Tommy Lascelles Observations about King Edward VIII’s Character Relevant in Washington

Claire Foy deservedly won a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her brilliant performance as the young Queen Elizabeth in the first two seasons of the Netflix series, The Crown. Yet in every scene in which he appeared in those dramas, Pip Torrens stole the show as the private secretary Elizabeth inherited from her father: the ramrod straight, not-to-be-crossed guardian of the Royal Family firm, Sir Alan Lascelles, universally known as “Tommy.”

Torrens’s work inspired me to find out more about Lascelles, who revealed himself to be a man of wit and keen insight in King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War — the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, which was published in 2006, a quarter-century after Tommy Lascelles’s death.

About the Author

George Weigel

George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Claire Foy deservedly won a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her brilliant performance as the young Queen Elizabeth in the first two seasons of the Netflix series, The Crown. Yet in every scene in which he appeared in those dramas, Pip Torrens stole the show as the private secretary Elizabeth inherited from her father: the ramrod straight, not-to-be-crossed guardian of the Royal Family firm, Sir Alan Lascelles, universally known as “Tommy.”

Torrens’s work inspired me to find out more about Lascelles, who revealed himself to be a man of wit and keen insight in King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War — the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, which was published in 2006, a quarter-century after Tommy Lascelles’s death.