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Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
How much do you know about the history of Frogmore Cottage, previously home to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex? Who has lived there before, and why was it built?
Where is Frogmore Cottage? Frogmore Cottage, set in the grounds of Frogmore House, is part of the Frogmore estate in Windsor, Berkshire. Frogmore is situated around half a mile south of Windsor Castle, within Home Park (the private estate of the castle). It’s close to the river Thames and built upon historically wet marsh ground, which led to the estate’s name; the low-lying plot attracts a high number of frogs from the nearby riverbank. Today the cottage, nestled in a quiet corner of the estate grounds, is a private residence, and served as the British home of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, from 2019 when it was gifted to them by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Harry and Meghan were requested to vacate their British base in March 2023, as they took an official step back from participation in royal duties. It is owned by the Crown Estate, though there are no current residents based at the house, royal or otherwise. It was reported in October 2025 that Prince Andrew, younger brother to King Charles III, is considering Frogmore as his residence after leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. Read more | Why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived? Can people visit Frogmore Cottage? The cottage is not open to the public, though Frogmore House and estate can be visited on a number of charity days held each year. When and why was Frogmore Cottage built? The cottage has served as a royal refuge since it was built in 1801. It was commissioned by Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who bought the Frogmore estate as a country retreat for herself and her unmarried daughters in 1792. Her husband, often referred as ‘Mad King George’, ruled Great Britain and Ireland from 1760–1820 and suffered from an illness (sometimes attributed as porphyria, a rare hereditary disease) that prompted episodes of eccentric behaviour. Historian Sean Lang explains how the king once ordered his carriage to stop in Windsor Great Park while he popped out to have a chat with an oak tree, apparently under the impression it was the King of Prussia. The royal couple had 15 children over the course of their marriage, and historian Helen Rappaport has suggested that Frogmore Cottage was designed to provide respite for the king’s family. “The king had episodes of frenzy. He was most likely very hard to live with and [Queen Charlotte] presumably utilised Frogmore Cottage as a retreat.” Who else has lived in Frogmore Cottage? Another famous resident of the cottage on the estate was Abdul Karim, an Indian Muslim clerk who became a close confidant and teacher to Queen Victoria. Karim was sent to England to wait at the queen’s table during the 1887 golden jubilee celebrations when the 68-year-old monarch wanted servants who reminded her of her status as Empress of India. She was taken by the handsome young man and Karim quickly rose within Victoria’s affections, as well as in status to the title of ‘Munshi’ (teacher or clerk), teaching the queen Hindustani and advising on all matters concerning India. The relationship between queen and clerk, recently explored in a book by historian Shrabani Basu and dramatised in the film Victoria and Abdul, is just one story of a steady stream of Indian migrants coming to Britain during the 19th century. As Basu told History Extra, “[it’s] fascinating that a young Indian Muslim man was at the centre of the royal court at a time when the British empire was at its height. It is a part of history that the royal family tried to destroy after Queen Victoria’s death.” Karim lived in Frogmore cottage with his family, and refurbished the property in 1893. The queen visited him at the house “each second day”, explains Basu. Yet following the queen’s death in 1901, Karim was forced to return to India by Victoria’s son and successor, Edward VII, who had “abhorred” his mother’s companion. Read more | Queen Victoria's Indian confidant: an interview with Shrabani Basu A home to royal refugees? In the early 20th century, the cottage also hosted royal refugees from Russia. Following the killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918, who were shot by their Bolshevik guards, some relatives of the tsar fled the country. One such royal group was offered sanctuary in Frogmore Cottage by King George V, and included the king's cousin Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna. The royal refugees' financial situation meant the cottage soon fell into disrepair, and when King Edward VIII offered Xenia and her family Wilderness House (in the grounds of Hampton Court to the south-west of London), the family left Frogmore. What else can be found on the Frogmore estate? Frogmore House itself dates from 1680–84, built by an architect of Charles II for the king’s nephew. It was later the home of Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, for more than 20 years from 1840, and artworks by both the duchess and Queen Victoria are on display in the house. A teahouse built for Queen Victoria also remains on the estate, alongside a 18th-century summerhouse in the form of a Gothic ruin designed by English architect James Wyatt. The estate has long been a bolthole for the royal family. King George VI and his wife Elizabeth spent part of their honeymoon at Frogmore in 1923, and it’s reportedly where the late Queen Elizabeth II walked her beloved corgis. The house hosted the wedding reception of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018, as well as that of the Queen’s eldest grandchild, Peter Phillips, and Autumn Kelly in 2008. Read more | Retiring royals: 9 rulers and royals who stepped down through history The Frogmore estate is also the site of the Frogmore Mausoleum, the burial place of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. The mausoleum, not open to the public during tours of the estate, is currently undergoing restoration works to protect against ongoing damp problems due to its riverside location. The site on the west side of the gardens at Frogmore House was chosen by the queen just four days after Albert’s death at the age of 42 in 1861, and construction began three months later. Following her death at Osborne on the Isle of Wight and a state funeral, Queen Victoria was buried at Frogmore on 4 February 1901. King Edward VII and his grandson, the six-year-old future Edward VIII, knelt as the queen was slowly lowered in to the crypt to be laid to rest beside her beloved husband. View Green Video on the source website
Five shocking tales from Britain’s royal palaces
Royal residences have been a hotbed of drama, violence and intrigue down the centuries, as Kate Williams reveals
Deadly deeds in the dead of night On the night of 31 May 1810, residents of St James’s Palace were awoken to the spine-tingling shriek of “I am murdered!” The cry emanated from none other than the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III – and what happened next would spark a national scandal. It’s little wonder that the duke feared for this life: he had woken up to being hit over the head by a mysterious assailant. The duke set off across the palace to investigate and found his valet, Joseph Sellis, dead in his room, his throat cut. What on Earth had happened? An inquest declared Sellis had tried to kill the duke and then turned the blade on himself. But the public wasn’t so sure. In 1832, a book declared that the duke had murdered Sellis to silence him following allegations including blackmail and adultery. Alarmingly for Cumberland, plenty of people agreed. They didn’t believe that the duke, one of the most unpopular royals in history, could possibly be innocent. James VI’s devilish obsession In 1590, Holyrood Palace was the scene of a fateful meeting between James VI of Scotland and a local midwife, Agnes Sampson. The king wanted to find out if Sampson was a witch, and if she had tried to sink his ships as they sailed home to Scotland from Denmark. Sampson denied all charges. But after she was taken away and tortured, she said that she had met the devil and “took him for her master”, and attended a witches’ sabbath. The king, who would later write his own witch-hunting guide, interrogated her again. This time, Sampson told James that she knew what he had said to his wife on his wedding night. He promptly ordered Sampson’s death. Palaces were often dangerous places for women. A generation before, James’s own mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been kidnapped at Holyrood while dining with friends and her secretary, David Rizzio. A group of lords seized Rizzio and fatally stabbed him, before imprisoning Mary – who was heavily pregnant – at the palace in order to depose her. But then her second husband, Lord Darnley, who’d had a hand in the plot, changed his mind and freed her. Within a year of the birth of James, Darnley died in Edinburgh, apparently smothered, while his house was blown up. Holyrood resounded to the explosion. Royal residences: secrets and scandals | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | Royal residences have been a hotbed of drama, violence and intrigue down the centuries. In our new Academy video series Royal Residences: Secrets and Scandals, historian Kate Williams delves deep into the histories of nine British royal residences. Explore the course now A taste for corpse medicine Fascinated by science, King Charles II had a laboratory of potions and bottles built at Whitehall Palace. One of his quests was to find the secret to long life, and he decided the answer was skull medicine, a practice known across Europe. It required taking a human skull from someone who had died a violent or surprising death, then grinding it down and mixing it with ingredients such as hartshorn. Voila: ‘skull drops’. The drops didn’t save him. Charles II died at his beloved Whitehall at the age of 54 after suddenly falling ill, apologising for “being an unconscionable time dying”. The palace, constructed as Henry VIII’s party palace, is all lost now, built over by the government. The modern-day cabinet office is on the site of Henry VIII’s cock-fighting ring. Anne Boleyn sails into danger It was a beautiful present, but it would have terrible consequences. Henry VIII fell in love with Anne Boleyn in 1526 and besieged her with letters. She took refuge at her childhood home, Hever Castle, while the king begged her. What Anne did next would set her on an impossible course. Anne decided to send Henry a new year gift for 1527. She chose a jewelled trinket of a ship featuring, in the words of Henry himself, a “costly diamond” and the figure of a “solitary damsel” tossed about on the seas. The king interpreted the gift as a big yes and embarked on his mission to make Anne his queen. It ended with her execution at the Tower of London – the most famous of all imprisoned queens. Perhaps to Anne, the gift didn’t only represent her submission to Henry, rescuer of a lonely damsel, but was a hint that she thought she might drown. When Edward VIII ‘stole’ his own crown Palaces surely have more lost property than the London Underground. When the Prince Regent staged a giant party at Carlton House in 1811, there was such a crush that two women had dresses torn from their backs and 40 pairs of shoes were found in the hall. Some years later, the Duchess of Abercorn lost the then biggest pearl in the world, La Peregrina, in a sofa in Windsor Castle. Luckily, it was found again and later owned by Elizabeth Taylor (who also nearly lost it). Perhaps the greatest object ever lost in a palace is a crown. When Edward VIII abdicated at Windsor in 1936, he made off with royal items – including the Prince of Wales Coronet, which wasn’t returned to the country until Edward’s death in 1972. That meant that our current king, Charles, had to have a coronet specially made for his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, a TV spectacle at Caernarfon Castle. This coronet is topped with a golden globe to represent the world. The 1969 viewers might have been surprised to learn that the globe is actually a gold-plated ping-pong ball! This article was first published in the February 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Hidden labs, sex gardens & torture attics: secrets of British royal palaces
Professor Kate Williams shares some of the tawdry, gory and often discomforting stories witnessed by Britain's beloved royal palaces
If walls could talk, what secrets would those of a British royal palace whisper? Murder, debauchery, treason and more, says Professor Kate Williams. Speaking to Kev Lochun, she reveals how palaces make royal robots of their incumbents, why monarchs always know where they are going to die, and what the future holds for these beloved buildings as the royal family continues to evolve. Kate Williams is the author of The Royal Palaces: Secrets and Scandals (Frances Lincoln, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon <a href="https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=historyextra-271164&awinmid=3787&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-royal-palaces%2Fkate-williams%2Fjames-oses%2F9780711269392%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe%2520Royal%2520Palaces%253A%2520Secrets%2520and%2520Scandals%2520%28Hardback%29%26text%3DRoyal%2520expert%2520and%2520TV%2520historian%2CBritish%2520royals%2520over%2520the%2520centuries.#:~:text=The%20Royal%20Palaces%3A%20Secrets%20and%20Scandals%20(Hardback)&text=Royal%20expert%20and%20TV%20historian,British%20royals%20over%20the%20centuries." rel="sponsored" target="_blank">Buy it now from Waterstones Buy it now from Bookshop.org
Why is the British Royal Family’s motto Dieu et Mon Droit – and what does it mean?
