In my most daring dreams, one day I will have the opportunity to wear a tiara. There are no beauty contests, remember. Diamonds. Watching The Crown on Netflix, a vast and luxurious drama based on the life of Queen Elizabeth II, is probably the closest thing I’ve ever been, and the second season will premiere this week. [1]
It’s been a long and strange year, and I’m ready to get lost at Christmas in Sandringham. Yes, British palates may be cold, but there is always an employee to light the fireplace and bring tea.
- Although the series would have cost $200 million.
- Executive producer Peter Morgan said the budget amount was close to $130 million for The Crown seasons so far.
- Netflix affirms its huge production budget in each episode.
- However.
- While there is no shortage of wealth.
- Or comfort at any time.
- We feel that we should sympathize with the royal family rather than envy it.
- It seems that the saying “Shake is the head that bears a crown?”.
- This is no less true in a constitutional monarchy than in Shakespeare’s time.
Morgan tries to remind us that members of the royal family are human beings, they are a family and not especially functional. The pressure to meet the expectations of a deceased father is not mitigated by the fact that he is the king; The pain of a marital fight is not alleviated as it takes place in a splendid suite with adjoining rooms.
That said, the Crown’s message is not that the Windsors are like us, but with diamonds. On the contrary, unlike us, members of the royal family do not belong to themselves; they must spend their lives in the service of something bigger than themselves.
First, some exceptions. Elizabeth (played by Claire Foy) does not necessarily act on precise assumptions to discern her duty, but inherited the idea that the authority of a king or queen derives from God in the sense that monarchy is a more sacred than political function. the series, this idea is articulated by Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary (Eileen Atkins): “The monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grant and dignify the Earth. Give ordinary people an ideal to achieve, an example of nobility and duty to raise them in their miserable lives. Is monarchy a call from God?
I doubt that many readers, even Anglophiles in love with royalty like me, share this spiritualized vision of the monarchy, although a king or queen has a call to fulfill, this call is no more sacred than that of a president or mayor. It is not necessary to share Queen Mary’s monarchical theology to appreciate the seriousness with which she and her granddaughter process their calls.
Moreover, while I find Elizabeth’s deep devotion to her country admirable, I do not believe that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland deserves absolute loyalty, it is true that she defeated Nazism, which would be the pinnacle of any nation, but The British Empire did not always act benevolently or fairly. We must not assume that doing what is best for a country is always synonymous with doing the best.
With these qualifications in mind, Christians can easily identify with the dilemma faced by Queen Elizabeth and other members of the royal family, should we, like them, generally refer to the conflict between our own personal desires?To be faithful to oneself, for example, and to serve something greater than them.
Elizabeth’s father, King George (Jared Harris), set the tone for the family: an ordinary person with a stuttering speech enters the spotlight of the monarchy against his own inclinations. The wealth, power, and privileges that accompany the crown should not allow it. indulgence, but selflessness.
After her father’s death, Elizabeth followed suit; she and her husband present their own desires — where they will live, who they will work with, even the name they will receive — at Parliament’s trial. The queen repeatedly submits to the desires of others because she is convinced that her own desires should be sacrificed for something greater.
The perfect counterexample of Elizabeth’s selflessness is her uncle’s selfishness. David (Alex Jennings), briefly king under the name Edward VIII, refuses his duty to his country and decides to give up the crown to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson (Lia Williams). He earns what his heart desires, but he loses everything else. David and his wife live in exile without glory. They see the coronation of Elizabeth, the greatest of all ceremonies, on a small black-and-white television screen. Glory belongs to those who denied themselves.
That’s what the Crown does so well. Sacrifice and self-denial are not new themes, but we do not see them in an intrinsic relationship with glory. While the crown’s clearest message is that glory requires sacrifice, the opposite also shines subtly: sacrifice leads to glory. It’s hard, to lose biblical resonance. Jesus Christ stripped himself and chose to submit to the plan of his Father’s kingdom, to death; his voluntary humility led him to glory:
Therefore, God also exalted him greatly and gave him the name that is upon all names, that the name of Jesus may bend all knees in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. , for the glory of God the Father? (Fp 2. 9-11).
I don’t know what sacrifice God can demand of you today, maybe you’re a mother who has left a satisfying career in the background and now spends her days changing diapers, maybe you’ve fallen in love with a disbeliever and you know yourself. Maybe you’ll faithfully serve an ungrateful and unworthy boss. While denying yourself may seem like hard work or feel like a slow death, there is glory in the future. In fact, why does our light and momentary tribulation give us more and more abundantly an eternal weight of glory?(2Co 4. 17).
Cheer up, son of the king. At the end of our sacrifice, there is a kingdom. There will be diamonds.
?
[1] Author’s note: I wrote this article before the release of the second season of The Crown. Since then I have noticed that episode 7 contains explicit nudity and long scenes involving sensuality. Please consider this alert.