One thrill of watching The Crown is that it feels as though we are eavesdropping on what the Queen says in private.
In the second season of the series, for instance, Elizabeth II, played by Claire Foy, tells Harold Macmillan, who has just offered his resignation as prime minister, how he and his predecessors have disappointed her: “All of them ambitious men, clever men, brilliant men. But not one of them lasted the course . . . A confederacy of quitters.”
We may never know what the real Queen says or said behind closed palace doors. When she does express herself openly, it is usually in set-piece speeches or bland conversations with diplomats or subjects. The press pounces on and parses her inadvertent indiscretions as though she still wields a divine right.