The UK’s coat of arms is a symbol that most British people will recognise, adorning everything from passports to public buildings. But the eagle-eyed – at least those living outside of Scotland, where a different version is used – may well have been baffled by the words adorning it
The United Kingdom’s coat of arms depicts a rampant lion and unicorn flanking a colourful escutcheon (shield) emblazoned with the heraldry of the British and Irish nations, as well as two mottoes. Yet these words are not English, or even Latin, but French. The two mottoes are Dieu et mon droit and Honi soit qui mal y pense. Why is the British monarchy's motto Dieu et mon droit? In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy prevailed over the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Hastings, becoming England’s anointed monarch at his coronation on Christmas Day of that year, before proceeding to conquer the rest of the realm. Unsurprisingly, England’s new elite communicated in their native Norman French and their connection to territory across the English Channel endured. In 1198, at the battle of Gisors, Richard I the Lionheart of England used Dieu et mon droit (‘God and my right’) as a battle cry to assert his personal, divine-sanctioned claim to France. Centuries later, Henry V formally adopted the motto, again staking claim to the French throne. Has Dieu et Mon Droit always been a royal motto? No, Over the centuries, different monarchs have used different mottoes and coats of arms. Notable examples include queens Elizabeth I and Anne, who both used Semper Eadem – ‘Always the same’. What does Honi soit qui mal y pense mean – and what does it have to do with the Order of the Garter? Meanwhile, the words Honi soit qui mal y pense translate to ‘Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it’. Emblazoned on the blue garter that encircles the escutcheon, it is the motto of England’s noblest order of chivalry: the Order of the Garter. Founded by Edward III in the mid-14th century, its origins are disputed. Edward’s claim to France led to the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War. One apocryphal story holds that during a ball in Calais to celebrate England’s victory at the battle of Crécy, the king’s daughter-in-law Joan, the Countness of Salisbury, misplaced her garter while the two danced, prompting revellers to sneer. The king retrieved the garter and fastened it around his own leg before chiding her tormenters with the words that would become the order’s maxim. But it was more likely intended as a challenge to those who doubted Edward’s birth right to the French throne. Does the British monarchy still claim the French crown? The French monarchy was abolished in 1792 with the French Revolution (though it would be revived several times until its definitive abolition in 1870). George III would be the last British monarch to be crowned as ‘King of Great Britain, France and Ireland’ in 1761. The British Crown relinquished its claim to France with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Nevertheless, the monarchy continues to use both of its French mottoes to this day. What motto is used in Scotland? Prior to the Acts of Union in 1707, Nemo me impune lacessit (‘No one provokes me with impunity’) was used as both the motto of the Order of the Thistle and the Scottish Crown. The motto continues to be used by the British monarch when in Scotland.
Catherine of Braganza: the Merrie Monarch's forgotten queen
Sophie Shorland discusses Catherine of Braganza, queen of Charles II, whose often overlooked life story offers an alternative picture of Restoration England
Picture Charles II's court and you'll probably imagine a riot of excess, filled with drinking, games, and of course, mistresses. The queen by Charles' side, Catherine of Braganza, is often obscured by this scandalous picture. Speaking to Elinor Evans, Sophie Shorland discusses her new biography detailing the life of the often overlooked consort – from her vital political role in the 17th-century Portuguese struggle for independence to the scandalous power games in the court of the 'Merrie Monarch'. (Ad) Sophie Shorland is the author of The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza, Britain's Forgotten Monarch (Atlantic Books, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon Buy it now from Waterstones Buy it now from Bookshop.org
Did the British royal family support slavery?
The role of the British monarchy in upholding the transatlantic slave trade, and slowing its abolition, is complex and contentious. Professor Suzanne Schwarz has studied what the royal family in the 18th and 19th centuries thought about the slave trade, and spoke to David Musgrove about the topic for the HistoryExtra podcast...
In March 2022, in a speech in Jamaica, Prince William vocalised his deep “sorrow” over slavery and the devastating impact it had on individual lives and cultures internationally, throughout history. A year later, King Charles III used the same word to express his feelings, telling a congregation of Commonwealth leaders that, "I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery's enduring impact." But this sentiment of regret hasn’t always been the monarchy’s prevailing attitude. Recent research by Suzanne Schwarz, Professor of History at the University of Worcester, shows that members of the 18th and 19th century royal family held different views about the transatlantic slave trade, the practice of slavery, and abolition. For an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast Dr David Musgrove spoke with Professor Schwarz about what we know (and what we don’t) regarding the complicated truth. How was the royal family involved in the transatlantic slave trade? Enmeshed within the sprawling institution of the British Empire, the royal family of the late 18th and early 19th century is described by Professor Schwarz as: “personifying the existence of a pro-slavery culture”. Read more | Slavery's painful legacy: the British empire's role in the trade of enslaved people Professor Schwarz argues that the royal family was directly and intrinsically involved in the slave trade, using its power and influence to “defend the wealth and property rights of Caribbean planters, as well as the commercial freedom of British slave merchants to profit from the forced transportation of enslaved Africans.” She continues, “Based on [the royal family’s] ideological support for slavery and their commitment to defending Britain’s geopolitical interests, they used their individual and collective influence to oppose measures they thought would weaken the colonies, and by extension the British Empire.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/03/GettyImages-1472380140-cad96bc-e1711366108151.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The front page of a written document which is a short sketch of the evidence delivered before a Committee of the House of Commons: for the abolition of the slave trade." title="A Short Sketch Of The Evidence Delivered Before A Committee Of The House Of Commons..." /> What did the royal family think about the slave trade? “There were some differences of opinion on this topic within the royal family,” says Professor Schwarz, setting out the context for an internal struggle within the monarchy. On one side was the Duke of Clarence, who would later become King William IV in 1830, and who was the uncle of the later Queen Victoria. Professor Schwarz explains that the Duke of Clarence was “encouraged” (via expensive gifts) by the influential Jamaica Assembly to maintain his “continued advocacy of their cause in the ongoing debate on abolition,” and hold fast with his position of “support for the continuance of the Atlantic slave trade.” Professor Schwarz notes in her 2023 article Royal Attitudes to the Atlantic Slave Trade and Abolition in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries that Clarence used his position in Parliament to, “oppose measures for the regulation and abolition of the trade, bolstering the pro-slavery campaign through his powerful oratory and the authority and patronage he was able to deploy.” On the other side was Prince William Frederick, the second Duke of Gloucester, who Professor Schwarz says, “championed the abolitionist cause.” She continues, “[The Duke of Gloucester’s stance] was acknowledged by an honourable mention in Thomas Clarkson’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament, published in 1808. Clarkson’s History praised the Duke of Gloucester for ‘having opposed the example of his royal relations on this subject in behalf of a helpless and oppressed people’.” Read more | How slavery thrived in Renaissance Europe Like the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Gloucester also used his influence and position within Parliament to support his agenda, lambasting the ‘misery and desolation’ caused by the slave trade, according to Professor Schwarz’s article. While these two cousins represented opposing views on the ongoing debate, the ideological positions of other members of the royal family at the time – including King George III - are harder to gauge, shrouded by, “conflicting evidence in the Royal Archives”. First, Professor Schwarz writes that, “No clear evidence has yet come to light to trace the views of Queen Charlotte and the princesses,” while, on the contrary, explaining that King George III’s sons held a more obvious stance. “None of the king’s seven surviving sons, all of whom were entitled to vote in the House of Lords by virtue of peerages conferred on them, supported the Abolition Bill on its second reading in February 1807.” As for the king himself, Professor Schwarz found that he expressed apparently contradictory views at different points in his reign. At an early stage in his reign, or possibly prior to his accession to the throne, King George III penned an essay criticising the practice of slavery on moral grounds. However, these early views didn’t align with his later actions that pointed towards an anti-abolition stance. Professor Schwarz concludes that “on balance” it was likely that the king was “pro-slavery in outlook,” which informed the ideology of the royal institution at large. What role did the royal family play in ending the slave trade? Outside of isolated individuals acting in accordance with their moral beliefs, Professor Schwarz details how the royal family strongly defended the use of slavery as a means of preserving the power of the British Empire more broadly. This position had consequences, according to Professor Schwarz: “the role of the royal family in supporting slavery and delaying abolition had a tangible human impact on the number of Africans uprooted and displaced by the trade.” Driving home the impact of that support, she concludes, “if we take the period between 1787, the year that the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, and 1807, an estimated 769,000 individuals were transported in British ships. Of these, more than 76,000 did not survive the voyage.” The Regency | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | Join Dr Lizzie Rodgers for our four-week course on Regency England – from the Georgian kings and Napoleonic Wars to the marriage market and the works of Jane Austen. Explore the course now
Love and lust: 7 of the most shocking romantic royal scandals from British history
The history of the British royal family is littered with salacious scandals that have changed the country’s society and culture. Amid the PR challenges facing 21st century royals, we take a closer look at seven of the most shocking throughout the past millennium – whether driven by love or something more...
