It’s Monday morning, which means it’s time for another installment of our recaps of The Crown! Today, we’re talking about the eighth episode of season one, “Pride and Joy” — an episode that plays fast and loose with historical timelines. If you need to catch up on any of our previous recaps before reading, head over here!

We open the episode with a jewelry moment we’ve seen over and over again this season: a royal woman sitting while her dresser puts on her pearls. This time it’s the Queen Mother, and she’s clearly upset as her royal pearl uniform is fastened in place.

She calls her daughters in for a meeting, and the reason for her distress becomes clear: she was supposed to speak at the unveiling of the new memorial to George VI on the Mall, but she doesn’t feel she’s able to do it.

Princess Margaret, who wears pearls with dark earrings, immediately volunteers. Why? She likes making speeches, and after all, she was Bertie’s favorite.

Over Margaret’s protests, the Queen asserts herself as head of the family, and says that she’ll be the one making the speech. She’s also in her pearly uniform here, with one of the “inspired by” brooches. (This is the one that I usually call “the bird” in my notes.)

Everyone gathers at the new memorial for the unveiling of the statue. In real life, this event took place in October 1955. (None of the events shown in the episode fit together in terms of a real timeline, so don’t bother trying too hard to reconcile them.) Here’s newsreel footage from the actual unveiling.

The Queen wore the Williamson Brooch at this event in real life; here, she’s in another of the “inspired by” pieces (the one I call the “ribbon brooch” in my notes).

Princess Margaret looks bereft in her pearls and dark earrings.

The Queen unveils the statue which — bless the poor thing — looks more like Martin Freeman from Sherlock than either Jared Harris or King George VI.

The Queen Mum wears pearl earrings, a single-stranded pearl necklace, and a dark mourning brooch. She gets teary-eyed as the statue is unveiled, and then she abruptly departs in a waiting car.

We cut to Churchill in a meeting, watching footage of anti-British protests in Gibraltar. They’re in the middle of planning for the Commonwealth Tour, which began in November 1953 and lasted until April 1954. (Told you the timeline is seriously off in this episode!) There’s a lot of disagreement about whether the Queen should go to Gibraltar at all. Michael Adeane thinks not; Churchill, being Churchill, thinks they shouldn’t back down.

Elizabeth is in the midst of another part of the tour planning: she’s at Norman Hartnell’s studio to discuss the wardrobe.

She wears the “bird” brooch as she expresses astonishment that they couldn’t be a bit more economical in the number of pieces they’re taking along.

But Hartnell says that he has orders straight from the government to make sure they keep up appearances.

Also in wardrobe mode: Philip, who is having fittings for new dress uniforms. He’s typically grumpy about the whole thing, dismisses the uniforms as “costumes,” and calls the upcoming tour the “Commonwealth roadshow.” Even after the televised coronation, he apparently still hasn’t figured out how much monarchy relies on theatrics.

Over at Clarence House, the recently-retired Tommy Lascelles has stopped by to discuss the Queen Mother’s role while Elizabeth and Philip are out of town for nearly six months. She’s one of the counsellors of state, and she’ll be filling in for the Queen in various official capacities during the lengthy tour. (The other counsellors at this point in time were Princess Margaret, the Duke of Gloucester, the Princess Royal, and the Earl of Harewood.)

But the Queen Mum, who wears her pearls in the scene, is struggling. She wants Margaret to take over the job instead. (This is all fictional. The Shawcross biography of the Queen Mother makes it clear that she exercised her role happily throughout the Queen’s Commonwealth tour, conducting audiences with ministers, receiving ambassadors, and holding numerous investitures. She also helped to look after Prince Charles and Princess Anne.)

But in this fictional universe, the Queen Mother packs up, even before the Queen embarks on the tour, and heads to Scotland. Wearing her pearls, she encourages Elizabeth to let her sister shine in her absence.

Elizabeth is in her jewelry uniform: pearls and the “ribbon” brooch. You’ll remember that the last major encounter we saw between Elizabeth and Margaret ended with a threat over the telephone, so her reluctance should not be surprising.

Meanwhile, Margaret is already getting ready for investitures. She makes Elizabeth help her practice her knighting skills.

She’s wearing a pair of era-appropriate gold earrings for the scene. (As mentioned above, Margaret was also a counsellor of state, and she did help with official duties, including holding seven Privy Council meetings jointly with the Queen Mother.)

Elizabeth and Philip leave from London’s airport for the start of the tour. (This places us in November 1953, a full two years before the George VI memorial was opened.)

Elizabeth’s wearing the “inspired by” bow brooch as Churchill boards the plane to bid her farewell — and to remind her, for the umpteenth time, that people want to see the Queen, not Elizabeth Windsor. “Let them see only the eternal,” he says Churchill-ly.

