining stoic even when Eileen presses her to show some emotion in response.

The train starts rolling — Eileen’s solicitor calls the press to let them know about the Parker split.

The papers carry the news. (The Parker separation was made public on February 4, 1957.)

Mike hears about this aboard the Britannia, and he tries to convince Philip that the press coverage really isn’t all that bad. Philip disagrees, and he makes Mike resign his post right away.

According to the Age, Parker’s hometown paper (and employer of the fictional reporter from last episode, he was more proactive in his response: he “immediately” offered his resignation when “he learned that the parting was public knowledge.” A spokesperson from the palace elaborated, “Lieutenant-Commander Parker realises that the existing circumstances of his marriage make it impossible for him to carry on as the Duke’s secretary.”

When the Britannia docks in Gibraltar, Mike Parker is officially out. (This happened on February 6, 1957.)

In reality, some of the British press were highly displeased with Parker’s departure. The editorial staff of the Daily Mirror responded as follows: “Just before the Duke of Edinburgh began his commonwealth tour, the death of Baron, the photographer, robbed him of a close personal friend. Now … he has had to say goodbye to another loyal friend — Lt. Cmdr. Michael Parker. This time, it is the dead hand of palace tradition which has cut the duke off from an old comrade and servant. Cmdr. Parker and his wife have parted. Because of this misfortune — which could happen to anybody — Michael Parker has felt obliged to resign …. When is this ludicrous custom going to be changed? It is fantastic in this modern age that a man who has marriage troubles should be treated as, or made to feel that he is some sort of moral leper.”

The Queen reportedly agreed. Mike Parker himself told Gyles Brandreth, “The Duke saw me off at the airport in Gibraltar and the Queen was wonderful throughout. She regarded the divorce as a sadness, not a hanging offence … The Queen telephoned me and could not have been more sympathetic.” She appointed Parker a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order after his resignation.

Back at the palace, Tommy reveals that the foreign press has also started writing quite a lot about the Parkers — and about Philip. (This was true. The Baltimore Sun really did publish a story that accused Philip of an affair. Another syndicated story that circulated widely in American newspapers in February 1957 explained, “Parker’s resignation led to fresh talk to the effect that the duke, as well as his equerry, was having domestic trouble. There have been no reports in the British press on discord in the royal family, but newspapers have given more than usual prominence to stories concerning Parker’s resignation.” The palace famously responded with a terse statement: “It is quite untrue that there is any rift between the Queen and the Duke.”)

The Queen Mum, who is wearing pearls as per usual, wants Philip to come home right away.

Elizabeth, also in pearls, listens as Tommy disagrees — there’s another plan afoot.

Aboard the Britannia, Philip is informed that the Queen will be arriving early to help manage the marital rumors away. (Her arrival wasn’t pushed up — it was always planned. The couple were meeting up in Portugal for a scheduled state visit in February 1957.)

Philip shaves off his beard to plan for his wife’s arrival.

And he lets courtiers direct his arrival as he meets her plane in Lisbon. (This happened on February 16, two days before the scheduled state visit.)

Show Elizabeth wears the production’s “ribbon” brooch and scowls at her husband. According to Brandreth, the real scene on the plane was just a bit different in tone: Philip “was greeted by an extraordinary sight: his wife and her entire entourage, sitting in their seats, all sporting false ginger beards!”

Show Philip and Show Elizabeth make nice for the press, waving as they deplane.

But back on the Britannia, they basically rip each other’s heads off. We’re back to the first scene of the season and their epic argument.

Elizabeth, wearing another of the production’s invented brooches, asks Philip what in the world he wants from her. He says that he wants respect from the “mustaches” who run the palace.

So she gives it to him: she ends the confusion over Philip’s official status, elevating him to “the style and titular dignity of a prince of the United Kingdom.” This really did happen on February 22, the day after they returned from the Portuguese state visit. It was a response to two separate proposals from prime ministers: Churchill had suggested the change in March 1955, and Macmillan had raised the idea again in February 1957.

The upgrade was, according to the Guardian, largely a recognition of the Duke’s service to the nation and the Commonweath following the lengthy tour. The Associated Press noted that it was seen by many as a sign of the Queen’s affection — and also a show of confidence following the recent rumors.