Romantic scandals of varying severity have challenged the British royal family since its inception. Some of these partly remain shrouded in mystery, but many have had a wide-ranging impact on British society, religion and culture. With the modern royal family a source of endless and distinct fascination in the public eye, we unpack seven defining scandals of love and lust across royal history, from the reigns of medieval monarchs to the modern day. King Eadwig’s ménage à trois ‘Scandalous’ is a word that could summarise Eadwig’s short-lived and disruptive reign as king of the English from 955–7, and ruler of Wessex from 957-9. While his uncle, King Æthelstan, is now considered to be one of the most successful and dominant kings in British history, it’s fair to say that Eadwig is noted by historians for different reasons. He instead chose to devote his attention to petty disputes and chasing his personal desires – namely women. Most infamously, Eadwig – who ascended the throne at the age of 14 before his death five years later – excused himself from his own coronation in order to intimately acquaint himself with two women at once. While the precise details of this legendary ménage à trois are murky across several contradictory accounts, it’s highly possible that these women were his future wife Ælfgifu – to whom he was closely related – and her mother, Æthelgifu. As Dr Katherine Weikert explores in her chapter in The Reigns of Edmund, Eadred and Eadwig, 939-959 (Boydell and Brewer, 2024), the act was first recorded some fifty years later, and she writes that “whether or not this actually happened is less important than what the story tells us about Eadwig’s reign and its legacy”. Whatever the precise details of Eadwig’s engagement with the two women, word of his irresponsibility spread through the royal court, fracturing his relationships with his family, experienced politicians, and leading religious figures, weakening his authority and defining him as a controversial figure. King Edward II and Piers Gaveston In 1308, King Edward II married Isabella of France as part of the effort to ease political tensions with the French. However, his contemporaries – and historians since – have observed that his love might have been reserved for another member of his court: Piers Gaveston, who had been his closest confidant and ally since 1300 – and potentially much more. Whether it was platonic or, as has been speculated for centuries, romantic, Edward II consistently prioritised his relationship with Gaveston above all else. This led to ongoing conflict and friction, as well as Gaveston’s exile to France on more than one occasion. The monarchy with Tracy Borman Member exclusive | In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II. Watch all episodes now In the first instance, King Edward I, Edward II’s father, separated his son and Gaveston by banishing the latter to Europe in February 1307. The reasons behind Edward I’s decision aren’t recorded, but it may be that the closeness between the two men was a source of concern to the king. When the king died later in 1307 and Edward II ascended the throne, he recalled Gaveston immediately, showering him with affection and naming him Earl of Cornwall. A year later, in 1308, Gaveston was exiled once again, this time with the unwilling consent of Edward II after Isabella’s father, King Philip IV of France, declared his anger at Edward II’s preference for Gaveston over his daughter. Yet again, though, the bond between Edward II and Gaveston remained, and by 1309 Gaveston was back in England with his earldom reinstated. Edward II’s eventual deposition and death in 1327 can in part be attributed to the pair’s relationship, however intimate it was. The king’s all-consuming preference for his favourites – Gaveston first and Hugh Despenser later – provoked consistent outrage, ultimately turning the country’s barons, earls, and nobles against him. Henry VIII and the death of Anne Boleyn After the first seismic scandal of establishing the Church of England in order to divorce his first wife, Henry VIII had his second queen, Anne Boleyn, executed by beheading on 19 May 1536 on charges of treason. Boleyn had been accused (and convicted) of engaging in sexual relationships with a variety of men other than the king – including her brother. Most modern historians now believe that the accusations against Boleyn were entirely false, fabricated in order to remove her from her hugely influential position in the royal court. Varied arguments have it that Boleyn was framed either directly by King Henry VIII so that he could move on to another wife, or by the king’s scheming adviser Thomas Cromwell, who viewed her as an obstacle to his plans. Whichever is true, the death of Anne Boleyn was one of several dramatic and fraught scandals that marked the king’s time on the throne, with his unsatiated appetite for more than what he had. The future George IV’s rogue wedding to Maria Fitzherbert George IV, who ruled as regent between 1811–20 while his father, George III, was incapacitated, defined the extravagance and opulence of the Regency era. His taste for wealth and prestige was only matched by his penchant for chaos and disorder. This manifested itself in his financial woes and failed marriage to Caroline of Brunswick, but also in his rogue first marriage – while he was Prince of Wales – to Maria Fitzherbert in 1785. Twice widowed and a Roman Catholic (the 1701 Act of Settlement precluded any monarch from marrying someone of that faith), Fitzherbert was decidedly not a prime candidate for the role of would-be queen through a marriage to the future George IV. However, a marriage was precisely what he wanted. Despite her unsuitability for the position of royal consort, her charm and allure as a leading figure within London’s high society attracted the attention of the prince, who exacted a campaign of pressure on Fitzherbert to marry in secret. The marriage, though officially overseen by a Church of England clergyman, was not publicly recognised as it contravened two laws; one that would have seen Prince George have to forfeit his place in the line of succession due to Fitzherbert’s Catholicism, and one that stated that the king had to consent to any royal marriage. Prince George would go on to ‘officially’ marry Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, who would become queen, though he continued his complicated relationship with Fitzherbert on and off throughout their life until they separated for a final time in 1811. The abdication crisis The position of the monarchy is inextricable from its many links to the Church of England. In Britain, historically the sovereign’s right to rule was divine, expressed by the Church of England as being the direct will of God. In other words, the next person in the line of succession does not choose to become the country’s monarch; they are chosen. In 1936, King Edward VIII ignited a constitutional crisis, and rocked these abiding principles, by deciding to abdicate from the throne to marry Wallis Simpson – a divorcée from the USA. The fact of Simpson’s two divorces meant that the British establishment, including the Church of England, viewed her as an entirely unsuitable and untenable partner for the king, given his position as ‘Defender of the Faith’. Read more | Love before duty: the story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson Within that context, and with concerns about the reaction of the British public, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised that the king would have to make a choice. He could either remain in his position as king and not marry Simpson, or abdicate and marry her. Edward VIII chose the second option, announcing his abdication via a BBC radio broadcast on 11 December 1936. His reign had lasted for less than a year, and he was replaced by his brother, George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend The romantic endeavours of the royal family have been a source of great tension throughout its history. Perhaps none are quite so evocative as the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II’s sister, Princess Margaret, and Peter Townsend, a former equerry of their father, George VI. After Townsend divorced his first wife in 1952, his relationship with the princess began in earnest. When an eagle-eyed journalist spotted the princess affectionately plucking a piece of lint from Townsend’s jacket during the Queen’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1953, their relationship inevitably hit the press. Enamoured by each other, the two decided to marry. However, with her ties to the Church of England and her sister’s role within it, the princess’s desire to marry Townsend was blocked by both the royal establishment and British government, due to concern about the potential social impact of being seen to sanction the marriage. With mounting pressure, and a dawning realisation of the reality of the situation, Princess Margaret released a rare public statement in 1955 explaining that she had given up the relationship in order to prioritise her “duty to the Commonwealth,” though she reportedly was never able to reconcile with her lost, forbidden relationship. Queen Elizabeth II’s “annus horribilis” The year 1992 was perhaps the single most challenging 12-month period of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, testing the strength of the royal family and her position at the head of it, amid the background context of an evolving Britain. In a speech given on 24 November 1992, commemorating her Ruby Jubilee, she described it as an “annus horribilis” – a horrible year, in reference to the particular struggles faced by the royal family. These struggles primarily concerned the romantic relationships – and scandals – of the queen’s children: Princess Anne had divorced Captain Mark Phillips; Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had separated; and the collapsed relationship between Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, was further exposed. Each of these turbulent relationships, with their twists and turns, became headline-making news, much to Elizabeth II’s dismay, with salacious details of affairs and separations being unveiled throughout the year. In turn, this piqued the public interest in the private lives and romances of the royals – the precise thing that Queen Elizabeth II, and those around her, had so determinedly sought to avoid. This was capped off by a destructive fire at Windsor Castle, one of the queen’s private personal residences, four days before her gloomy – and now famous – acknowledgement of the year’s woes.