The other Queen Elizabeth — the Queen Mum — has thrown off the shackles of monarchy and escaped to Scotland, where she’ll be staying with her friends, Clare and Doris Vyner. (The slight hairstyle change makes her look about 20 years younger here.) The visit depicted here actually happened in June 1952, a full year before the coronation.

The Vyners understand that the Queen Mum is grieving and needs an escape, and they provide one in the form of extremely picturesque seaside horseback riding.

At dinner, Elizabeth talks about the different kinds of loss she’s recently experienced. This is one of the first times that the series lets her discuss at length what it feels like to be queen for almost two decades and then, out of the blue, to not be queen anymore. I feel like these Scotland scenes would have been far better placed in one of the earlier episodes of the season. Her perspective was sorely lacking there. (And they would have been more historically accurate time-wise, too.)

Doris Vyner (played by Caroline Goodall, who appeared in The Princess Diaries and The White Queen) sympathizes, wears an era-appropriate brooch, and mentions that the castle next door is for sale.

The Commonwealth Tour officially kicks off in Bermuda. The younger Elizabeth wears a pearl necklace and floral earrings to make a speech.

We see Bobo McDonald fiddling with the necklace once more as Elizabeth rushes to change into her next outfit, like an actress backstage at a play. Everything is timed carefully to the minute, which, as you can expect, is irritating Philip mightily.

I believe we’ve got the “bird” brooch in this quick scene, where everyone’s already exhausted. (You’re still at stop #1! You’ve only just started, people!)

Philip is exhausted and Elizabeth is wearing pearls as they fly to their second stop, Jamaica.

Margaret watches newsreel footage from the tour on television as a footman drops off a speech she’s scheduled to give at a diplomatic reception. We get a glimpse here of early ’50s gold earrings.

But Margaret’s unhappy — the speech sounds too dry, way too much like the Queen, and not enough like Margaret. She wears her version of the pearly queen uniform to propose changes to Martin Charteris, who carefully explains that the text has been carefully crafted and shouldn’t be altered.

Margaret’s fairly drunk on power, though, and the speech isn’t the only thing she’s dissatisfied with. She starts off wearing the tiara from the coronation — the one that isn’t the Cartier Halo — but takes it off, asking if she can wear a different one instead. More specifically, she wants one of her sister’s.

This scene was just so bothersome. First, Margaret asks if she can wear “the State Diadem Tiara” — meaning, presumably, the George IV Diamond Diadem. (You can’t call something a “diadem tiara.” It’s redundant. It’s like rectangles and squares: all tiaras are diadems, but not all diadems are tiaras.) Only queens consort and regnant wear the diadem; it’s one of the heirlooms of the crown. I don’t think Margaret would ever have dared, even the weird, angry Margaret we see depicted here.

Second, she proposes the “Cambridge Lover’s Knot Tiara.” I’ll forgive the production that mistake, because so many people still refer to Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara by that name. That tiara, at least, is the Queen’s personal property. The dresser tells Margaret that she can’t wear either, but Margaret insists that the Queen won’t mind.

I’m not sure it really is, but that portrait above the curio cabinet sure looks like Young Queen Mary, glaring angrily down at this discussion of royal jewelry. Someone really needs to mail Peter Morgan a copy of Hugh Roberts’s book on the Queen’s diamonds, if nothing else.

You can guess what Margaret shows up at the reception wearing…

Yep, it’s the production’s version of the Lover’s Knot Tiara. (I don’t recognize the necklace or earrings here as deliberate royal replicas. If anyone else does, let me know in the comments!) I don’t think Margaret ever wore this one publicly, but that’s sort of the point here: she’s not supposed to be wearing it, and she knows it.

The other thing she’s not supposed to do? Change the speech. But she does, adding a bunch of cringe-worthy, flowery prose at the beginning, and then putting in a bunch of rather pointed jokes.

Here’s the ambassador of Greece and his tiara-clad wife; Margaret jokes that the Greeks’ contributions to society include her brother-in-law.

Martin sees this diplomatic stand-up trainwreck happening and is powerless to stop it. Poor Martin. Margaret’s lucky she only has to deal with Charteris in this case. Tommy Lascelles would definitely have tossed her in the Tower.

Margaret, though, is very happy with her performance, and we get a good look at her necklace as she calls Peter to tell him all about it.

The British papers are pleased with Margaret’s entertaining speech, too. Elizabeth reads all about it while she’s nearly strangled, once again, as her pearls are put in place.

She also clips on her floral earrings. Philip accuses her of being jealous of Margaret, and he assures her that they can always count on Margaret to screw things up eventually. This does not make Elizabeth feel better.

She’s just exhausted. They’re in Australia now, which means that time-wise, this is late December 1953 or early January 1954. As the car drives past crowds, she struggles to keep smiling, even while wearing her “ribbon” brooch.