The show stages a little mini coronation for Philip. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I really don’t think this actually happened.) Since he’s basically the main character this season, I guess that it’s time for him to get his own crown? (That’s actually a prince’s coronet.)

Elizabeth wears a rather exaggerated replica of Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik for this scene, along with their version of the Coronation earrings and an invented diamond necklace.

The Queen Mother’s there, wearing the replica Greville Tiara and replica Alexandra Wedding Necklace (and the earrings invented by the production to go with the necklace); Margaret is wearing the invented tiara that she’s worn several times, including during the coronation episode.

The Queen “crowns” Philip with his new, upgraded coronet.

She also shoves a ring on his pinky finger.

One more good view of the “kokoshnik” here — its height is exaggerated quite a bit.

The newly “crowned” Philip stands next his wife. He looks like a kid in a school play here, doesn’t he?

Frowning tiaras and robes to the left…

…and frowning tiaras and robes to the right.

Philip just makes this face as he surveys his subjects. (Just kidding! You’re not the king, Phil, deal.)

But he does get a fancy new portrait.

Cecil Beaton snaps photos. Elizabeth pulls Adeane aside during the portrait session and asks for a favor.

Seriously, she makes him shave off his mustache so that Philip will feel better. (Eye roll.)

Even after all that hoopla, Philip still looks miserable. He goes to see Mike, who’s planning to go back to Australia. Philip miserably tells him that Elizabeth wants more kids. (Cheer up, Phil — didn’t you see all that help in the very first screencap from this recap???) And apparently neither of them have learned anything from this entire episode, because they toast “to our wives and sweethearts … may they never meet.”

The second episode of this season of The Crown, “A Company of Men,” wasn’t particularly jewel-heavy, but we’ve still got plenty of fiction vs. history to unpack here. If you need to catch up on any of my previous Crown recaps or posts, you can head over here first!

It’s November 1956, and Philip’s Commonwealth tour continues. Mike Parker wields the camera that Elizabeth gave her husband as a going-away present.

News reports from the real tour note that it followed the general format of these royal visits (meeting local dignitaries, touring factories, watching demonstrations), but the show presents the tour as one physical challenge after another. Mike Parker tells us that they lost every sports contest to the locals — until they challenged them to play cricket, a game none of them had seen before. (That’s basically colonialism in a nutshell, huh?)

Mike chuckles to himself aboard Britannia as he recounts tales of their adventures to Baron, head of the Thursday Club.

But there’s a biiiiig historical problem here. Although The Crown shows Baron reading Parker’s letter to the other members of the Thursday Club, the real Baron died suddenly after an operation in early September 1956, more than a month before Philip and Mike even left for their tour. (Having a ghost read the letter would add an intriguing supernatural element to the show, I’ll admit.)

The Ghost of Baron chuckles as he reads out one sentence in particular: “What happens on tour, stays on tour!” (Ugh, Mike, come on.)

Meanwhile, the people of Britain are not pleased with Anthony Eden’s war over the Suez Canal, and they’ve taken to Trafalgar Square to air their grievances.

Dickie Mountbatten fights his way through the protesting crowd on his way to Buckingham Palace, where he dines with Elizabeth and the Queen Mother. (Still ticked that the Queen Mum has been given such a minimal role in this series. She was still a vital member of the royal family long after her husband’s death; her public engagements in 1956 included an important visit to Paris, where she opened the Franco-Scottish exhibition.)

Dickie tells them (and us) how dire the situation has gotten in public because of the war. (Like the Queen wouldn’t know this?) Fuel rationing is threatened, moral has soured, and things are almost as bad as in 1939.

Their meal is interrupted by a welcome surprise, though: Philip is on the phone! Elizabeth hurries to chat with her husband for the first time, apparently, in quite a while.

But the connection is bad, and the two do a whole “can you hear me now?” routine before Philip gives up and hangs up the phone entirely.

He heads out to address the sailors aboard Britannia, reminding them (and us) that he’s heading to Australia ASAP to open the Olympic Games in Melbourne.

Fast forward to late November, when Philip has arrived in Australia. Here’s he’s speaking at a state luncheon (probably the one held in Sydney on November 29). He’s in full “battle dress,” orders and medals and all.