The Crown S6: the real history in the royal drama
The sixth and final season of The Crown covers history that is well within living memory for many viewers, but still has much to say on the sweeping story of the Windsor dynasty…
Season 6 of The Crown, the final season of show creator Peter Morgan’s drama, was released in two parts. The first four episodes arrived on Netflix on 16 November 2023, with the final episodes released on 14 December. Season 5 was the first season of the royal drama to be broadcast following the deaths of the Duke of Edinburgh on 9 April 2021, and Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022. The final season brings viewers into the 21st-century story of the Windsor dynasty, with the plotlines ending in 2005. What historical events does The Crown S6 cover? The final moments dramatised in season 5 saw Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, both suffering the after-effects of the so-called War of the Waleses, which played out in the British tabloids during the 1990s between the couple’s formal separation (announced by Prime Minister John Major in 1992) and eventual divorce in August 1996. “The marriage collapsed like a house of cards. Every detail was subject to insatiable scrutiny by the press,” writes historian Tracy Borman. During their PR battles, both royals had given primetime interviews that divulged personal struggles and intimate details about their marriage, and by 1997 tabloid interest in the divorced couple – and particularly Diana – was at fever pitch. The paparazzi interest in Diana – particularly in the summer months of 1997, before her death, aged 36, in a car crash in Paris – is the central subject of The Crown’s opening episodes. Previous seasons of the drama have traced and foreshadowed this escalating paparazzi interest, from the press ‘discovering’ Princess Margaret’s relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend in season one, to Charles and Diana’s 1983 royal tour of Australia and the start of ‘Dianamania’ in season four. Diana’s final months can be characterised by the fraught balancing act of managing very public demands of royalty with the need for privacy and intimacy, in an age when royal life was being redefined by the clamour of mass media. View Green Video on the source website Diana’s relationship with Dodi Fayed The early episodes of season 6 cover Princess Diana’s trip to Saint-Tropez in July 1997, to stay on a yacht owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed (who was then most well known as the owner of Harrods, among other business ventures). The divorce agreement of the royal couple reached in August 1996 had specified that the couple would share custody of Prince William and Prince Harry. Due to Diana not being an official member of the royal family, she relinquished her title of ‘Her Royal Highness’ but was allowed to keep the title ‘Princess of Wales’. Diana stayed on the Al-Fayeds’ new luxury yacht, the Jonkial, in Saint-Tropez. She also stayed in the family’s 30-bedroom estate, Castle St Therese, with her sons Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12. “There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday,” wrote Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex in his 2023 autobiography Spare. “Everything about that trip to Saint-Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling," he writes. Sometime during the Saint-Tropez trip, it’s believed that Diana began a relationship with Mohamed’s eldest son, Dodi Fayed (though as shown in The Crown season 5, the press of the time reported that Dodi was engaged to American model Kelly Fisher when his relationship with Diana began). On being introduced to Fayed, Prince Harry wrote that he was "cheeky," but "nice enough." Following the press’ discovery of Diana’s relationship with Fayed, journalist and author David Barnett noted in 2017 that “there was an obsession with Diana, her every move was checked and documented and filed”. Paparazzi interest soon escalated to unforeseen heights. “In the months before [her death],” writes Barnett, “she had appeared with almost exhausting regularity on the front pages of the newspapers, and indeed had a profile that today we rarely see among the royals”. Diana’s campaign against landmines Diana’s year as a divorced woman “witnessed controversial relationships with surgeon Hasnat Khan and Harrods heir Dodi Fayed,” writes royal historian Sarah Gristwood, “but it also saw the anti-landmines campaign which stands as her lasting memorial.” In the year following her divorce, Diana began a prominent campaign for HALO Trust, which was first formed in 1988 to combat the devastation caused by landmines and other explosive remnants of war in Afghanistan, which had caused many civilian deaths. In January 1997, Diana was pictured touring an Angolan minefield in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket, during a Red Cross visit to the country, when she participated in a much publicised walk across a minefield. The drama chooses to focus on her visit to Bosnia in August 1997. In reality, Diana was criticised by some for her calls for an international ban on landmines, and branded by then Junior Defence Minister, Earl Howe, as a "loose cannon" (he felt her comments were out of step with government policy). But National Archives documents released in 2020 show that the princess herself dismissed the criticism of her campaign, and also spoke of future plans for a world tour to other heavily mined countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia and Kuwait. There’s no doubting the profile that Diana brought to the cause. “Shortly after her visit,” reports the Trust’s website, “the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty was signed, calling for all countries to unite to rid the world of landmines.” Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair As has been the case with every season of The Crown, the new episodes also see a new prime minister. In the final episode of season five, viewers saw Tony Blair elected in a landslide victory for Labour in May 1997. “There are moments in history when you can feel a nation changing course, and the summer of 1997 felt like one of them,” writes historian Dominic Sandbrook. “On the first day of May, the British electorate had unceremoniously slammed the door on 18 years of Conservative government, handing Tony Blair’s Labour party the biggest landslide in postwar history. When, in the small hours of the morning, Blair addressed Labour’s election-night party at the Royal Festival Hall, he began with the words: ‘A new dawn has broken, has it not?’” Recalling his first audience with Queen Elizabeth II, Blair described the late queen as “direct”, and the monarch reportedly denied the invite to call him ‘Tony’. Blair “was a man of a new generation,” writes historian Francis Beckett, “and his advice on the Queen’s family problems was less appreciated than his predecessor John Major’s had been.” The Queen also reportedly reminded him of her longevity, remarking that “You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born.” On Sunday 31 August, three months after his election, Blair was in his constituency home in the northeast of England when he heard the terrible news that Princess Diana had been killed in a car crash in Paris. The death of Diana, Princess of Wales Diana’s death in Paris prompted an extraordinary outpouring of public grief. “Outside her London home, Kensington Palace, well-wishers left more than a million bouquets,” writes Sandbrook. “At the family home, Althorp, so many people tried to bring flowers that the police begged them to stay away because the traffic chaos was endangering public safety.” Press attention at the time also focused on the reaction of the royal family – a subject that Peter Morgan has tackled in his other work, including the 2006 film The Queen. In reality, the royal family expected to grieve privately at Balmoral, but in the week between her death and her funeral there was an increasing clamour for public involvement in the family’s grief. “Show Us You Care,” demanded one tabloid headline. The Crown dramatises the tension between the private experiences of leading royals, and the public perceptions of their reaction. “In the febrile climate of blame – the tears in the street, the mounds of flowers outside her Kensington Palace home, the funeral in Westminster Abbey,” writes Sarah Gristwood, “it was prime minister Tony Blair who found the popular tribute. Diana had been, he said, ‘the people’s princess’.” When Diana’s funeral was held at Westminster Abbey on 6 September, more than one million people poured into the streets of London, while a further 2.5 billion people watched the worldwide television coverage. On the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death, Sandbrook wrote for BBC History Magazine how the tragic event “remains an obvious landmark in our recent history.” “Yet the passions that surrounded it – the fury at the popular press, which was thought to have hounded her to her grave; the outcry at the royal family, who were criticised for their reluctance to mourn more publicly; even the enthusiasm for Tony Blair, who saw his public satisfaction rating rise to a record high – have now faded to the point when many feel almost embarrassed to recall them.” Prince William at school and university The next instalment of The Crown follows the young princes, William and Harry, and the challenges they faced in the heightened spotlight following the death of Princess Diana. William is shown at Eton, where he chooses to return to his schooling after the death of his mother in August 1997. In reality, the elder son of Charles and Diana fully immersed himself into his time at school, which began in 1995. He became a member of the Eton Society, the elite group of prefects who had the unique privilege of wearing whatever design of waistcoat they wanted. Read more | Off to school: how do the royal family educate their children? Harry reportedly enjoyed his time at Eton less than his brother and, always prone to mischief, admitted he wanted to be the “bad boy” at school. After leaving Eton, both boys kept up the tradition for male royals to go into the military, with Harry completing officer commissioning training at Sandhurst after first spending some time abroad. William joined him there after graduating from the University of St Andrews. Prince William and Kate Middleton Prince William met Catherine Elizabeth Middleton while studying at the University of St Andrews in 2001. The eldest of three children of businessman Michael Middleton and former air hostess Carole, Kate grew up in a village in Berkshire, and was educated at a series of privately funded schools before taking a degree in History of Art. When a friend once commented how lucky Kate was to be going out with William, “she is said to have quipped back: ‘He’s lucky to be going out with me,’” writes Sarah Gristwood. It seems that this was a feeling shared by the royal family. “We are so lucky to have her,” Prince Charles told wedding guests when the pair married. Historian Tracy Borman writes that “theirs is often heralded as one of the most successful royal partnerships in history – as well as the most ordinary.” Read more | How to marry a monarch “Rather than the pre-determined, delicately-negotiated relationships typical of most other royal marriages – particularly one involving a future king – theirs began at the University of St Andrews. “Their relationship continued after they had graduated from St Andrews,” writes Borman, “and despite intense speculation that an engagement was imminent, it would be one of the longest courtships in royal history. They eventually married in April 2011, almost ten years after first meeting.” More than two billion people worldwide are estimated to have watched the wedding. Tony Blair’s changing reputation The final series of the drama contrasts the public perception of the monarchy with the popularity of prime minister Tony Blair as the country approached the new millennium. On screen, viewers see Blair’s handling of the Kosovo War (1998–9), fought between Yugoslav forces under President Slobodan Milošević, and the Kosovo Liberation Army. During the conflict, Blair was determined to stand against Milošević, and worked with US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin to advocate for NATO forces to bomb Serb forces, who had carried out “the vile oppression” of Kosovo Albanians. Delivering a speech since known as the ‘Doctrine of the International Community” in Chicago in April 1999, he spoke to the US audience about Kosovo: “I want to put these events in a wider context – economic, political and security – because I do not believe Kosovo can be seen in isolation. “No one in the West who has seen what is happening in Kosovo can doubt that NATO's military action is justified.” Blair’s speech laid out an approach to humanitarian intervention that became important in understanding the government’s involvement in other conflicts, including foreshadowing Blair’s later decision to support the invasion of Iraq. These involvements saw public perception of the prime minister shift – as shown on screen in The Crown , which depicts crowds protesting outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. There