In fact, she smiles so much that she develops a muscle spasm in her face! Rather than slow down, she chooses to have an injection to relax her muscles. Philip is just incredulous that Elizabeth won’t cancel any events or slow down at all.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Queen Mother tours the castle next door to the Vyners’ house. She’s delighted when the eccentric owner doesn’t recognize her; he thinks she’s a famous actress. (Again, monarch/theater/acting/etc.) The castle is pretty much falling down and doesn’t even have electricity. She loves it.

Margaret wears pearls as she talks to Peter, who has just seen footage of her visiting a mine. He suggests that she needs to be more careful about what she says. (She questioned the safety regulations of the mine she visited.)

Peter has a right to be worried. Churchill, frustrated with Margaret’s unwillingness to stick to the script, comes over and essentially fires her. He’s going to call the Queen Mum back from Scotland. They have a conversation that largely rehashes the discussion between the Queen and Tommy Lascelles from the last episode about individuality and the monarchy.

In Australia, Elizabeth and Philip come very close to disrupting the carefully-planned narrative themselves. She wears her pearls as they argue, tired and frustrated with the never-ending tour. Philip threatens to have a cigarette, and then he accuses Elizabeth of trying to gain her dead father’s favor by going through the grueling tour.

Elizabeth explodes at him, throwing glasses and tennis rackets. Philip runs away from her — right into the range of the cameras sitting outside. Elizabeth has to go out and speak with the cameramen, who decide to give her the newsreel footage, saving her from wider public embarrassment.

In Scotland, as far away from the public gaze as can be, the Queen Mother buys the castle for the pricey sum of 100 pounds. (This very real transaction happened in the summer of 1952. Just as the episode shows, the castle’s owner initially tried to give the castle to her, but ended up selling it for that low price.)

She and Captain Imbert-Terry, the castle’s owner, are walking back to the Vyners’ house when someone from the PM’s office tracks her down and explains that she needs to head back to London immediately.

We skip to April 1954, when the Commonwealth Tour entourage was heading to Malta. Elizabeth wears gold earrings as she and Philip disagree about whether they should go to Malta. She insists that they’ll go.

Refreshed and pleased with her real-estate purchase, the Queen Mother arrives back at Clarence House, pearls firmly in place.

She’s just in time to watch Margaret watch the Queen’s arrival in Gibraltar through a haze of cigarette smoke.

And then, we jump forward in time yet again, to May 1954. Elizabeth and Philip are back at the palace, where they’re reunited with Charles and Anne. (In real life, the kids met them in Malta.) I’m disappointed with the quick, glossed-over way this lengthy tour was handled. If the fog got its own focused episode, surely the tour could have, too?

After a brief meeting with Churchill, Elizabeth summons Margaret. It’s a scene very reminiscent of the scoldings we saw at the end of episode seven.

Margaret comes in wearing her version of the pearly queen uniform yet again, but the conversation reveals that Margaret has fundamental misunderstandings about the role of the monarch. Building on conversations had throughout the season, Elizabeth explains that the monarchy should shine, not the monarch.

They have a back-and-forth about who has the worst life — it’s all very “grass is greener,” with Margaret wishing she had clearer rules and Elizabeth wanting more freedom. They also squabble a bit about who was George VI’s favorite, and they remember that he called Elizabeth his “pride” and Margaret his “joy.” In the end, they walk away without resolving much of their tension.

But you know who doesn’t give a hoot about any of it? The Queen Mother! She apparently headed straight back to Scotland. Forget the palace. She’s got a castle of her own now.

We’re back in government mode for episode seven of Netflix’s The Crown, but we’ve still got a few jewels to discuss here and there. If you’ve missed any of our earlier recaps, head over here! (And then come back to this post to discuss “Scientia Potentia Est” — which, fittingly, means “knowledge is power.”)

We begin with a brief flashback, this time to Windsor Castle, ca. 1940. The planes and barrage balloons overhead are reminders that war was raging in Europe, and British RAF pilots were attempting to save their country from the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. (One of those pilots was, of course, Peter Townsend.)

Little Princess Elizabeth gets to ditch her etiquette lesson at the castle to pop over to Eton, where the Vice-Provost is instructing her on the finer points of the British constitution. Their discussion here focuses on the relationship between the government and the monarchy (the “essential” and the “dignified”). He explains that the relationship only works when the two sides trust each other.

Back in 1953, Elizabeth is having tea with her mother at the palace.

The Queen Mum, wearing pearls and her rings, is perusing the Daily Express. She brings up Albert Einstein — the looming threat of nuclear war hangs in the background of the entire episode, beginning with that visual of the barrage balloons — but neither she nor the Queen really know what he does, aside from a general understanding that he’s a scientist.

Elizabeth, wearing a single strand of pearls, pearl earrings, and one of the “inspired by” brooches, laments that she’s not better educated.

The Queen Mother, though, doesn’t see anything particularly wrong with that — it’s just the way things are. We get a better look at her triple strand of pearls and pearl cluster earrings in this view.

Tommy Lascelles comes to fetch the Queen for her audience with Churchill. On the way, they discuss his impending retirement. Elizabeth is dismayed and a little confused to learn that he’ll be replaced by Michael Adeane (his most senior deputy) rather than the more junior Martin Charteris. (Martin, you’ll remember was with Elizabeth when she became queen in Kenya.)

The corgis have been keeping Churchill company in Elizabeth’s absence. Mostly they’re watching him doze on the couch while he waits. He’s not in good health.

Regardless, he’s very worried about the Soviets and nuclear weapons. The Queen’s lack of wide-ranging education strikes again — he has to explain the basics of the threat to her. He’s sent Anthony Eden (the foreign secretary) to Washington to try to get the Americans to agree to a summit. (Churchill really was concerned with the nuclear threat, but again, the show is condensing and rearranging the timeline here. Churchill began pressing for this summit before the coronation.)

Churchill’s not the only one with health problems, though. Anthony Eden — who has fallen asleep here waiting for his meeting at the State Department — is extremely ill, thanks to a troublesome gallbladder. (This was also true, and it let Churchill take over more control as he basically took over Eden’s job, too.)

Back in London, Elizabeth steamrolls right past Tommy’s explanation about the “line of succession” for the private secretary job. Wearing another “inspired by” brooch and a triple strand of pearls, she invites Martin over for a conversation.

Here’s his face when she offers him the job outright. Wary, but also kind of excited. (Harry Hadden-Paton makes me miss Downton Abbey. PS: did you know that Harry’s real-life godmother is Sarah, Duchess of York?!? He’s not a stranger to this royalty business.)

The Queen also asks a favor of Martin — she wants him to find her a tutor.

After the meeting, Martin drives his wife, Mary, over to see the private secretary’s grace-and-favour apartment (where Tommy Lascelles still lives at this point, of course). In a classic case of measuring the drapes before buying the house, Mary asks Martin to have a tree trimmed outside the flat’s window.

Eden calls Churchill from America; he’s going to have to have surgery immediately. Churchill is furious that Eden’s health will delay the possibility of a summit. Eden, delighted that Churchill has revealed how important Eden is to the whole business, makes him tell him that he needs him over the phone. Churchill, promptly, has a stroke.

(Churchill really did have a stroke in 1953 — on June 23, to be more precise.)

At the palace, the Queen has no idea that her top two government officials are incapacitated. She’s doing her morning studying — take notes while reading The Sporting Life (a now-defunct racing paper).

Soon enough, though, the tutor that Martin has engaged shows up for their first meeting. Professor Hogg, who was nervous enough to swig from a flask before his arrival, asks Elizabeth to fill him in on what educational milestones she reached so that they can plan out their tutorial.

Elizabeth, rather ashamed, can’t give him any answers — she never took any exams or received any certificates.

Elizabeth is wearing her pearls in this scene, and as she has throughout the series, she pulls at the pearl necklace when she’s nervous. Here, the pearls begin to suffocate her when she confesses that she has trouble keeping up conversations with the people she meets as monarch.

She also wrings her hands during this scene, giving us a clear view of her rings and her watch. (The engagement ring still makes me sad.)

After their meeting is over, Elizabeth heads over to Clarence House, where she angrily confronts her mother about her lack of a formal education. The Queen Mum is in full Queen-Mum-mode, watching television and having a drink while wearing pearls, her rings, and a voluminous floral housecoat.

Elizabeth, who is wearing the “inspired by” bow brooch on her jacket, is highly critical, even when the Queen Mother points out that Elizabeth got a far better education than Margaret. (Yikes!)

The Queen Mother’s diamond ring flashes as she takes a drink here. The conversation devolves into an argument over what kind of education is proper — and who is a good parent.

Eventually, the Queen Mum rushes out of the room heads out of the room, leaving Elizabeth with her bow brooch and her thoughts.

Stuck in bed, Churchill makes Lord Salisbury and Jock Colville agree not to tell the Queen about his stroke. (If you recognize Colville’s name, it may be because he was the valiant man who traveled across London on the Queen’s wedding day to retrieve her pearls from the display of her wedding gifts.) Since Churchill and Eden are both incapacitated, Churchill has decided that the best course of action is to get Eisenhower to come to London. He wants the palace to dangle some state banquet bait in front of the American president.

None the wiser about Churchill, Elizabeth is back in the first “inspired by” brooch and her pearls as she works.

Tommy arrives to relay Churchill’s plan about the state banquet. The Queen is a little petulant about it — she’d wanted to go to Sandringham — but she eventually relents.

The press secretary succession problems continue, though. Michael Adeane has heard that Martin has been chosen as Tommy’s successor. Tommy figures out that Martin sent gardeners to trim that tree, and he is not happy about it.

State banquet preparations start in earnest, including my favorite: the footman who has to stand on the table with crazy mummy feet for polishing reasons.

Tommy calls Martin in to chastise him about both the job acceptance and the tree trimming. Nobody crosses Tommy Lascelles. Have these people not learned anything?