He spots one particularly interesting reporter in the crowd during the speech. Mike identifies her as Helen King, a reporter for The Age, a Melbourne paper. (She appears to be fictional.) I’m pretty fond of the era-appropriate costume necklace she’s wearing here, which looks like it could be Lisner or Coro.

We jump back to London and travel back in time to November 22. The two Elizabeths watch Philip’s speech in Melbourne at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, and the Queen Mother congratulates herself on having the idea to send Philip on tour in the first place. The Queen Mum’s wearing an interesting (and, I believe, invented) brooch here with a leafy design. The Queen, sadly, goes pretty much brooch-less this episode.

Things are less happy for Eileen Parker, who has worn a knotted golden brooch to visit a solicitor, with the intention of untying the knot with Mike. (In reality, the Parkers reportedly began living apart months before the Commonwealth tour even began.)

The lawyer tries to convince her that she should stay in the marriage, and he reminds her that she’ll need evidence of Mike’s bad behavior to procure a divorce anyway. Eileen bristles and says she’ll come back with evidence. Attorney-client privilege is apparently not a thing, because after she leaves, he immediately picks up the phone to blab about the meeting.

Meanwhile, Eden has reached the limits of available pharmaceuticals to help ease his pain. His doctor is shocked when Eden asks for something stronger than pentobarbitone — a drug so strong that, in high doses, it’s used in executions.

Running out of options health-wise — and stinging from the reaction to his military response to the Suez crisis — Eden goes to the palace to let the Queen know that he’s planning on taking a little leave of absence. (This really did happen in November 1956.)

This is Elizabeth’s face when she realizes her prime minister isn’t heading to his country house for a little respite — he’s going all the way to Jamaica.

An interesting thing to note here, jewelry-and-costume-wise: the Queen’s private and public “uniforms” have pretty much merged at this point. We see her wearing the same clothes and jewels when she’s spending time with her family and with members of government. Her work self has pretty much merged with her private self at this point, it seems.

As Eden’s health crisis challenges the palace, Eileen Parker is in the midst of solving a crisis of her own. She heads down to Soho and tracks down one of the waitresses who works during the Thursday Club meetings, looking for anything that will help implicate Mike and get her the divorce she wants. The waitress balks when she’s confronted outside the restaurant.

But later, after she’s harassed, pinched, and slapped in the rear during a club meeting, the look on her face reveals that she’s changed her mind about speaking to Eileen.

(Sidenote: where can I get this dress? It’s so fab!)

Via a chain that includes a sister-in-law and a tennis partner, the news of the impending Parker divorce reaches Bertie Pelham (er, Martin Charteris) and Michael Adeane in the palace press office.

They agree that this could be a very, very bad thing, as Philip could certainly be implicated by association in Mike’s philandering. We aren’t privy to Adeane’s inner monologue, but I’d wager that it involves a fair bit of screaming.

Back on Britannia, Philip’s ego has allowed him to invite Helen King aboard for an interview (and, presumably, a little hanky-panky.) Love that she decided to dress thematically for the location.

Even though his wife, Gloriana herself, looms over his bar cart, Philip pours a little liquid refreshment for both himself and his journalistic guest.

But then Helen begins to ask probing questions — first about British politics, and then about Philip’s family. We see a bit of memory flashback as she presses him on his mother’s illness and his father’s abandonment, as well as the tumultuous assassinations and exiles that colored his early life.

We see a Young Philip in flashback: isolated, watching his mother as she’s carted off to a mental hospital, standing alone on a train platform. Helen even brings up his education and his connection to his sisters, with their Nazi ties.

Philip very quickly realizes that this entire interview was a mistake, and he responds with cold detachment to every question. (I have a strong suspicion that the writers watched his contentious interview with Fiona Bruce while working on this scene.) He ends the interview abruptly and is clearly ticked off at himself for being led by his libido rather than his brain.

It’s a dark and stormy night aboard the ship, and as the weather rages outside, Phil has a bit of an emotional breakdown in his cabin, staring moodily at photos from his childhood.

In London, the Thursday Club waitress reveals that she’s had an affair with Mike Parker, but she gets cold feet again when the solicitor reveals that she’ll have to testify in court.

