quote:
Ik zat de afgelopen twee dagen The Crown te kijken en viel zowat van mijn stoel dat het wel eens verder ging dan zomaar sturen.
The Times, een rechtse krant geeft het deels toe:
Lord Mountbatten conspired in a potential coup against the government in 1968
Cecil King, the chairman of the Daily Mirror Group, plans a coup to overthrow the Wilson government and ropes in Lord Mountbatten after he is retired from his job as chief of the defence staff against his will.
PARTLY TRUE
First of all, Mountbatten’s biographer Philip Ziegler records that, far from Mountbatten being ousted, Harold Wilson and Denis Healey, the defence secretary, were forever prolonging his appointment. Mountbatten stepped down in July 1965 — two years earlier than shown here — and was given the Military Order of Merit by the Queen.
But yes, Cecil King did have discussions with Mountbatten proposing him as a respected national figure to inspire a resurgence in the country’s spirits. This sprang from a meeting between Hugh Cudlipp, the editor of the Mirror, and Mountbatten at his home, Broadlands in 1968. Cudlipp fixed for his boss, King, to meet Mountbatten in London. During the meeting, King inveighed against the Wilson government, fearing that authority would disintegrate and could lead to bloodshed in the streets and the need for the military to step in. The question was, in such circumstances, would Mountbatten be prepared to take over as “head of a government of national unity”?
The memories of the participants vary, but nothing came of the meeting. On balance it seems that Mountbatten did flirt with the idea, even saying that the Queen was concerned (he never minded playing “the Queen card” in private discussions).https://www.thetimes.co.u(...)oyal-drama-8g708rz2cSeries three, episode five: Coup
The coup episode is based on a strange incident in 1968, three years after Mountbatten retired as Chief of the Defence Staff.
According to his authorised biographer, Philip Ziegler, Hugh Cudlipp, Editorial Director of the Daily Mirror, visited Mountbatten at Broadlands in May 1968 and they discussed "the dangerous decline in national morale". Cudlipp then fixed a meeting with his boss at the Daily Mirror, Cecil King, at Mountbatten's London flat in Kinnerton Street, and Mountbatten invited his friend, Sir Solly Zuckerman, along to make sure that nothing got out of control. There is more than one version of what happened. Mountbatten, Cudlipp and Zuckerman agreed that King inveighed against Wilson's government and suggested that the situation could decline into anarchy with bloodshed in the streets, and tried to persuade Mountbatten to be prepared to take over and lead a Government of National Unity should that happen. Zuckerman said it was rank treachery and stormed out. Mountbatten said he could not contemplate such an outrageous proposition.
Cecil King's version was different. He maintained that Mountbatten said the Queen was worried about the state of the nation and that he did not seem averse to stepping forward. Mountbatten's reputation was somewhat smeared by implication. Since nothing came of the proposed coup, who did what does not matter much.
This episode gives us a version of this. Mountbatten is to be kicked out as Chief of the Defence Staff, to get Wilson good headlines. They describe him as "crooked, vain and power mad". As relayed, Mountbatten retired in 1965. Cecil King cooks up an idea to make use of him, making the point that when one door closes, another opens.
Concurrent to this is an examination of the Queen and her racing. Her horse, Apprentice, fails to win at Royal Ascot, and Lord Porchester advises her to branch out more globally in order to compete better with the Aga Khan. The Queen heads off for about two weeks (in real life just a day or two), first to Normandy and later to Kentucky, which extends into an entire month away. The real Queen has never neglected her duties as monarch by going abroad for a month for purely private reasons.
The Queen has only ever travelled abroad privately in connection with equestrian interests, but only for a few days in total, not weeks on end as in this film. But it gives the film-makers the chance to emphasise that if she were not Queen, then she would prefer to be a country woman, breeding racehorses.
Small points -- Mountbatten's uniform is pretty good. Maybe the GCB riband is too purple and the Garter collar is hopeless -- they dressed him as the real-life Mountbatten was dressed for the Silver Jubilee in 1977. His real-life retirement scene found him with Garter riband as in the portrait carried out after him.
When the Sovereign leaves the country, six Counsellors of State are appointed and two of them act in tandem. Therefore, the Queen Mother would not be running the country on her own, as suggested here.
https://www.thetimes.co.u(...)oyal-drama-8g708rz2cDe Daily Mirror staat grappig genoeg bekend als een linkse krant, maarja, wel dus met een old boys network miljardair aan het roer die niet schroomt om in redactionele lijn tegen de Labour leider te keren...
Fascinerende aflevering. Er wordt gezegd: de strijdkrachten zweren trouw aan de koningin, niet aan het parlement of de regeringsleider. Dat is in Nederland (helaas) ook het geval.
Hier in Nederland heeft Wilhelmina ook geprobeerd de democratie af te schaffen...