Fresh royal row over The Crown’s plotline
NETFLIX drama The Crown was last night accused of fabricating a ‘hurtful’ smear against King Charles II by depicting him secretly plotting to oust the queen when he was Prince of Wales.
Friends called his portrayal on the hit royal drama as ‘false, unfair and deeply wounding’.
The new series, due to be screened next month, shows Charles lobbying the then British prime minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication.
The first episode of the forthcoming fifth series is set in 1991 against a background of speculation about the future of the monarchy and Charles’s constitutional role.
The Crown’s writers suggest that Charles believed his mother, then 65, was repeating Queen Victoria’s mistakes by refusing to stand aside for a younger heir. But critics point out that Charles was acutely aware that abdication was unthinkable and would devalue the institution.
Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, a friend of the king, said of the latest fabrication: ‘The Crown is full of nonsense, but this is nonsense on stilts.’
Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith said: ‘The events depicted here are outrageous and totally fictional. This programme is doing significant damage to people’s perception of history and their perception of the royal family. It has been packed full of malicious lies from the beginning but this level of abuse is now beyond the pale.’ In the new season’s first episode – ‘Queen Victoria Syndrome’ – Charles, played by Dominic West, is buoyed by a fictitious newspaper poll showing support for abdication among 47 per cent of the queen’s subjects.
It is based on a genuine poll from the previous year, 1990, but one with a crucial difference. In the real one, 47 per cent said the queen should hand over the throne ‘at some stage’ in the future.
The prince is shown actively briefing against the queen who he now believes is too old and too out of touch. And such is his determination to draw the prime minister into his conspiracy, that he cuts short a family holiday with Princess Diana and William and Harry to race back to London.
Summoning Mr Major, played by Trainspotting star Jonny Lee Miller, to a private meeting, he asks him to keep their discussions secret. This version of events has been heavily criticised.
But John Major told The Mail on Sunday the meeting never happened and called the scene a ‘barrel load of malicious nonsense’.
Another well-placed source said: ‘All the dialogue is completely made up.
‘All the one-to-one conversations that you see on screen are utter fiction and some scenes have been entirely created for dramatic, commercial purposes with little regard for the truth. People should be boycotting it.’
‘It’s packed full of malicious lies’