Because they’ve basically got a private line straight to Eileen’s lawyer, Charteris and Adeane put their heads together to try to come up with a solution to the continuing Parker divorce crisis.

While Philip tries to lift his spirits by challenging everyone aboard the Britannia to a beard-growing contest.

In private, though, he’s still looking at pictures of his parents and thinking about all of the childhood trauma that Helen King so helpfully dredged up.

While he broods, Mike Parker comes in and lets him know that the palace has decided Philip will make a Christmas speech of his own, as a companion to the Queen’s.

As Elizabeth twists her wedding and engagement rings, Adeane tells her about the Christmas message plan. The dueling speeches will help the public to hear the couple together, even if they can’t currently see them that way. (In reality, the press announced in early November that the couple would both make Christmas speeches; Philip’s was simply the last segment in a round-the-world program called “Voices Out of the Air.”)

The Britannia receives a distress call while out at sea, because they’re the only ship in the area with a doctor aboard. They pick up a ship’s captain who has lost his vessel and crew, and they provide him medical attention aboard the royal yacht.

Philip, who has grown (an extremely fake) beard during the big contest, pulls rank and decides that the ship will go off course and off schedule to return the injured man to his home island.

They receive a heroic welcome from the man’s family and community as he’s brought home.

So, did this really happen on the tour? Well — sort of. In January 1957, the Britannia really did travel 200 miles off course to retrieve an Argentine sailor who was suffering from appendicitis. They removed him from his ship, the Mabel Ryan, so that doctors aboard the Britannia could operate on him. The operation was successful, and he was returned to his ship. Given the precarious nature of British-Argentine relations (Philip’s tour included a trip to the Falklands), the move apparently garnered lots of Argentine good will for the Duke.

The more dramatic and tropical version of Philip’s tour rescue includes lots of dancing girls and shenanigans. Parker promptly writes a damning letter — implicating both himself and Philip in said shenanigans — and sends it to the Ghost of Baron at the Thursday Club.

…where it’s filched by the waitress, who promptly hands it off to Eileen Parker. The waitress tells Eileen that the royal tour is like a five-month stag night, with “whores in every port.”

The letter provides Eileen with just the kind of evidence she’ll need to sue Mike for divorce.

But first, it’s Christmas! At Sandringham, the Windsors are gathered around to listen to Philip’s Christmas speech on the wireless. I love the composition of this shot — it reminds me of the old Laurits Tuxen paintings commissioned by Queen Alexandra.

Aboard Britannia, Philip reads out his speech live on the air. (In reality, the speech was recorded while he was visiting New Zealand, because the BBC didn’t trust the radio link to Britannia.)

These, hilariously, are Dickie’s and Elizabeth’s faces as they work on a complicated geography question: where precisely Philip is located on the globe.

Philip’s broadcast focuses on the areas the tour has visited, and the family that they’re missing back home, and his loneliness. (Philip’s real speech from Britannia focused on the virtues of the Commonwealth as an institution.) Margaret, wearing gold jewelry, says she thinks Philip sounds odd, like “an impersonator.”

As the Queen prepares to make her own broadcast, she fiddles with her pearls — the uniform and role are making her a bit uncomfortable here ahead of her public performance.

We also get a glimpse of an invented diamond bracelet as she revises the speech.

The criminally-underused Queen Mother, decked out in Christmas pearls, has been sent to fetch the Queen. (I guess that’s how you use a former queen consort — send her on errands?)

Elizabeth sits down at a desk featuring pictures of both of her parents as she prepares to broadcast her message.

She speaks directly to Philip during part of her speech, noting how much the entire family misses him at Sandringham. (Her real 1956 speech focused on refugees, urging everyone to realize that there is “room at the inn” to accomodate those displaced by war and violence. It was also the last Christmas message broadcast only on radio; in 1957, the speech was also aired on television. The wardrobe department seems to have used that broadcast as a template for her costume and jewels here.)

Philip listens to his wife’s voice aboard Britannia, and he seems to like what he hears.

He finally admits that he’s a little homesick, and he returns to his cabin to revisit that message Elizabeth left in his briefcase in October: “Always remember you have a family.” What first seemed like a threat now feels like a reassurance.