The Crowns Line Of Succession After Season 4 (Compared To Today)

The Crown’s Line Of Succession After Season 4 (Compared To Today)

What’s the state of the Line of Succession at the end of The Crown season 4 and how does it compare to today’s line-up of British Royals?

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

What did the British Line of Succession look like at the end The Crown season 4 and how does it compare to the present day? The most recent batch of episodes following the ins and outs of the Windsor family covered a somewhat turbulent era in British history, one that saw the rise Thatcherism, an uptick in social unrest, and the entrance of Princess Diana. The season, which spanned the years 1979 through 1990, also featured a handful marital unions and births which would shape the Royal Family for decades to come.

Creator Peter Morgan’s dramatization of Britain’s most famous clan has often been preoccupied with the business-like (and often coldly detached) distribution of power, influence, and titles. The hierarchy within the Royal Family also tends to play into the psychology of its members — at least the versions of created for the show. In The Crown season 3, after Charles wonders why he, as heir to the throne, is treated so much more harshly than his sister, Anne replies bluntly, “Because I’m irrelevant. I rather wish she would be like that with me. It would suggest I have significance.” Princess Margaret’s journey throughout the quartet of seasons has largely revolved around this concept, as well, as she falls further down in the Line of Succession and more responsibilities are stripped from her. In season 4, episode 7: “Hereditary Principle,” she learns that young Prince Edward will take her place as one of the six Counsellors of State, Margaret angrily confronts her sister, shouting, “I asked you for one thing. Work! A purpose, dignity!”

In the context of the show, the Line of Succession is shown as a potent force able to influence the lives and emotional states of its characters and Morgan appears to be investigating the very system itself; a system which often teeters between practicality and cruelty. Here’s the royal pecking-order when viewers left the Windsors at the end of The Crown season 4 and a look at where they are ranked today.

Head of State: Queen Elizabeth II

Of course, as The Crown is more-or-less conceived as a deep-dive into Queen Elizabeth’s historic reign, and the monarch, played by Olivia Coleman (who wrapped her two-season run on the show), is still on the throne. However, it is easy to forget that her rise to sovereign was an atypical one, relatively speaking. Queen Elizabeth II’s story is a somewhat unusual in that she is able to remember a time in which, as a young girl, she was unlikely to rise to the throne – a detail explored in a handful of The Crown’s flashbacks. After all, her father King George VI only came to the throne after his brother King Edward VIII controversially abdicated it, irrevocably changing young Elizabeth’s life — as well as the nation’s future. Still on the throne after a whopping 63 years, Queen Elizabeth’s reign has the distinction of being the longest in her nation’s history.

1st in Line: Prince Charles

Prince Charles’ status as heir apparent is rather straight-forward. As the queen’s first born child and son, the Prince of Wales is next in line to assume the throne. Because of his mother’s historically-long tenure as ruler, he has had, correspondingly, the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. The Crown season 4 features many discussions of what kind of king Charles will be and how impactful his decisions will be on his eventual rule, so it is therefore ironic that he is yet to become monarch in the present day.

2nd & 3rd in Line: Prince William & Prince Harry

The entrance of Princess Diana marked much of this season’s action and intrigue, unsurprising due to the royal-turned-humanitarian’s sensational popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. However, her arrival also played into the updating of the Line of Succession and this last batch of episodes sees her giving birth to Charles’ two sons Prince William and Prince Harry. Prince William has been second in line to the throne since his birth and his younger brother Harry is third by the time season 4 concludes.

Now grown men, the two princes are very much in the royal limelight. More recently the Line of Succession has shifted when Prince William and his wife Princess Kate brought their children Prince George (born 2013), Princess Charlotte (born 2015), and Prince Louis (born 2018) into the world. Despite having left royal life, Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s youngest son is sixth in line and Harry’s own son Archie is currently seventh.

4th in Line: Prince Andrew

Season 4 of The Crown spends a bit more time with Elizabeth and Phillip’s younger charges, including their third child (and second son) Prince Andrew, who in the show is characterized as somewhat petulant and exploitive. The royal — fourth in line to the throne in 1990 — has been the subject of much controversy in recent years, having had ties to Jeffrey Epstein uncovered, forcing him to resign from all public roles. Despite being caught up in the midst of criminal investigation, Prince Andrew (hinted to be the queen’s favorite child) is still currently listed as eighth in the Line of Succession on the Royal’s official website.

7th in Line: Prince Edward

Although the arrivals of Prince Andrew’s daughters — Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie — occur off-camera and aren’t explicitly mentioned, their births in 1988 and 1990, respectively, would push Prince Edward down to the seventh spot. Prior to season 4, Elizabeth’s youngest child hasn’t had a ton of screen time, but these episodes catch up with him long enough to establish Edward’s trouble with school bullies and a detachment toward others not entirely unique in his family — at least as they are depicted onscreen. Currently, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex is eleventh in line after the numerous additions to his extended family.

8th in Line: Princess Anne

Despite being the second eldest of the queen’s children, the Princess Royal — an honor reserved for the British Royal’s oldest daughter — holds the eighth spot by the time the nineties began (her two children, Peter and Zara, would have been numbers nine and ten). This is despite the fact that at the time of her mother’s coronation, she was second in line to the throne. Princess Anne is ranked so low due to the country’s tradition of male-preference primogeniture, which allowed her younger brothers to surpass her in the Line of Succession.

This practice was eventually deemed outdated and, as such, Parliament passed the Succession to the Crown Act in 2013, meaning that female and male heirs were put in line solely by age and regardless of gender. And while this allows for Princess Charlotte to retain her spot over her younger brother Prince Louis, for example, the law was not retroactive, leading to Princess Anne’s current position of fourteenth in line for the top job.

11th in Line: Princess Margaret

If Princess Anne’s drift down the list was surprising, she has nothing on her Aunt Margot, who finds herself eleventh in line to the throne in 1990. Margaret, as played by both Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter, expresses a strong desire to rule, often going head-to-head with her more straight-laced older sister. Princess Margaret’s decades-long desire to be queen (demonstrated in several flashbacks) is perhaps exacerbated by her relatively high second position at the time of her father’s coronation.

Princess Margaret sadly passed away in 2002, but if she were still alive, she would currently be twenty-first in the Line of Succession, a clear exemplar of how drastically the list can alter during the course of a single monarch’s rule. Morgan’s show (perhaps hyperbolically) alludes to a young Elizabeth eager for her more bubbly sister to take her place, and it is certainly interesting to consider how different Britain might look today if she had gotten her wish. Then again, judging by the considerable drama which continually followed Margo during her life, perhaps the rather cut-and-dry rules which determine the Line of Succession sometimes have their merits.

In June of 2021, The Crown is scheduled to being filming its fifth season with Imelda Staunton in her star turn as Queen Elizabeth, and while the specific time period covered in the next installment is unclear, Peter Morgan has hinted that he would be taking the show “into the 21st century.” Given what British history tells us of the notoriously rocky nineties and early aughts, it is clear that his incarnation of the Windsor family is in for a new round of changes to their status quo.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/crown-season-4-ending-line-succession-today-comparison/

• The Avengers What If The Abomination Had Been Recruited

• The Crown The Main Characters Ranked By Social Status

• Superman Every LiveAction General Zod Actor (& How Their Versions Differ)

• Super Smash Bros Ultimate Terry Bogard Tips & Tricks

• The Amazing SpiderMan 2 10 Most Memorable Moments Ranked

• The Challenge Vets That Have The Best Shot At Winning Season 37

• The 10 Best Horror Movies of the 1980s