were protests against the prime minister’s actions; in February 2003, a march of hundreds of thousands (estimates vary between 750,000 and 1.5m people) protested in London against the looming Iraq war, which would begin in 2003. One juxtaposition in The Crown drawn from real history sees Blair given a hostile reception by Women's Institute (WI) members, at one of the organisation’s conferences in June 2000. "I try to distinguish between the genuine values which underpin the best of Britain and the attitudes we can safely, rightly leave behind,” Blair told the crowd. “Old fashioned values are good values, but old-fashioned attitudes and practices can sometimes hold those values back.” As The Crown shows, his speech was not well-received; WI members heckled and slow hand-clapped the speech. In contrast, the Queen – a long-time member of the WI and great advocate of the organisation – received a warm welcome by the ‘Jam and Jerusalem’ crowd. The WI in Britain was first set up in 1915 to encourage women to grow their own vegetables and preserve food in order to aid the nation on the home front, and the Queen’s presence as a symbol of tradition and duty is shown as appealing to the women of ‘Middle England’. This historical example is not the only time viewers will see modernity and tradition pitted against each other – arguably a theme that has run throughout all six series of The Crown. In the series, Blair suggests a review of all the royal ceremonial positions that might seem unnecessary to the modern British public. These offices include the Admiral of the Wash (a real, ancient hereditary office within the navy, dating from the medieval era, which granted a nobleman responsibility for defending and protecting the coastal area of the Wash in north east Anglia) and the Warden of the Swans. Although the content of the Queen’s meetings with her prime ministers remains largely undocumented, and no publicly available review of the royal offices was conducted, it is true that Blair considered the cost of the royals to the taxpayer during his time as prime minister. In 2000, he signed a deal that froze the size of the civil list (the funding provided by the taxpayer for the upkeep of the royals) for the following 10 years. The death of Princess Margaret One episode also tackles the death of Princess Margaret, whom the show has chosen to provide many touchstones in its portrayal of the struggles between duty and personal desire. The series doesn’t shy away from charting the decline of the Queen’s younger sister. It depicts a grim, and very real, accident that saw Princess Margaret sustain severe scalding from boiling hot bath water, while staying in Mustique with friends. Princess Margaret’s final episode in the drama also underlines the ever-close relationship between the two sisters, who had lived through war, loss, and in many ways had symbolised the changing face of the 20th-century monarchy. In the ‘Ritz’ episode, The Crown recreates a little-known real event when the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, then aged just 19 and 14, ‘escaped’ the palace on VE Day 1945. They were granted permission by their father, King George VI, to join the crowds in London to celebrate (with chaperones). The Queen recalled the evening in a rare personal interview in 1985 with BBC Radio 4: “We were terrified of being recognised – so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes. A Grenadier officer among our party of about 16 people said he refused to be seen in the company of another officer improperly dressed. So I had to put my cap on normally.” View oEmbed on the source website As shown in the drama, Princess Margaret died in February 2002, at King Edward VII Hospital in London. “The princess was last seen in public before Christmas 2001 at the 100th birthday party of Princess Alice, the dowager duchess of Gloucester,” writes Anne de Courcy. “Her final years were a sad contrast with the lovely young woman remembered by so many and, by the Queen, as ‘my beloved sister’.” Soon after Princess Margaret’s death, the Queen also mourned her mother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who died peacefully in her sleep in March 2002, at the age of 101. The wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla The events dramatised in The Crown end in 2005, a year that saw the future King Charles III marry Camilla, now Queen Consort, covering the events of the royal wedding in April 2005. Olivia Williams, who plays the future Queen Camilla in the drama’s final season, explained how she and Dominic West, who portrays Charles, managed their roles: “That was a challenge for us, to actually keep finding the joy between the two of them and to try and work out what the magical thing is between them that clearly makes them such a happy and successful and supportive and humorous couple now, in this very successful marriage.” At the real reception at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II offered a toast to the newlyweds in front of 800 guests, using horse racing references as she welcomed Camilla into the family. “They have overcome Becher's Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I'm very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.” The Queen’s plans for her funeral In its final episode, The Crown dramatises Queen Elizabeth II’s role in planning ‘Operation London Bridge’, the real codename for her funeral. The Queen really was involved in these plans for her final ceremony, and a number of her decisions reveal intriguing nods to the 17th century, writes Alice Hunt. “Hubert Parry’s music for the song ‘My Soul, There Is a Country’ was composed during the First World War, but the words are by Welsh royalist poet Henry Vaughan, written in the 1650s when there was no king,” writes Hunt. “The text used for Psalm 23 was from the Scottish psalter of 1650, compiled by the Puritan Francis Rous. And the poet John Donne (1572–1631) provided the words for the prayer “Bring us, O Lord God, at Our Last Awakening”. The final moments of the drama foreshadow the Queen’s death at Balmoral Castle on 8 September 2022 aged 96, and her funeral, an event of unprecedented scale that was watched on UK television by 29 million people. The drama chooses to end the show with the Queen’s choice of ‘Sleep Dearie, Sleep’, the same piper’s lament that concluded the Queen’s funeral in reality at Westminster Abbey on 19 September 2022, bringing the second Elizabethan age to an end. Catch up on the real the history behind each episode of The Crown season 5, with our episode guides: The Crown S5 E1: ‘Queen Victoria Syndrome’ and a second honeymoon The Crown S5 E2: Prince Philip’s ‘keeper of secrets’ and Andrew Norton’s book on Princess Diana The Crown S5 E3: exiled royals and the al-Fayeds The Crown S5 E4: the Queen’s “annus horribilis” and Princess Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend The Crown S5 E5 real history: ‘Camillagate’ tapes and a “war council” for the monarchy’s survival The Crown S5 E6 real history: the Romanovs’ murder, and Philip’s “spiritual companionship” The Crown S5 E7 real history: the introduction of Martin Bashir, and a royal The Crown S5 E8 real history: Diana’s Panorama interview causes fireworks The Crown S5 E9 real history: the divorce settlement between Charles and Diana The Crown S5 E10 real history: the HMY Britannia's final voyage, and a political landslide How to watch The Crown Season 6 Season 6 is available to watch on Netflix now.
Netflix’s The Crown: the real history behind the royal drama
Netflix’s sumptuous royal drama The Crown has explored many hidden intricacies of the British royal family, providing an engrossing portrait of the mid/late-20th century monarchy. Here's our ultimate guide to the real history behind the drama. Recap the historical stories behind seasons one to five of the drama, plus the real history behind season six…
How much of Netflix drama The Crown is drawn from real history? The show, which takes viewers behind the closed doors of royal life, undoubtedly strays into the realms of supposition on occasion. But much of the action is drawn the very real personal and political challenges that beset many members of the British royal family in the 20th and into the 21st century. From season one, which dramatised Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension and the early days of her reign with Claire Foy as the young monarch, to the middle seasons with Olivia Colman playing the Queen as the matriarch of a growing royal brood, and into the final stage of the story with Imelda Staunton as the late monarch, The Crown has provided an intimate and dramatic portrayal of many figures at the heart of the modern monarchy. Season 5 of Peter Morgan’s drama welcomed a new cast, with Imelda Staunton portraying the late Queen Elizabeth II from the early 1990s onwards. Season 5 was the first season to be broadcast following the deaths of the Duke of Edinburgh on 9 April 2021, and Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022. Read on for our breakdown of the real history that has inspired each season, and where the drama chooses to diverge from real events – plus don’t miss our episode-by-episode guides… (Note: this article contains spoilers for seasons 1–6 of The Crown) Follow the links below to jump to each section: What's the real history behind The Crown season 6? What's the real history behind The Crown season 5? What’s the real history behind The Crown season 4? What’s the real history behind The Crown season 3? What’s the real history behind The Crown season 2? What’s the real history behind The Crown season 1? What's the real history behind The Crown season 6? The latest season of The Crown continues to walk the tightrope that faced the drama in season 5. As historian Sarah Gristwood previously told us: “As The Crown moves into the 1990s, it was always going to have a hard row to hoe." The events of those years, she writes, “are at once too shocking and too familiar,” writes Gristwood. “What seemed pleasurably entertaining when the events depicted were safely in the past seems tone deaf once they come within the collective living memory." Figures who are dramatized on screen have voiced reservations, including former prime minister John Major. “Tony Blair (who succeeded Major as PM in 1997) has likewise declared the portrayal of his relationship with the royals as lacking any validity, and former minister Michael Heseltine declared it was “important” that they spoke out,” wrote Gristwood. The debate has become as much the story as anything we see on screen. The paparazzi interest in Diana – particularly in the summer months of 1997, before her death, aged 36, in a car crash in Paris – is the central subject of The Crown’s opening four episodes. Previous seasons of the drama have traced and foreshadowed this escalating paparazzi interest, from the press ‘discovering’ Princess Margaret’s relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend in season one, to Charles and Diana’s 1983 royal tour of Australia and the start of ‘Dianamania’ in season four, and the ‘War of the Waleses’ that played out in the press in season 5. Season six, part one dramatises Diana’s final months, characterised by the fraught balancing act of managing very public demands of royalty with the need for privacy in an age when royal life was being redefined by the clamour of mass media. Further subjects are Diana’s campaign against landmines, and the accession of Tony Blair to the role of prime minister, and his subsequent relationship with the late Queen Elizabeth II. Read more about the real history in The Crown season 6 The final six-episode instalment of The Crown in part follows the young princes, William and Harry, and the challenges they faced in the heightened spotlight following the death of Princess Diana. William is shown at Eton, where he chose to return to his schooling after the death of his mother in August 1997 before heading to study at the University of St Andrews in 2001, where he met Catherine Elizabeth Middleton. Historian Tracy Borman writes that “theirs is often heralded as one of the most successful royal partnerships in history – as well as the most ordinary." The final series of the drama also contrasts the public perception of the monarchy with the popularity of prime minister Tony Blair as the country approached the new millennium, including an event drawn from real history that saw Blair given a hostile reception by Women's Institute (WI) members, at one of the organisation’s conferences in June 2000. As The Crown shows, his speech was not well-received; WI members heckled and slow hand-clapped the speech. In contrast, the Queen – a long-time member of the WI and great advocate of the organisation – received a warm welcome by the ‘Jam and Jerusalem’ crowd. This historical example is not the only time viewers see modernity and tradition pitted against each other – arguably a theme that has run throughout all six series of The Crown. One episode also tackles the death of Princess Margaret, whom the show has chosen to provide many touchstones in its portrayal of the struggles between duty and personal desire. The events dramatised in The Crown end in 2005, a year that saw the future King Charles III marry Camilla, now Queen Consort, covering the events of the royal wedding in April 2, and also imagining the Queen's involvement in planning ‘Operation London Bridge’, the real codename for her funeral. The final moments of the drama foreshadow the Queen’s death at Balmoral Castle on 8 September 2022 aged 96, and her funeral in 2022, an event of unprecedented scale that was watched on UK television by 29 million people. View Green Video on the source website What's the real history behind The Crown season 5? Season 4 of the drama ended with Margaret Thatcher’s resignation, and the unravelling of the marriage between Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. The most recent season was decried by some, with royal historian Hugo Vickers saying that the fourth was “the least accurate” of the series so far. Season 5 of The Crown took viewers into the 1990s, and well within living memory, bringing a new cast, too. Imelda Staunton stepped into the role of Queen Elizabeth II, with Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip. Dominic West plays Prince Charles, and Elizabeth Debicki took on the role of Diana, Princess of Wales, both pivotal roles in the drama’s chosen action; the season covered the various television interviews that the couple engaged in the 1990s, with an unidentified voice describing the media parrying as “all-out war” – with the various media projects dubbed 'the War of the Waleses' by the tabloids. There is dramatisation of moments such as Diana’s so-called ‘revenge dress’, as well as Diana’s infamous 1997 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir (played by Prasanna Puwanarajah). Within weeks of the interview, as shown in the drama, the Queen suggested the couple should divorce – and quickly. Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was dissolved in August 1996, after four years of separation. Catch up on the real the history behind each episode of The Crown season 5, with our episode guides: The Crown S5 E1: ‘Queen Victoria Syndrome’ and a second honeymoon The Crown S5 E2: Prince Philip’s ‘keeper of secrets’ and Andrew Norton’s book on Princess Diana The Crown S5 E3: exiled royals and the al-Fayeds The Crown S5 E4: the Queen’s “annus horribilis” and Princess Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend The Crown S5 E5 real history: ‘Camillagate’ tapes and a “war council” for the monarchy’s survival The Crown S5 E6 real history: the Romanovs’ murder, and Philip’s “spiritual companionship” The Crown S5 E7 real history: the introduction of Martin Bashir, and a royal The Crown S5 E8 real history: Diana’s Panorama interview causes fireworks The Crown S5 E9 real history: the divorce settlement between Charles and Diana The Crown S5 E10 real history: the HMY Britannia's final voyage, and a political landslide In early episodes of season 5, there was an exploration of the Queen’s annus horribilis (horrible year), a phrase she used to describe 1992, which encompassed the fire at in Windsor Castle and the respective breakdowns in marriages of three of her children. Natascha McElhone was cast as Penelope Knatchbull – wife of Norton Knatchbull and a second cousin to Prince Charles – and the drama chose to depict Prince Philip’s friendship with Knatchbull, with whom he participated in carriage-driving competitions. Meanwhile, Leslie Manville took on the role of the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret, who in the 1990s experienced more of the health issues already explored in previous episodes. The next generation of royals also featured for the first time: a young Prince William was played by Dominic West’s son, Senan West, and Prince Harry by Teddy Hawley – which allowed the drama to explore the significant challenges of royal parenthood and childhoods. Read more | Princess Diana: a "modern" mother who ripped up the rule book As in previous seasons there were storylines from the history of those in 10 Downing Street, with Jonny Lee Miller cast as John Major (Prime Minister from 1990–97) and, bringing 18 years of Conservative government to end, Bertie Carvel as Tony Blair (Prime Minister from 1997–2007). The final episode of the season saw Diana agreeing to a holiday with Mohamed al-Fayed, who offered the opportunity to stay on his yacht off Saint-Tropez. In the latter episodes, Diana is portrayed as increasingly besieged by paparazzi and living a seemingly lonely existence from her base in Kensington Palace, following the end of her relationship with surgeon Hasnat Kahn. Viewers were also introduced to Mohamed’s eldest son, Dodi (played by Khalid Abdalla) and the Harrods heir’srelationship with Kelly Fisher, a US swimwear model and aspiring actor. Meanwhile, the relationship between Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker-Bowles developed, with Charles seeking greater acceptance for their relationship from his family. What’s the real history behind The Crown season 4? Season four of The Crown covered much more recent history than previous series – bringing the royals into the 1980s – but none the less compelling for it. Covering many events within recent memory, the fiction is constantly being fact-checked against history. “Word is the royals have rather liked The Crown so far, but this season may go down badly,” wrote Sarah Gristwood in a historian’s review of the fourth season. While the bulk of the cast from season three remained in place, two notable historical figures joined in the form of Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin) and prime minister Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson). Season three took viewers up to the year 1977 and the fourth season picked up in the late 1970s, with the arrival at No 10 Downing Street of Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, the eighth prime minister to take office during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. One key thread that runs through the series is the late Queen’s relationship with Mrs Thatcher. What was it really like? Their dynamic was famously strained, though Thatcher was always deferential to the monarch; as Dominic Sandbrook writes, the prime minister was “a dewy-eyed monarchist, who told an interviewer that she would have been a ‘Cavalier’ in the Civil War, and she treated the Queen with such exaggerated deference that her low curtsies became a palace joke”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/11/Thatcher-unimpressed-–-credit-Mark-Mainz-508b554.jpg" width="4500" height="3000" alt="Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Stephen Boxer as Denis Thatcher in season 4 of 'The Crown'" title="Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Stephen Boxer as Denis Thatcher in season 4 of 'The Crown'. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Netflix)" /> Yet tensions arise as Thatcher brings the country to war over the Falkland Islands. The pair also clash over British sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, and the drama also explores both the Queen and Thatcher’s lives as mothers. In reality, writes biographer Charles Moore, additional unease came from the fact that “both were women, and neither had much experience of working with women at a high level”. Read more about the Queen and Thatcher’s relationship, and why did Margaret Thatcher & the Queen clash over apartheid in South Africa? Meanwhile, as the spotlights shifted ever more on to the new generation, the pressure on Prince Charles as heir apparent was brought into sharp focus as he is encouraged to find a suitable bride. Charles first met Diana in 1977 – the prince thought her “jolly” when he visited Althorp, the Spencer estate, when he was dating Diana’s older sister, Lady Sarah. But it was in the summer of 1980, at a house party hosted by Diana’s friend Philip de Pass in New Grove, near Petworth, that Prince Charles first saw Diana Spencer as a potential girlfriend, when she expressed sympathy over the death of Lord Mountbatten, Charles’s much-loved great uncle and mentor. After a successful weekend visiting the royal family, during which Diana passed the ‘Balmoral tests’ in the drama, Charles was prompted by his father to marry her. Though The Crown opted not to cover the ‘fairy tale’ wedding day itself, the couple’s whirlwind engagement, and the increased feelings of isolation that Diana feels as a newcomer in the family, were dramatised in detail. The series also included (following prominent trigger warnings) harrowing depictions of Diana’s struggles with an eating disorder. “It was Diana’s tragedy,” says historian Sarah Gristwood, “to be chosen for what she did not have – experience, any sign of independent opinions – rather than for any more positive qualities.” The Crown S4 episode guide: the real history The Crown S4 E1 real history The Crown S4 E2 real history The Crown S4 E3 real history The Crown S4 E4 real history The Crown S4 E5 real history The Crown S4 E6 real history The Crown S4 E7 real history The Crown S4 E8 real history The Crown S4 E9 real history The Crown S4 E10 real history Much of season four covered Diana’s transformation from a shy teenager navigating her place in one of the world’s most famous families, to global icon. “Her effect on the world remains profound and inspiring,” said actor Emma Corrin. Elsewhere, the drama covered the first royal tour of the Prince and Princess of Wales, to Australia and New Zealand in 1983, and the birth of ‘Dianamania’. As Diana became ever more popular with the public, particularly because of her departure from tradition as a royal mother, the series is rife with depictions of Charles’s attempts to avoid being “comprehensively outshone by his incandescent young wife”. Inevitably, The Crown also explores the evolving relationship and love triangle between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, as the Prince of Wales becomes ever more distant from Diana. Find out more about Charles and Camilla’s relationship, along with the truth behind that bracelet <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/11/The_Crown_charles_diana_dance-3418fd0.jpg" width="1024" height="756" alt="Charles (Josh O'Connor) and Diana (Emma Corrin) in 'The Crown', left; and the real royal couple dancing in Sydney" title="Charles (Josh O'Connor) and Diana (Emma Corrin) in 'The Crown', left; and the real royal couple dancing in Sydney in 1983. (Images by Netflix/Des Willie and Getty Images)" /> Meanwhile, Helena Bonham Carter portrayed the turbulence of Princess Margaret’s life after the disintegration of her marriage to Lord Snowdon – drama which makes for uncomfortable viewing in episode 7. Season 4 explored Princess Margaret’s declining health, including an operation she underwent in 1985 to remove a portion of her left lung. “She smoked 60 cigarettes a day with the knowledge that her father died of lung cancer at 54,” Helena Bonham Carter told Town & Country. “She had a lung removed, and she carried on smoking. She was a total addict. There was too much of her life that she was allowed to get lost inside her head, and I think that’s the unfortunate thing.” Episode 7 also explored the lives of two little-known royal family members, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes Lyon, first cousins to Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. Elsewhere, in another standalone episode we saw the remarkable 1982 Buckingham Palace break-in, when an out-of-work painter and decorator named Michael Fagan scaled a wall of the palace and entered the Queen’s bedroom while she was sleeping. Episode 5 explored – and embellished– the story of one of the biggest royal security breaches of the 20th century. Browse our exclusive episode guides to the real history behind each episode of season 4 Read historian Sarah Gristwood’s review of season 4 of The Crown What’s the real history behind The Crown season 3? The first new element that viewers will have noticed in season 3 is a change of cast, with the two lead royals now played by Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies. Helena Bonham Carter took over the portrayal of 'rebel royal' Princess Margaret, and “if Bonham Carter can capture even a fraction of her extraordinary, world-class rudeness, then audiences are surely in for a treat,” wrote Dominic Sandbrook for HistoryExtra. A key plot line in season three explored the early relationship of Prince Charles and Camilla Shand (later Parker Bowles) – played by Josh O’Connor and Emerald Fennell respectively. It was in the summer of 1971 when Charles, then 22, first met Camilla Rosemary Shand, wrote royal expert Marlene Koening for HistoryExtra. “A legend has been fostered that the couple were introduced at a polo match at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor, but, according to Jonathan Dimbleby’s authorised biography, The Prince of Wales (1994), the introduction was in fact made by a mutual friend, Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of the Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom, whom Charles had met when he was a student at Cambridge. “It was reportedly an “instant attraction” between Charles and Camilla. During an 18-month period their friendship blossomed into a love affair.” Aside from new romances, the series also explored Charles’s relationships with his parents, particularly his mother, as he was invested as the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon in 1969. Another storyline is the 1969 fly-on-the-wall documentary which followed the royal family, and hasn’t been broadcast in its entirety since the 1970s. Historian Sarah Gristwood suggests that the film might have been intended to combat late 1960s polls that indicated the public viewed the royals as an "out-of-touch anachronism". Elsewhere, episode five explored an attempted coup to replace Prime Minister Harold Wilson, which involves Prince Philip's uncle, Lord 'Dickie' Mountbatten and Bank of England director Cecil King. Was the royal involved as much as Peter Morgan suggests in the season? Historian Andrew Lownie writes that "it’s clear Mountbatten was far more involved than he or other collaborators publicly stated". Mountbatten's political ambitions were nothing new, says Lownie, though "ultimately any evidence that his own role went any further than a few conversations remains hidden". Lord Mountbatten: Did Prince Philip’s uncle attempt to lead a coup against Harold Wilson’s government? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/11/GettyImages-82513289-ae6b916.jpg" width="1024" height="771" alt="CAERNARVON, WALES - JULY 1: (L-R) Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II and The Queen Mother is seen at the investiture of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969 in Caernarvon, Wales. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)" title="Anwar Hussein Collection" /> Early on in the series, viewers also bade farewell to John Lithgow's Sir Winston Churchill, and The Crown featured a few moments of the state funeral of Britain’s former prime minister and wartime hero. The 1965 event was a brilliant spectacle watched by more than 350 million people around the world. Upon Churchill’s death the Queen wrote to his widow, Clementine: “The whole world is poorer for the loss of this many-sided genius.” Contrary to myth, though, Churchill himself was not much involved in the planning of his own funeral. Another moving episode considered the Queen’s reaction to the Aberfan disaster in 1966, when a spoil tip collapsed onto the Welsh village of Aberfan, killing 116 children and 28 adults. Meanwhile, the series depicted yet another prime minister, Labour politician Harold Wilson (played by Jason Watkins), and also explores Prince Philip’s fascination with the 1969 moon landings. There are some episodes from this period that didn't feature, as Sarah Gristwood explains, including the 1974 abduction attempt on Princess Anne. Inevitably, dramatisations will need to take certain liberties with invention, as we will never entirely see behind the curtain of royal family life – but, Gristwood says, "writer Peter Morgan’s great strength is using what is known in order to infer what is not". Read more | “No match for reality”: the missing history in series three of The Crown Elsewhere, the degeneration of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon's marriage was inevitably dramatised. Their divorce – an enormous international story – seemingly indicated one of the key themes of the series: their split was, as Dominic Sandbrook writes, “the first sign that the carefully manicured Victorian façade of the royal family was breaking apart under the pressures of the late 20th century”. The real history behind The Crown Want to know even more about the real events from history that inspired the drama? Read more from the experts… Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II: what was their relationship like? Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance Why did Charles and Diana's marriage fail? The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret Historian Sarah Gristwood reviews The Crown season 4: “We’ve reached the issue of how fiction influences opinion in the real world” Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan: what happened and why did he break in? Was the Queen opposed to the Falklands War? The Crown: the real history behind series 1–3 Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s wedding: everything you need to know Why was Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles’s great-uncle, assassinated? Everything you need to know about Prince Charles Who is Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall? Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon: why did their marriage break down? Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip: 8 milestones in their marriage Who is Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II? What’s the real history behind The Crown season 2? Series two pulled no punches in putting the royal marriage at the centre of the drama right from the start. The action opened on the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1957, following Prince Philip’s royal tour. The balance of power in the relationship between the Queen and her husband is tested as Philip grows resentful over his position in the family, outranked by his young son Charles. One of the trickiest topics addressed is Prince Philip’s rumoured marital infidelity. Throughout its second series, The Crown grappled with the question of whether the Queen’s husband – eager to escape the suffocating constraints of royal duty – was ever tempted to stray away from his wife. Although writer Peter Morgan remains pointedly ambiguous over whether or not stories of Philip’s indiscretions are true, The Crown had the prince flirting with an attractive female journalist, attending a raucous yet secretive gentlemen’s lunch club, and using a men-only royal tour on the Britannia yacht as a chance to let his hair down. In one of the series’ most poignant moments, Elizabeth discovered a photograph of the Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova in her husband’s suitcase. A star dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, Ulanova was generally considered to be one of the greatest ballerinas of her time. Though she really did visit London in 1956, there is no evidence that she and Philip were involved in any sort of extra-marital affair. While a relationship with Galina Ulanova seems distinctly unlikely, Philip’s name was linked to several other women in the late 1950s and 1960s. Rumours of his infidelity served as a means of criticising his playboy antics and carefree lifestyle. However, with a distinct lack of any concrete evidence, they remain simply rumours, nothing more. Series two also considered Elizabeth II’s role on the world stage. In reality, the Queen met nearly a quarter of all the US presidents, but it is her encounter with the 35th president that is explored in The Crown’s second season. In June 1961 and Britain was abuzz as John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie visited London, with an invitation to dine at Buckingham Palace. Writer Peter Morgan imagines that the visiting couple’s popularity and glamour, particularly that of the First Lady, might have caused the Queen to feel old fashioned or out-of-touch. Indeed, viewers saw Elizabeth learn of criticism uttered by Jackie Kennedy during a dinner party, in which she branded the monarchy “outdated” and the Queen “incurious”. Although there is no evidence that the Queen was aware of such comments, there are sources that suggest the First Lady was critical of the Queen: in a 1995 memoir, American writer Gore Vidal wrote that Mrs Kennedy had reported the Queen to be “pretty heavy going”. The Crown goes on to link the Kennedys’ visit with the Queen’s 1961 visit to Ghana, suggesting that Elizabeth went to the newly independent country partly in order to prove her worth to the presidential couple. Though the Queen did go to Ghana in 1961 (and did dance the foxtrot with Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah), her visit was more likely a diplomatic bid to maintain good relationships with the country, rather than an attempt to counter the Kennedys' disparaging comments. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/11/GettyImages-3247110-b27051d.jpg" width="1024" height="744" alt="20th November 1961: Queen Elizabeth II dances with Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972) at a farewell ball held at State House, Accra. They, and the Duke of Edinburgh, are dancing to a version of 'High Life' composed specially for the occasion and entitled 'Welcome Your Majesty'. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)" title="Living The High Life" /> Elsewhere in the series, still recovering from her failed relationship with Peter Townsend, Princess Margaret met her future husband, Antony ‘Tony’ Armstrong-Jones (Ben Daniels). In reality, the couple first met at a small dinner party given by the princess’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, in 1958, but they did not ‘click’ until a few months later when one of the princess’s admirers asked for a photograph of her and arranged for Armstrong-Jones to take it. “His easy flow of chat, wit and animal high spirits intrigued Margaret and it was not long before he became part of her circle,” wrote Lord Snowdon biographer Anne de Courcy in an article for HistoryExtra. Their engagement, says de Courcy, was the best-kept royal secret of the last century. Very few, knew of it – certainly not the women with whom Armstrong-Jones was involved at the time, including (as shown in the series) the actress Jacqui Chan and Camilla Grinling – who was by then married to Armstrong-Jones’s best friend, Jeremy Fry. (Armstrong-Jones had also conceived a child with Grinling, born while he and Princess Margaret were on honeymoon). Though their union began with glamour, romance and a wedding at Westminster Abbey, by the end of the series, cracks in their relationship were beginning to show. Read more | “Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs In a departure from the main thrust of marital tensions that continued through the series, another episode – ‘Vergangenheit’ – revisited the Duke of York (former Edward VIII, played by Alex Jennings). The episode focused on the duke’s Nazi sympathies, revealing that he did have a relationship with Nazi high command. The duke later admitted that he had been foolish and naïve about Adolf Hitler (in an interview with an American newspaper in 1966). The final episode of series two explored 1963–4 and the fall-out from the Profumo Affair, in which Secretary of State for War John Profumo admitted to having an improper relationship with 19-year-old model Christine Keeler. Keeler was also engaged in an affair with an attaché in the Soviet embassy in London, Commander Yevgeny Ivanov, which meant the affair was seen as a potential security breach as well as a sign of immorality. A key figure in the affair was an osteopath named Stephen Ward, who became embroiled under the accusation that he was procuring and providing young women for 'entertainment' in his society circle (he had introduced Profumo and Keeler). Read more | Sex, lies and spies: the real history of the Profumo Affair There is evidence linking Ward and Prince Philip; the former had sketched the Duke of Edinburgh. However, the series drew a direct link between the two, speculating that Philip had attended a number of Ward’s society parties (indelibly linked in the public eye with immoral behaviour). Royal historian Christopher Wilson has since commented on the plotline as a sign of the show becoming “more elastic” with the truth. This speculation on Morgan's part continued into series three, with royal art historian Sir Antony Blunt blackmailing Prince Philip with 'knowledge' of the royal's role in the Profumo affair, after Blunt was unmasked as a Soviet Spy. What’s the real history behind The Crown season 1? Season one of the hit Netflix series dramatized the personal and political challenges facing Queen Elizabeth II’s reign in the mid-20th century. Set across ten stylish episodes, the show explored events ranging from the wedding of Princess Elizabeth (played by Claire Foy) to Philip Mountbatten (Matt Smith) in 1947, to the final days of Winston Churchill’s (John Lithgow) premiership and the growing tensions over the Suez Canal. Obvious from the opening frames of the show was an intent to dramatise the humanity and fallibility of often inaccessible royal figures, as viewers meet Elizabeth’s father King George VI (Jared Harris) coughing blood into a toilet bowl, foreshadowing his premature death later in the series. The first episode takes place amid preparations for the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, RN (born Prince Philip of Greece). In a time of postwar austerity, the wedding needed to balance royal ceremony with sensitivity, as food and clothing rationing was still in effect. The British government provided Elizabeth with the 300 clothing coupons necessary for her ivory silk wedding dress, while the wedding breakfast featured partridges, which were not subject to rationing. Throughout the series, the drama is preoccupied with the balance between love and duty that has challenged so many royal couples – Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the Queen and Philip, Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend, Prince Charles and Camilla Shand (later Parker-Bowles). Robert Lacey, consultant historian to the series, explained writer Peter Morgan’s process when dramatising