Meanwhile, the Queen is freaking out about having to meet and chat with President Eisenhower. She and Professor Hogg try to figure out a strategy, but he ends up needing time to research. Elizabeth only gets excited about any of this when she realizes that Hogg bets on horses.

Churchill has received a letter from the Queen telling him to recover quickly from his cold. Clementine, in her pearls, is appalled that they’ve kept this from the monarch. Then, Churchill finds out that Eisenhower has accepted the invitation to come to London, and he gets so worked up that he promptly has another stroke.

The banquet preparations are in full swing at the palace. (Here’s a true nerd moment from me, though: the setting is all wrong for a Buckingham Palace banquet. At BP, state banquets are held at a large, horseshoe-shaped table. The banquets with one long table are held at Windsor Castle.)

While everyone sets the (incorrect) table, Martin stops by to tell the Queen that everything has to be called off, because Eisenhower’s not coming after all. Much to Elizabeth’s dismay, he also turns down the private secretary job.

So Elizabeth rushes downstairs to confront Tommy about it. He gives her a lecture about tradition an continuity regarding all of the monarchy, including the staff. He also warns against “individualistic” decisions like the one she’s trying to make, where she’s thinking about her personal preferences rather than the health of the institution. Lascelles even gives her a rundown of the individualistic, egotistic decisions that Uncle David made that led to “rot” creeping in — and, eventually, the abdication.

Elizabeth is unhappy, but silenced on the matter. Even her pearly queen uniform is slightly askew.

As quickly as it was assembled, the banquet table is taken down.

With the private secretary mess still at the front of her mind, Elizabeth calls for her former private secretary, Jock Colville. She wants him to consult on the Adeane/Charteris issue.

But Colville, who works for Churchill now, thinks that she has found out about Churchill’s stroke, and he spills the beans. The Queen is furious that she’s been in the dark once again.

During a meeting with Professor Hogg, Elizabeth discusses her responsibility in light of Churchill’s incapacity. He encourages her to confront the government higher-ups, reminding her that all upper-class Englishmen respond well to scoldings from a nanny. To prepare for the meetings, Elizabeth sends staff to search all of the royal palaces for her notes from that meeting at Eton in 1940.

Churchill and Salisbury are quickly summoned to the palace.

The Queen asks for Salisbury first, making Churchill wait in the hallway. (It’s a different day, so she’s wearing a different dress, but the jewels are identical to the ones in the previous scene. They’re firmly part of her uniform here.)

She upbraids Salisbury for keeping the truth from her, using excellent words like “hampered” and “bamboozled.” She also drops a particularly excellent historical burn, telling him that she now doubts her father’s dislike of the old adage “never trust a Cecil.” (The Cecils have served monarchs since the days of the Tudors, to various degrees of loyalty. The 3rd Earl of Salisbury was involved in the Rye House Plot; the 4th Earl was locked in the Tower after the Glorious Revolution.)

Next, she summons Winston. He weakly enters the room and kisses her hand.

While she yelled at Salisbury, she pulls an even stronger move with Churchill — she’s disappointed. She feels betrayed by him.

She makes the Great Churchill cry! And with the help of her notes from Eton, she explains that she feels their trust has been broken — that crucial part of the relationship between monarch and government. She asks if he can continue. He says he doesn’t need to — she’s ready to move on without him now. But, you know, he’ll stay on anyway for now.

One person in the palace hasn’t gotten the memo about the cancelled state banquet: Philip, who has returned from a charity cricket match and gotten all gussied up, breeches and Garter and everything. He scrutinizes his wife and tells her that, somehow, she looks taller.

Here’s a look at his chest full of medals. Philip really did have all of these in 1953, and he has even more now.

Now that the banquet’s canceled, Philip proposes that Elizabeth schedule some personal time for him (except he says it in a much less family-friendly way).

Elizabeth agrees, even though she’s called Michael Adeane in for a meeting. He’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

The coronation may be over on The Crown, but we’ve still got plenty of jewels and drama to dissect. Here’s our bejeweled recap of episode six, “Gelignite” — and catch up on our previous recaps here if you’ve missed any!

We begin on June 6, 1953. Four days have elapsed since the coronation, and Elizabeth and Philip are at the Epsom Derby. Elizabeth wears her three-stranded pearl necklace, pearl earrings, and one of her “inspired by” brooches. (I believe she wore the largest of the Nizam of Hyderabad Rose Brooches for this event in real life.)

At Clarence House, Princess Margaret watches footage of her sister on television. Elizabeth’s post-coronation popularity is soaring. Some of the footage shown is from the original British Pathe newsreels from the event. In real life, Princess Margaret attended the Coronation Derby with her sister, and she appears in this footage with numerous other members of the royal family (and foreign royals, too). You can see video of it here and here. In the last episode, we saw lots of mirrors as sovereigns regarded themselves. In this episode, we get a mirror of a different kind, as the royals watch themselves reflected in different kinds of press coverage.

