The Gospel According to ‘The Crown’
By: Rhonda Krol
Tags: Values, Thankfulness, History, World War II, The Crown

Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

The Gospel According to ‘The Crown’

There are some TV series that sweep you up and plant you in a whole new world, especially if you are a reader, not a TV enthusiast.

Gospel means ‘good news’. So what good news have we discovered within the experiences revealed in the saga of the royal family?

One historical event that could have saved the Allies during WWII was opened up to us in season 2, episode 6. For those who have delved into the series, compare your notes with ours.

King Edward VIII was deftly handled through the earlier episodes and became somewhat perplexing to viewers. Was he the proverbial black sheep? A hidden hero? Where would it lead? Viewers were prepared for the much-publicized historical abdication and the trials that the series would no doubt explore for the Crown. Media have covered the slant on the royal star-struck lovers ad nauseum. That aspect is all Americans tend to know about the scandal.

What was slowly laid bare, however, was the worst kind of news for most of us non-historians. The mixed German and English heritage of the Royals is soft-pedaled politically. Even more so, and with good reason, it was subdued during the darkening 1930s. This heritage took a notorious turn with this sovereign. What viewers were unprepared for was the depth of treachery which was first hushed, then proven without a doubt with the publication of the Marburg papers later.

It seems that the scandalous marriage and the real Crown’s handling of it literally saved the day. More is explored elsewhere* if you are so historically inclined…

It got us to thinking.

What if King Edward VIII had been accepted as king after the marriage? It was his birthright, he would have continued in that palace instead of his brother.

Or, what if Churchill had not pulled the German-leaning royal out of his military role in France? Fortunately, the Prime Minister learned of his tragic political leanings and took precautions, and got him out of there. The Bahamas posting ‘out of there’.

The abdicated king came to the Nazis himself. Hilter put plans in place to ‘use’ this new pawn. Nothing came of it except for evidence of the betrayal later on.

But what if that marriage had been approved? The one he insisted on with an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, which seems so innocent at first glance. Then King Edward VIII could have possibly changed the course of history as monarch of the British Empire, pressuring the government to make a treaty with Hitler rather than fight the Nazis.

The West was saved and didn’t even know it for quite a few years. Kept under wraps, only later did the world learn of the peril that never played out.

Most do not consider the ‘almost-been’ as important. In the days following the American Thanksgiving though, something of that mindset has stuck.

Thank you, Netflix for cracking open the complex history of a desperate time in a different light. A beautifully crafted light. A lesson of unknown history came to life through the lens of the beleaguered royal family.

But even more chilling.

Thank you, God Almighty, for snatching us from that disastrous close shave with doom, before we even knew we were saved; saved from a fate understandable to Americans and Europeans alike as worse than death — a Nazi existence for conquered Europe. And where would that have led?

That’s the good news.

Sometimes the very values we decry as old-fashioned turn out to be not as dispensible as we thought. Thanks to a position on royal marriage that many would nowadays dismiss as discriminatory, a great evil was avoided.

Would we miss it today? The mix in consequences is as ever inevitable.

The grey area of life reigns all too often. It reigns more surely than any monarch, for better or worse.

The wavering character of that king did the rest. He took himself out of the palace when it was at its most vulnerable. Again. Thank God.

The ‘what-ifs’ of history are many, we pick up this fact as we study. But while watching even such well-researched programs we take a deep look into the facts they present. More vital, we can remember what life became, at what cost, and realize what it could have become if all the chess pieces had played out ‘normally’.

Or, the royals had put aside their values, whatever we make of them now.

This time, we can look back with gratitude.

*To learn more for yourself: