It has been 10 years since The Crown hit our screens. The popular drama about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II has become as famous for what it got right as it is for its inaccuracies. Here, we take a look at some of the ways in which the show took liberties with the truth…
King George VI’s lung cancer
The first episode of The Crown, set in 1947, shows King George VI (Elizabeth II’s father) coughing up blood. The king died of lung cancer in 1952, but in 1947, he was not yet ill.
Prince Philip’s dalliances
In season two, the show implies Philip had an affair with Russian ballet dancer Galina Ulanova. The intrigue begins when the Queen finds a portrait of Galina in Philip’s briefcase, creating an emotional rift between them. In reality, there is no evidence the prince strayed with Galina. In the season finale, the show suggests Philip was part of the Profumo affair – the sex scandal that rocked Britain in 1963.
Debunking the Profumo affair claims
The script drew on rumours that Philip was the “masked man” who was present at parties where young models and Soviet spies mixed with members of the Conservative government. Buckingham Palace has always denied Philip’s involvement and no evidence has ever arisen that ties him to it.
Charles and Camilla’s affair
In season four, The Crown gives the impression that Prince Charles was carrying on with the married Camilla Parker Bowles for the entirety of his marriage to Princess Diana. According to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, however, the lovebirds quit their affair when Charles and Diana wed in 1981 and didn’t resume their illicit liaison until 1986.
Duke of Windsor’s Nazi links
King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 to marry divorcée, Mrs Wallis Simpson, and was known as the Duke of Windsor from then on. His connections to Germany’s Nazi party were minimised in season two.
He once wrote Adolf Hitler a personal thank-you letter after staying at his mountain retreat. In 1937, the duke was seen giving the full Nazi salute during a trip to Germany and he reportedly said that Hitler was “not such a bad chap”.
Balmoral test
An episode in season four focuses on a royal practice of subjecting non-royals to the “Balmoral test”, in which an unwitting guest is invited to the Scottish castle and judged on rules of etiquette. (In this case, newly elected PM Margaret Thatcher.) Royal expert Hugo Vickers says there is no such test and Margaret never documented it in her memoirs.
Venetia Scott
In season one, young prime minister’s secretary Venetia is seen hurrying through London’s thick smog with an urgent message before being mowed down by a bus. She is one of the show’s few invented characters.
Exaggerating the smog crisis
The Great Smog of 1952 did happen, but the show also exaggerated the political upheaval it caused. The Queen is shown considering asking Winston Churchill to resign over the government’s handling of the deadly pollution crisis, but that never happened.
Nun’s habit
Prince Philip’s mum, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was known for her eccentricities. To highlight the fact, The Crown shows her dressed as a nun at her son’s wedding to Princess Elizabeth.
In reality, Alice wore a silk dress. Two years later, she did become a nun and wore a habit to Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
Pauper cousins
One of the British royals’ biggest true scandals is the neglect of two disabled relatives, but it was fictionalised in The Crown. Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon – first cousins of Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret – were born in 1919 and 1926, respectively. Neither learned to talk and they were hidden away in an institution. In 1963, they were falsely registered as dead. Season four of The Crown shows Margaret discovering her cousins’ existence in 1982 and confronting her mum (the Queen Mother) about their institutionalisation.
The Royal family’s hidden relatives
It also shows Margaret visiting the two women. Records, however, indicate Nerissa and Katherine received no visits from the royals after the early 1960s. Nerissa died in 1986, aged 66, and was buried in a pauper’s grave. Katherine died in 2014, aged 87, and her death also went unacknowledged by the royals.
The Crown is available to watch on Netflix
