Episode list

When King George VI dies, his elder daughter Elizabeth becomes the Queen of Britain. Younger sister Margaret, feeling sidelined, embarks on an affair with divorced palace employee Peter Townsend, sixteen years her senior. The Establishment opposes this and the Queen gives Peter a foreign posting to separate the pair. Margaret, backed by public opinion, is still keen to marry him, though she must renounce her claims to succession to the throne. Ultimately she chooses duty and privilege over love, though Elizabeth is perceived to have manipulated her.

By 1969 the Royal Family has lost its mystique as TV cameras film their lives. The days of blind reverence have gone as nearly a fifth of the population want rid of them, including members of Harold Wilson's Labour government, to whom the queen must appeal for an increase in her finances.The increase is granted under the incoming Tories but the industrial unrest of the early 1970s contributes to the unpopularity of the Royal family. In 1974 Wilson's return to power is a boost for the queen, we see an attack on Princess Anne by unbalanced Ian Ball, and ultimately another storm is weathered.

The Queen does not see eye-to-eye with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and, in 1986, the Sunday Times newspaper publishes an article claiming to be the Queen's less than flattering opinion of Thatcher whose regime she describes as uncaring and divisive. This is prompted by Thatcher's refusal to agree to sanctions on South Africa, as a result of which other Commonwealth countries are threatening to boycott the Commonwealth Games. The Queen loves the Commonwealth and the two women go head-to-head. Thatcher has her way and a much depleted games takes place - at least allowing England to win more medals than usual - but the Queen's stance has raised her standing in the Commonwealth.

In 1992, the Queen insists that her family should pay tax, in order to be seen as 'doing their bit'. But there are family problems. Frisky daughter-in-law Sarah has left Prince Andrew and ended up on tabloid front pages in a saucy pose with her financial advisor. This leaves unhappy Princess Diana, betrayed by her husband Charles, gaining public sympathy through a book and television interview. Once more public opinion seems to want the end of the monarchy and, to add to Elizabeth's problems, part of Windsor Castle burns down. 1992 truly turns out to be her 'annus horribilus' with the marriage of Charles and Diana, which once seemed so romantic, coming to an end.

A year after Diana's death, Queen Elizabeth will not entertain Charles's longtime soul-mate and mistress, the divorced Camilla Parker-Bowles, refusing to attend his fiftieth birthday party because of her presence. For once public opinion is with the Queen, and Camilla is demonized in the press: but Charles's spin-doctor Mark Bolland engineers a situation which demonstrates the couple's oneness and they are gradually accepted. By necessity, the Queen starts to unbend and learn to move with the times, attending the couple's wedding reception.