- Queen Elizabeth II: It doesn't feel right, as Head of State, to do nothing.
- Queen Mary: It is exactly right.
- Queen Elizabeth II: Is it? But surely doing nothing is no job at all?
- Queen Mary: To do nothing is the hardest job of all. And it will take every ounce of energy that you have. To be impartial is not natural, not human. People will always want you to smile or agree or frown. And the minute you do, you will have declared a position. A point of view. And that is the one thing as sovereign that you are not entitled to do. The less you do, the less you say or agree or smile...
- Queen Elizabeth II: Or think? Or feel? Or breathe? Or exist?
- Queen Mary: The better.
- Nurse: The Queen is here, Your Majesty.
- Queen Mary: Could you be more specific?
- Nurse: Ma'am?
- Queen Mary: Which queen?
- Nurse: Queen Elizabeth, ma'am.
- Queen Mary: Which one? There are two.
- Nurse: The young one.
- Queen Mary: Oh, *the* Queen.
- Nurse: I thought you was all queens. They gave me a sheet.
- Queen Mary: We are. I was the queen so long as my husband the king was alive, but since he died, I am no longer *the* queen, I am simply "Queen Mary." My late son's widow was also the queen, but upon the death of her husband, she became "Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother." Her daughter, "Queen Elizabeth," is now queen, so she is *The* Queen.
- Nurse: Bravo. Nurses and nuns have the same problem. We're all called "Sister."
- Queen Mary: So you are.
- Nurse: Well, she's outside. The Queen.
- Queen Mary: Then let her in - sister.
- Queen Elizabeth II: Bad time?
- Queen Mary: Not at all.
- Queen Elizabeth II: How are you?
- Queen Mary: I'm always happy to see you, and my mood will improve yet further if you promise me one thing.
- Queen Elizabeth II: Name it.
- Queen Mary: Not to ask me how I am. It's all anyone ever does. Forget death by lung disease, it's death by bad conversation.
- Queen Elizabeth II: All right. I promise. But if you are feeling up to it, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.
- Queen Mary: Fire away.
- Queen Elizabeth II: I was listening to the wireless this morning, where they described this fog as an act of God. Now, in your letter that you sent me, you said..."Loyalty to the ideal you have inherited is your duty above everything else, because the calling comes from the highest source. From God himself."
- Queen Mary: Yes.
- Queen Elizabeth II: Do you really believe that?
- Queen Mary: Monarchy is God's sacred mission to grace and dignify the earth. To give ordinary people an ideal to strive towards, an example of nobility and duty to raise them in their wretched lives. Monarchy is a calling from God. That is why you are crowned in an abbey, not a government building. Why you are anointed, not appointed. It's an archbishop that puts the crown on your head, not a minister or public servant. Which means that you are answerable to God in your duty, not the public.
- Queen Elizabeth II: I'm not sure that my husband would agree with that. He would argue that in any equitable modern society, that church and state should be separated. That if God has servants they're priests not kings. He would also say that he watched his own family destroyed, because they were seen by the people to embody indefensible and unreasonable ideas.
- Queen Mary: Yes, but he represents a royal family of carpetbaggers and parvenus, that goes back what? Ninety years? What would he know of Alfred the Great, the Rod of Equity and Mercy, Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror or Henry the Eighth? It's the Church of England, dear, not the Church of Denmark or Greece. Next question.
- Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: [to Queen Elizabeth II] "Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk on earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. " You know what's remarkable about those words?
- Queen Elizabeth II: Go on.
- Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: They were written 300 years before man first got in a plane. Leonardo da Vinci.
- Doctor: The air's a little stuffy, ma'am. It might help to open the window a crack?
- Queen Mary: Not while they're rehearsing.
- Doctor: What are they rehearsing?
- Queen Mary: My funeral.
- [first lines]
- Peter Townsend: Fuel on.
- Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Fuel on.
- Peter Townsend: Chocks are in position. Switches are off. You sure about this, sir?
- Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: When I got married, my in-laws made me marshal of the Royal Air Force. As a result, I'm the most senior airman in the country, and I can't bloody well fly.
- Collins: This is great, Clem.
- Clement Attlee: It's interesting, for sure. What I don't understand is this. Why a Downing Street employee, working for the government, should come to me with this information? I've read the Aeneid, Mr. Thurman. "Do not trust the horse, Trojans. I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts."
- Thurman: Mr. Attlee, I entered the civil service to serve the public and to serve government, any government. But I am also a responsible citizen and I cannot stand by while chaos reigns around me. This is not a government. Mr. Attlee, this is a collection of hesitant, frightened, old men unable to unseat a tyrannical, delusional even older one. Yours was the most radical, forward-thinking government this country has ever seen. How you lost the election escapes me.
- Clement Attlee: Escapes us all.
- Collins: It's chaos out there. Trains disrupted, air services cancelled. At Richmond Bridge this morning, visibility was officially measured at one yard. That's a record low, incidentally. Our Trojan friend in Downing Street has been speaking to his friends at the Met office. They say this is just the beginning. They expect it to get worse.
- Clement Attlee: I know you would have me call a vote of no confidence, and will doubtless call me over-cautious for not doing so. But the Prime Minister needs to be given a chance. Even if it's only to hang himself. Let's see how the old fool responds.
- Winston Churchill: Ah, you made it? Bravo!
- Venetia Scott: Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. I was just...
- Winston Churchill: No, no. You did well to get here. I gather half the Downing Street staff didn't?
- Venetia Scott: It wasn't easy. Just crossing the road you take your life in your hands.
- Winston Churchill: Well, then don't. You are too important to all of us.
- Venetia Scott: Hardly.
- Winston Churchill: [from inside the bathroom] Is that the new girl?
- Venetia Scott: [nervously calls through the door] Y-yes sir. Venetia.
- Winston Churchill: [from inside the bathroom] Louisa?
- Venetia Scott: [calls through the door] Venetia.
- Winston Churchill: [from inside the bathroom] Venetia.
- [Prime Minister Churchill is reading a newspaper while having a drink, a cigar and taking one of his daily baths]
- Winston Churchill: Have they told you terrible things, your colleagues downstairs? Go on. Be candy!
- Venetia Scott: [nervously calls through the door] It is said... you can be difficult.
- Winston Churchill: I can be a monster. Did they say that?
- Venetia Scott: [calls through the door] Yes sir.
- Winston Churchill: [assuring to definite] Then it's true... but you need to be a monster to defeat HITLER.