On November 16, 2019, Prince Andrew appeared on BBC’s Newsnight to give an ill-fated interview about his involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The hour-long interrogation prompted global headlines and eventually led to the Duke of York stepping down from public duties. But the fallout also coincided with another event that put the royals back in the spotlight: less than 12 hours after the interview aired, the third season of The Crown dropped on Netflix. The effect was dizzying—the lavishly produced melodrama about duty and scandal colliding with a modern-day PR disaster. In a tweet that later went viral, actor David Schneider said of the interview: “Dunno who’s written this episode of The Crown but it’s utterly preposterous and not believable at all. #PrinceAndrew.”
The Crown has blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction since its first season. Timelines have been tweaked, incidents embellished and private conversations reimagined, but for the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, the goal has always been emotional authenticity. “There’s an incredible amount of work that goes into recreating the texture of the time,” says Robert Lacey, The Crown’s historical consultant, who previously worked with Morgan on 2006’s The Queen.
“There have been people who’ve quarrelled about the accuracy of events, but the important thing is to be true to the spirit of the people and the institution.”
This strategy has proved popular with audiences—73m households worldwide have watched the royal saga since it began airing in 2016—many of whom believe that the veil is finally being lifted on Britain’s ruling family, for better or worse.
Strength and stoicism
This sense of uneasy intimacy permeates the show from its opening scene, one in which Jared Harris, playing the beleaguered King George VI, is shown coughing up blood in Buckingham Palace. His physical vulnerability and eventual death from lung cancer form the focus of the first two episodes, transforming a sovereign most often viewed in state portraits or on banknotes into one who is devastatingly mortal. “For a generation or so, it was fashionable to chuckle about the monarchy, but Peter has shown that it should be taken seriously,” says Lacey. “The increased respect people feel for them comes from a new understanding of how challenging the job can be.”
As George VI is humanised, he earns the audience’s sympathy and admiration, especially when he is shown soldiering on with his duties despite his ailing health. When his daughter Elizabeth (Claire Foy) inherits the throne at the end of episode two, our reverence is transplanted on to her. Foy’s character speaks openly about the pressures of public life, telling Edward VIII (Alex Jennings) in episode three: “You don’t think I’d have preferred to grow up out of the spotlight, away from court, away from the scrutiny? A simpler life, a happier life as a wife, mother, an ordinary English countrywoman.” Her visible pain makes her achievements all the more impressive: over the following three seasons, Foy and her successor Olivia Colman are both shown navigating political upheaval, natural disasters and constitutional crises with unrivalled steadfastness. While approval ratings for the real Queen have been steady since 2016, the show has strengthened her position as a figurehead.
Re-evaluated legacies
Also significant has been The Crown’s impact on younger generations, particularly in their renewed appreciation of Princess Margaret, who passed away in 2002. In the first two seasons, Vanessa Kirby’s charismatic portrayal of the Queen’s sister helped redefine her public image. Once dismissed as “excessively common” and “vulgar” by contemporaries such as Nancy Mitford and Cecil Beaton, the princess was presented as a tragic figure on screen. Denied her marriage to Peter Townsend and overshadowed by the Queen, she falls into a relationship with Antony Armstrong-Jones that disintegrates over time. Helena Bonham Carter’s performance as an older, more disillusioned Margaret in season three is sadder still, revealing the wasted potential of a woman who for so long craved the limelight.
Equally intriguing has been the reassessment of Prince Philip’s legacy. Often sidelined in season one, the Duke of Edinburgh (as played by Matt Smith) is given prominence in the second season, which features flashbacks to his turbulent childhood. From his mother’s psychotic breakdown to his sister’s death in a plane crash and his formative years at a brutal boarding school, The Crown offers a more complex portrait of a prince who is frequently reduced to caricature—a fact unaided by his tendency to make controversial comments and his involvement in a car crash in 2019. Although his alleged philandering is a recurring plot point, in season three, Tobias Menzies’s more ruminative Philip is a departure from his raucous public persona.
Recent history
Older members of the royal family, whose personal struggles are less familiar to viewers, may be easier to reinterpret as dramatic characters. But as the show approaches the present day, it becomes increasingly difficult to reshape pre-existing narratives. Season three’s main beneficiary has been the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, played by a delightfully droll Erin Doherty. She proves to be a thoroughly modern royal, shown stomping around the palace in riding boots, singing along to David Bowie in her car and even having a casual relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla Shand’s future husband. (Camilla, of course, is now the Duchess of Cornwall and the wife of Prince Charles.)
In her youth, the press had dubbed Anne the “Frown Princess” due to her austere manner, but after the season landed on Netflix, she was showered with praise. The Times named her “the most underrated royal”, The Telegraph labelled her a “style icon” and The Guardian asked if she was “the most acceptable face of the monarchy”. In the months that followed, the 69-year-old was more closely reported on, and her popularity skyrocketed further after a video emerged seeming to show her shrugging at the Queen when asked to greet Donald Trump at Buckingham Palace.
With the portrayal of her brother Prince Charles, however, the response has been complicated. In season three, Josh O’Connor imbues his performance with pathos, presenting a king-in-waiting who is introverted and in search of a meaningful role. Episode six, Tywysog Cymru, is the most heartbreaking, showing Charles travelling to Aberystwyth to learn Welsh prior to his investiture as Prince of Wales. After the event, he tells the Queen that he has a voice, and she replies: “Nobody wants to hear it.”
It’s a moment that evokes empathy, but is coloured by the episodes that follow, which depict Charles’s courtship of Camilla (Emerald Fennell) — a relationship that remains divisive despite the show’s attempt to present them as star-crossed lovers. To some, Charles is still best known for his troubled marriage to Diana and decades-long affair with Camilla, a scandal that played out on front pages, in taped phone calls and in explosive TV interviews. How can The Crown possibly reinterpret a period of history that is already embedded in the popular imagination? The answer will come with season four, in which Emma Corrin is set to play a young Diana.
Contemporary crises
Fans of the show who also hoped that Prince Andrew’s interview, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to step back as senior members of the royal family, would be covered in The Crown were, however, disappointed. On January 31, 2020, Morgan confirmed that the show’s fifth season, covering the 1990s and early 2000s, would be its last. So, without the opportunity to dramatise these recent crises, how will the show affect our perception of them and the institution at large? Having dissected the hardships the family face while living in the public eye, will viewers of The Crown be more understanding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s departure? “I actually think The Crown may have played a role in the unsympathetic reception to Harry and Meghan,” replies Lacey. “The audience has seen the difficulties of the job, certainly, but The Crown also shows that the essence of being royal is having to do things you don’t want to do.”
Ultimately, the rose-tinted image The Crown presents could be the key to securing the institution’s future at a time when it is under threat. A recent YouGov poll shows that 47 per cent of the British public feel that Prince Andrew’s actions have damaged the monarchy. Meanwhile, Harry and Meghan’s approval ratings have also taken a nosedive. However, another survey found that 62 per cent of Britons still believe that they should have a monarchy. “Peter’s triumph has been to bring people closer to the royals emotionally without diminishing what they stand for,” concludes Lacey. “This human understanding enhances people’s belief in and loyalty to The Crown. An implausible institution is somehow made more plausible, and that’s something nobody would have predicted.”
Also read:
8 royal filming locations from The Crown you can actually visit
