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As winter approaches, so does another series of _The __Crown_, the lavishly produced series from Netflix. As usual, it offers us a heady dose of palatial splendour, vintage cars and

brilliantly overdone acting to calm the spirits as the cold sets in. It is a show which retells the shenanigans of an institution in decline, with a target audience to whom the same

uncomfortable label could easily be attached.  At its best, _The Crown_ is effective for its impressive combination of portraying each new political crisis and the personal “struggles” of

the members of the Royal Family. If the show has any influence, it will keep up the popular image which few in this country would care to deviate from: that the Queen is, despite the

perambulations of those around her and the upheavals during her reign, still the best woman for the job. This bland conviction does beg the question of what exactly she has been doing since

the “vivats” sounded to announce her ascension in 1953. Not many see Elizabeth Windsor as a great intellect, nor a stateswoman in the way that Margaret Thatcher defined herself, nor as the

dominating figurehead at the centre of the Commonwealth, or wherever else in the world she still has influence. Despite being the staunchest of republicans, I adhere to the common idea that

she has performed her duty – albeit a duty given to her by draconian ideals I may abhor. That is the burdensome task of always deciding what to say and do, however slight, and, more

importantly, what things to avoid.  Those who surround her have been merely bait for anti-monarchical sentiment, yet any hopes of such sentiment becoming more widespread are repelled by the

force of the monarch’s inoffensive personality. As Olivia Coleman and the rest of the cast show, there is only really one important person in Britain’s most famous family, only one person

who carries and embodies the orb and sceptre which have been at the centre of Britain’s constitution for far too many centuries: the Queen. Of course, when an unpredictable, ageing

pseudo-intellectual ascends to the throne, public perceptions might not be so kind. Charles doesn’t, for one thing, carry the same mindset as his mother, and is far more inclined to create

an image of the monarchy based around his own ideals, however esoteric they may be. His political meddling may be under more scrutiny as King, but it is easy to envisage a reign of at most

two decades being much more turbulent than the seventy years of the Queen’s reign.  With Charles portrayed simply as a Verdi-loving, heartless egoist by Peter Morgan’s scripts, it will be

ever harder for royalists to engender the same kind of “relationship” with a man who has spent most of his life waiting to be ushered from the wings – a role he has played not without a

regular stream of scandals smudging his credibility. However, this is what you get when the head of state is brought up in a system sharing values reminiscent of a Tudor court. One of the

proclaimed virtues of this almost antediluvian institution is that the UK can keep up its position on the global stage only with such a famous figurehead at the top. This fits with the

other, more simplistic argument, that the system “works”. Indeed, it’s true that the Queen has not, over her tenure, tried to impose her opinions on, say, the Common Fisheries Policy or the

future of fox hunting. “Exactly”, I hear you say. “Although she still possesses powers to veto laws, she is unlikely to do so any time soon”. But what serious country has that for an excuse?

Yes, we may have a system that resembles the undemocratic theocracies we supposedly oppose, but we’re not _actually_ ruled by such leaders. This idea that it’s all “just for show” would be

simply comical if it wasn’t the prevailing image given by this country to those around the world who might quibble with the idea of Britain as a democratic haven. Well, my faith in the

British people’s idea of enlightenment values has been dealt enough damage over the last year, and _The Crown_ can only further our collectively myopic standpoints. For, despite the vivid

illustration of the many woes which populate this real-life soap opera, it would be foolhardy to claim that many will step away wishing for an end to the whole business. Above all, the

royals, in their glitzy multitude and peculiarly dogged search for publicity, are _entertainment_. I am not prepared to believe that if a democratically elected head of state (or president,

if you must) were to replace a monarch, that the oleaginously invasive press attention would suddenly die away. The Royal Family would still be followed around by the cameras, and the

expensive weddings would still be reported, as if they were a particularly prosperous and uptight aristocratic family whose sole purpose in the public gaze was to act as if the social

progress of the last decades had never occurred. The few who see this family’s role being not merely inconvenient, but incongruently pernicious, can only hope that the next ruler will create

such a discordant harmony as to have the entire clan thrown out.  A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important

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