Fictional Margaret is likely watching a recap of the event she attended earlier in the day. She and Peter Townsend banter about her sister’s fame; Margaret, who is wearing a ring on her right hand, notes that she’s the luckiest woman, even if her sister is more famous. And they’re going on a trip to Rhodesia together soon! Everything’s great.

She and Peter canoodle, which gives us a good view of her daisy-shaped diamond and pearl earrings. (I think these are “inspired by,” era-appropriate pieces, not replicas.)

Margaret and Peter’s secret love is about to be not-so-secret. A reporter from the News Chronicle  noticed her picking a piece of lint off of Townsend’s uniform at the coronation, and he’s planning to write a story about it. In real life, the newspaper that broke the story of the Townsend affair was a Sunday paper, People, following stories in the American press.

Margaret has decided that it’s time to have a serious chat with her sister about Peter. She calls her up — which, as we see, involves a dizzying number of switches and operators and connections — and invites her (and Philip) to dinner.

Elizabeth wears the Flower Basket Brooch (often used in this production as a symbol of family, and in scenes connected with the late king) as she accepts the invitation.

Meanwhile, Philip is off hanging out with his buddies at their lunch club, which involves copious amounts of alcohol and a lot of leering at waitresses. (Sidenote: the illustration of the woman wearing the flower crown has got to be either Queen Victoria, or a contemporary piece following her fashion, right? If it is Victoria, it’s an interesting choice — a monarch who famously reigned during an age renowned for its prudishness, gazing over the rowdy antics of one of her royal descendants.)

Yep, that’s Philip checking out a waitress’s derriere. It’s often said that Philip has had various dalliances during his long marriage to the Queen, and The Crown is playing with that idea a bit in an episode about marital fidelity and morality. The man sitting beside Philip in this frame is Baron, the court photographer who took Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding pictures.

The special guest at this meeting of the lunch club is Tony Longdon, who has just returned from Cairo. (Longdon is played by Ed Stoppard, who starred alongside Claire Foy in the recent series of Upstairs, Downstairs.) Longdon has sobering news from Cairo, where King Farouk was ousted in a military coup the previous year. Philip, who thinks a lot about the precarious nature of monarchies, is very interested.

By the time he gets home, though, he’s very drunk. A pearl-clad Elizabeth watches him stumble in. (Note how many times she’s shot from behind a window in this episode, emphasizing her separation and even isolation from other characters.)

That night, Elizabeth and Philip get ready to go to dinner at Clarence House. They’re in black tie, because Margaret wants it to be a special occasion. Here, you get a brief glimpse of Elizabeth’s diamond bracelet.

Everyone is very stiff and formal, at least until Margaret dismisses the staff.

She wears an era-appropriate suite of gold-toned jewels.

She informs Elizabeth and Philip that she and Peter want to get married. We get a good look here at the suite of sapphire and diamond jewels that Elizabeth is wearing. These aren’t replicas of the Queen’s actual sapphire suite (which was a gift from her father). Instead, this necklace looks like it was inspired by the original tiara from the Cambridge Sapphire Parure, which belonged to Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent at this point in time.

Elizabeth is a little reticent about the relationship, but she can’t say no to her sister’s happiness. Margaret is so thrilled that she even gives us a glimpse of her bracelet. And Peter, who now gets to call Philip by his name instead of “sir,” is pretty pleased as well.

But in the car, Philip and Elizabeth have a lengthy, sometimes contentious discussion of the issue. Philip thinks that Peter should go back to his wife (although Peter is officially divorced). Elizabeth wants Margaret to be happy. I’m just glad we get a good look at these sapphire cluster earrings.

A note on the historical timeline here: Townsend was officially divorced from his first wife in November 1952. At Christmas, he told Tommy Lascelles about the relationship, and said at that time that both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh knew. The Queen Mother was reportedly told by Princess Margaret in February 1953. The Crown is fudging the timeline here for dramatic purposes.

Things are about to, er, hit the fan. The News Chronicle reporter has finished his story, and the editor speaks to the paper’s owner about publishing it. The editor refers to the story as “gelignite” — an explosive. (Hence the title of the episode, an interesting choice given that several scenes take place in Northern Ireland.) There’s a lot of discussion about whether printing the story is appropriate. The editor argues that, by televising the coronation, the royal family has broken the traditional rules of deference and respect regarding media coverage.

The owner goes straight to Tommy Lascelles to hash things out. Let’s take a moment here to appreciate the hair and makeup team of the series, shall we? Pip Torrens, who plays Lascelles and has such wonderfully expressive non-expressions in the role, is bald in real life. This is Tommy’s face on his arrival at Clarence House, where he’s gone to tell the Queen Mother about the impending press coverage of the affair.

On his way, he catches Princess Margaret throwing a rager to celebrate her victory. She gives him this look, and then shuts the door in his face.