real historical events: “There’s a whole research team of ten working full time on the series so that every single episode can be based on solid history. Peter takes his inspiration from that, then checks the scripts with people like me, as well as with the people who were actually involved in the real events – the best sources of all.” But Lacey also allows that the history in the series is sometimes tailored, as “Peter pushes his imagination to outright invention – what you could call dramatic license, or as I would prefer to put it, dramatic underlining”. We see such license at play in series one in the creation of Venetia Scott – a favoured secretary of Prime Minister Winston Churchill – who never existed. Fictional characters are brought in to illustrate wider themes, says Lacey. Scott features prominently in the story of the Great Smog, a week or so in December 1952 when thick air pollution descended across London. It is estimated that 6,000 people died of breathing-related diseases in London that month – more than were killed in any single month of bombing during the Blitz in the Second World War. “The way that The Crown deals with that event dramatically,” said Lacey, “is to have Venetia Scott die, which obviously never happened, because she never existed. But her death under a bus symbolises the jarring reality which shook Churchill out of his complacency and galvanised him to help campaign, alongside Clement Attlee on a cross-party basis, for the reforms that led to Britain’s Clean Air Act of 1956.” Elsewhere, series one followed the nascent affair between Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) and Group Captain Peter Townsend (Ben Miles), a divorced father of two. It is not clear when they started their romance in reality; Townsend divorced in 1952, and some sources suggest that he didn’t become close to Margaret until after the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February 1952. As depicted in the drama, Margaret’s relationship with Townsend was revealed to the public when an eagle-eyed journalist spotted the princess affectionately plucking a piece of lint from Townsend’s jacket during the Queen’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1953. Viewers also saw the royal sisters coming into conflict when Elizabeth refused to permit Margaret’s marriage to Townsend, on the basis that the Church of England did not permit remarriage after divorce. This plotline is based on a real incident from the early 1950s. Despite the public showing support for the couple, in 1955 Margaret eventually gave Peter up in order to maintain her royal privileges. Although in a public statement Margaret asserted that she had “reached this decision entirely alone”, in The Crown we see the devastated princess bitterly blame the Queen for her heartbreak and begin to descend into a spiral of self-destructive behaviour. Where did it all go wrong for Queen Elizabeth's younger sister? In reality, we cannot be certain of the extent to which events caused a rift between the Windsor sisters who, despite everything, remained in close contact until Margaret’s death in 2002. Whether or not what we see on screen is an accurate reflection of what happened behind closed doors, it’s certainly a neat illustration of Elizabeth’s continued struggle to balance royal duty with family loyalty. The royal family’s relationship with the press was also addressed in series one, and viewers witness two moments in which great respect is shown for the monarchy’s privacy. The first takes place when the Queen is in Africa, shortly after she had become Queen. Knowing that she had just lost her father, “photographers bowed their head and put their cameras on the ground, not taking photographs. We know that happened – chapter and verse,” explains Lacey. Later in the series, tensions rise in Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage and journalists catch a row between the two on camera. Yet at the Queen’s solemn request, they hand the footage over to her – although this didn’t necessarily happen in real life (instead, says Lacey, the journalists opened the camera themselves to expose the film and ruin the footage). It’s a dynamic that changes in series two and surely will seem all the more stark as the show approaches the ‘Diana years’, covered in series four. Also in the series Philip is shown as a driving influence in the modernisation of the monarchy: he’s quick to renovate Clarence House into a modern family home and, in his position at the head of the Queen’s coronation committee, is firm in pushing against tradition to create a ceremony more in keeping with the times. He succeeds in allowing the ceremony to be televised, a defining moment for many in 20th-century history across Britain and the Commonwealth. Read more: Prince Philip: a life of duty and devotion The first series draws to a close in 1955–6 as Philip is banished to Australia for a five-month tour in a bid to settle strife in the royal marriage; the Queen grows into her role while the influence of senior statesmen such as Churchill wane, seemingly feeling out-of-step in a rapidly changing world. Anthony Eden succeeds the wartime hero as prime minister, and becomes increasingly consumed by the rising Suez Crisis. View oEmbed on the source website Seasons 1–5 of The Crown are available on Netflix now This article was first published in November 2019 and has since been updated
Off to school: how do the royal family educate their children?
How should a young prince or princess be best prepared for their unique role? From private palace tutors to the school of hard knocks, each generation of royals has chosen new and different ways to educate their children
Beyond the ABCs and time tables, educating a young royal comes with unique challenges as they are prepared for a life of constant media scrutiny. They need to be prepared for their responsibilities as national ambassadors and, in the case of the heirs themselves, the burden of wearing the crown. Yet each generation of post-war Windsors has made bold moves away from centuries of traditional royal schooling. In fact, far from the private tutoring of the future Queen Elizabeth, there have been calls by newspaper columnists for the newest arrival to date, Louis, to be sent to a public school. Much like many royal children before them, Elizabeth and her sister Margaret received their education at home. Tutors were brought in to cover specialist subjects, but the core of their teaching was entrusted to their governess Marion Crawford, nicknamed “Crawfie”, under the supervision of their mother. Mornings covered history, language, literature and music before afternoons were spent on games, dancing and singing. While the dutiful Elizabeth showed a propensity for learning, home-schooling did not stretch her academically, although she now speaks fluent French and some German thanks to native speakers working at the palace. The young princess had not been expected to ascend to the throne, so it was only after the abdication of her uncle in 1936 that Elizabeth’s education gained pace, with private tuition in constitutional history from Henry Marten, vice-provost of Eton, and religious instruction by the archbishop of Canterbury. Margaret, however, was not privy to such lessons, and later in life she resented her lack of serious education. Still, Elizabeth never sat an exam or earned a formal qualification. Read more | The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret Breaking with tradition Perhaps frustrated by her own limited education, the Queen wished for her children to go to school, marking a significant change for the royal family. Read more | What was Queen Elizabeth II like as a mother? Charles had brief spells at Hill House School and Cheam — where the headmaster suggested he play football as the other boys would certainly show him no preferential treatment when going for the ball. Later, Prince Philip sent Charles to his own former school, which was notoriously tough. Gordonstoun, in the north of Scotland, championed physical and mental fortitude with unorthodox teaching. Its students took cold showers, slept on hard beds and went on morning runs whatever the weather. Prince Philip hoped it would have the same effect it had done on him, and turn the sensitive and timid Charles into a man. From arriving at age 13 as a boarder, though, Charles hated Gordonstoun and called it a “prison sentence” and “Colditz in kilts”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/11/GettyImages-592603145cmyk-bb98eab.jpg" width="813" height="1040" alt="A black and white photograph of Queen Elizabeth II and son Charles at Gordonstoun." title="The Queen visits Charles at Gordonstoun. The school’s physical regime was tough but the prince went on to appreciate its challenges. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> Charles struggled with bullying and loneliness. This only worsened when the detective guarding him, Donald Green, was sacked for letting the young Charles drink a cherry brandy, not knowing a tabloid reporter was watching. Yet Charles, as his father had hoped, would end up praising Gordonstoun, saying: “I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative.” From there, he went to Cambridge where, in 1970, he became the first heir to the throne to be awarded a university degree. The life of a royal nanny What does it take to look after the heir to the throne? Changing cloth diapers, keeping the nursery spotless, and being trained in martial arts, anti-terrorism tactics and defensive driving—it’s all in a day’s work for a royal nanny. Considering they care for future monarchs, duties go far beyond childcare and come with a host of regulations and protocols. Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo, nanny to William and Kate’s children, was trained at the prestigious Norland College in Bath. She is always on call, accompanies the family on visits and has a role in their education, notably teaching them Spanish. Their constant presence means a nanny becomes close to their charges, but sometimes too close. Hands-on mother Diana clashed with a string of nannies, including Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who referred to the children as “my babies”. It is a well-paid, illustrious job, but can be ended on the whim of the royal parent. Charles’s favourite nanny was Mabel Anderson, but another, Helen Lightbody, was dismissed after a disagreement with the Queen over a pudding. The Queen’s own nannies were Clara Knight, affectionately called “Allah” (a child’s pronunciation of her first name), and Marion Crawford, who incurred the palace’s wrath by publishing a book about her experiences caring for the princesses. If there is one quality the nanny must embody above all, it is discretion. Read more | Life in the royal nursery: growing up as a young prince or princess Diana’s influence The education of Charles’s own sons, William and Harry, was heavily influenced by their mother, Diana. Not only did they join her on official visits from an early age, where seeing homeless shelters and clinics for AIDs-related conditions instilled in them a philanthropic spirit, but instead of Gordonstoun they went to Eton, the school Diana’s father and brother had attended. William fully immersed himself into his time at school, which began in 1995, becoming a member of the Eton Society, the elite group of prefects who had the unique privilege of wearing whatever design of waistcoat they wanted. On Sunday afternoons, he would walk the short distance to Windsor Castle to have tea with his grandmother, as well as lessons on his royal duties. The Queen would take him through the documents in the state boxes. Harry enjoyed his time at Eton less than his brother and, always prone to mischief, admitted he wanted to be the “bad boy” at school. While he may not have been the strongest student academically, Harry certainly thrived in sports, playing rugby and polo, and being made House Captain of Games. He also became a member of the Combined Cadet Forces. View Green Video on the source website After leaving Eton, both boys kept up the tradition for male royals to go into the military, with Harry completing officer commissioning training at Sandhurst after first spending some time abroad. William joined him there after graduating from the University of St Andrews, where he met Kate. As is fitting for the “new royals”, William and Kate have chosen new schools for their children. In 2018, Charlotte started at the exclusive Willcocks Nursery, near Kensington Palace, from which she may join her older brother George at Thomas’s Battersea. The young prince had previously gone to a Montessori nursery school, favoured for its emphasis on independence and social development. Thomas’s Battersea, an £18,000-a-year preparatory school, will promote above all else its primary ethos of “be kind”, and offer George an extensive curriculum unlike anything his great-grandmother would have had. We’ll have to wait and see where William and Kate will choose for Louis, or what Harry and Meghan intend for their first child, but the days of traditional home-schooling are long gone as the new royals seek to give their children as normal a start in life as possible. Read more | From Nell to Meghan: 10 romances between actors and royals