The Queen Mum wears pearls (but no brooch) as Lascelles gives her the news that the details of Margaret’s affair — and of other relationships between royals and divorcees — may soon be made public. In real life, Margaret had told her mother about the relationship herself months before the news broke. Here, the Queen Mum is depicted as being completely in the dark. (I’m still lamenting the way that her character has been sidelined in this series. She was so much more involved in so many things.)

The next morning, Elizabeth calls her sister to chat about the romantic revelations of the night before. She suggests that Margaret should consider a Scottish wedding, because the Church of Scotland allows divorced persons to remarry in the church.

Margaret’s got her ring on her right hand again as she entertains the possibility (and, of course, smokes like a chimney). We see this right-hand ring over and over again this episode, just as we see the Queen’s wedding and engagement rings several times. Perhaps we’re meant to see Margaret’s ring as a reminder of the left-handed rings she’s been so far denied?

Speaking of rings: here’s a rather important one coming down the staircase at Clarence House. This hand belongs to the Queen Mother. I think it is very intriguing that we’re shown a diamond on her right hand as she heads to confront Elizabeth about Margaret’s relationship. This ring, on her right hand, is most definitely not meant to be her engagement ring. Royal jewelry lovers will note that the Queen Mother’s own engagement ring was set with a sapphire, not a diamond. (Also, she wore her engagement ring on her left hand.)

But she did have another diamond ring that is now very famous: the diamond ring that Prince Charles gave to his second wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, as an engagement ring. I have no idea if the production knew about the links between the Queen Mother and that particular ring, but if this is meant to be Camilla’s ring, it’s a great inside-baseball reference. Camilla was divorced (with a living spouse) when she married Prince Charles — exactly the same position that Peter Townsend is in during this episode (and that Wallis Simpson was in during the abdication crisis). The royal family’s perceptions of divorce shifted radically between 1936/1953 and 2005 — and part of that shift included the death of the Queen Mother, whose opinions about divorce, the abdication crisis, and the death of her husband were all intertwined.

At Buckingham Palace, the Queen Mother and Tommy Lascelles have a come to Jesus talk with the Queen about Margaret and Townsend. Note that Elizabeth does not wear her pearls in this scene — no necklace or earrings, in fact. We tend to see her without her pearly queen uniform in scenes where she is being “Elizabeth Mountbatten” rather than the Queen. And indeed, she’s trying to act as a sister here, not a monarch.

But that’s precisely the problem — she is the monarch. The Queen Mother, who is wearing her pearls, reminds her that popularity can be fleeting, and her position can be severely damaged with one wrong decision.

Tommy Lascelles makes the case even clearer by giving her a crash course on the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. (In real life, he sent Elizabeth a memo with the same information.) To prevent members of the royal family from damaging the monarchy by choosing unsuitable spouses, George III decreed that all members of the royal family who are under the age of 25 have to have the monarch’s permission to wed. Elizabeth didn’t know this — or at least not all of it — and she’s even confused about which King George was behind the law in the first place. (The Queen’s spotty education will come up again before this season ends.)

A quick note about this frame: see the enormous painting in the background? This scene was filmed at Wilton House, home of the Earls of Pembroke. The painting is Van Dyck’s Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, and his Family, which was completed by 1635. The painting depicts the wedding of an aristocratic couple whose union was doomed — the groom died within a year of the marriage. It’s also a relic from a time of incredible instability for the monarchy. By 1649, the monarchy had been abolished and the king was executed. (Be careful, Elizabeth!)

At the end of this meeting, Elizabeth knows that she must ask her sister to wait two years, until her 25th birthday, to marry Townsend. As the Queen, she can’t take the risk of granting her permission. She’s going to have to ruin her sister’s happiness, and she’s crushed.

The News Chronicle follows through with the publication of the story. The paper here is dated June 14, 1953 — the precise date that People broke the news in real life. We get pictures of Margaret in that terrible non-replica tiara from the coronation to illustrate the story.

Elizabeth wears her queenly pearls to tell Margaret that a) she has to wait two years to marry Peter, b) Peter can’t go with her on her upcoming trip to Rhodesia, and c) Peter’s going to have to take a posting somewhere else. This is Margaret’s face as she processes.

Margaret’s distraught, and she and Peter go riding off to have some private time together. He tells her that he’s going to take one of the positions offered to him: a posting in Belgium. Everybody’s upset.

But before he leaves, the Queen grants Peter a consolation prize: he can accompany her on a scheduled trip to Northern Ireland, and then he and Margaret can have some time together on her return from Rhodesia before he heads off to Brussels. On the plane to Belfast, Elizabeth talks to Tommy Lascelles about the situation, and she fidgets her pearl necklace, just as she did after her accession, as if it’s choking her. We also get a good view here of her rings and her watch — marriage and time, thematically popping up again.

A be-brooched Elizabeth arrives in Northern Ireland to an adoring crowd. In real life, she arrived in Northern Ireland for her coronation visit on July 1, 1953. Here’s newsreel footage from British Pathe.

But when she watches the footage of her arrival on television later that night, she notes that Peter is sucking up a lot of the press attention, and she makes this face.

For an evening reception at Government House in Hillsborough, Elizabeth puts on her diamond and pearl finery: the Lover’s Knot Tiara, the Gloucester Pendant Earrings, and Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Necklace. Since we’re post-accession and post-death of Queen Mary, all of these jewels are officially in Elizabeth’s possession.

But — this was a real event, including the drum tattoo she observes, and these were not the jewels she really wore. On newsreel footage from the visit, you can see her in the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara. The necklace can’t be seen clearly (though I think it might be the Nizam), and the earrings appear to be a smaller pair. I’m really struggling to figure out why we haven’t seen the GGBI yet in the series — it’s such an easy, obvious piece to replicate and use accurately for this period in the Queen’s life.

The Queen wears the “inspired by” bow brooch near the end of the visit.

As the royal party boards the plane, however, Townsend makes a mistake that seals his fate with the Queen: he acknowledges the public and press interest with a wave. (Note: Townsend was indeed apparently with the Queen on this visit, as an “extra equerry in waiting,” though he wasn’t treated to the kind of visual press coverage he’s given here — at least not in the British Pathe footage.)

And then, he calls the Queen “Lilibet.” Not while she’s wearing her pearl uniform, Peter!

Lascelles comes over to ask if “Her Majesty” has made up her mind about Townsend. The reply? “She has.” If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time she’s referred to herself in third person during the series, and it’s an important turning point. Elizabeth Mountbatten showed up to the meeting with her mother and Lascelles, but the sovereign has now made her decision about Townsend. He’s off to Brussels, effective immediately.

Townsend is hauled in front of Lascelles and Co. (including Martin Charteris) at Buckingham Palace and informed that he won’t get to say goodbye to Margaret; instead, he’s headed to Brussels the same day. Townsend is furious, and he reminds them that the public will sympathize with the romance, and that they should be careful about press coverage and perception. (In real life, Townsend was apparently set to head to Brussels on July 15, which was before Margaret and the Queen Mum were due back from Africa.)

Cut to Rhodesia, known today as Zimbabwe. Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother really did visit the country in the summer of 1953, leaving on June 30. Margaret knew Townsend wouldn’t be there when she returned, and according to the Shawcross bio of the Queen Mum, the press reported that Margaret was “unsmiling and sullen” during the trip. In the world of The Crown, though, she’s not aware that he’ll be gone before she returns. At an official dinner, the Queen Mum is wearing a large brooch here, but we don’t get a good look at it. (Where do we send our petition to get better views of the Queen Mum’s jewels next season?)

Curiously, Princess Margaret — who is giving a speech — is wearing Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Necklace. Uh, couple of problems here. For one: if the Queen is wearing the necklace in Northern Ireland, how is it supposed magically travel to Africa with Margaret? Tough for a necklace to be on two continents at once!

For another: Margaret never wore this necklace, which is an heirloom of the crown, in public. There is another royal with a copy of the necklace: Princess Alexandra (Margaret’s first cousin) has a version without the center crown. It was given to her by her husband, Angus Ogilvy. To my knowledge, Margaret didn’t have a copy. This is a necklace for the Queen, not for her sister.

Fictional Margaret finds out that Peter has been sent away via telegram in Rhodesia, and she is super duper ticked off about it. She calls her sister in a fury, and we get another scene with switchboards and operators and connections, and it takes a while for them to locate the Queen at Sandringham.

Elizabeth is in Elizabeth Mountbatten-mode at the stables in Sandringham, wearing just her rings and her watch. She’s taken aback by Margaret’s anger over the telephone. Margaret even accuses Elizabeth of resenting Margaret and Peter’s popularity, making veiled threats about the future.

The newspapers jump on the new developments in the story, declaring that Margaret has been “punished” and Peter has been “banished.”

One newspaper appears to show Margaret in a tiara and necklace.

Everybody’s commenting on the story. The Churchills read it and talk about it, with Clementine in her prim and proper pearls. In reality, they’d known about the affair since June 13, the day before the story broke in the British press. It was Churchill who demanded that Townsend not go to Rhodesia and be posted elsewhere, although he was in support of the romance. (Per Shawcross, Clementine’s hilarious real-life reaction to the situation: “Winston, if you are going to begin the Abdication all over again, I’m going to leave! I shall take a flat and go and live in Brighton.”)

In Paris, the Windsors cackle with their pugs.

Elizabeth is still uncertain about the whole business, and she’s even more unsettled when Philip leaves again, this time for a house party with Baron and Mike Parker.

She’s made her sister give up a relationship on moral grounds, and now her husband is exhibiting signs of immoral behavior himself. She watches at a distance, from behind the window, once more
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