The Crown boosts enigma of royalty

IT MAY have been condemned by everyone from Dame Judi Dench to Sir John Major for its ‘cruel’ and ‘malicious’ portrayal of the Windsors, but The Crown is actually good for the monarchy. That, at least, is the ‘heretical’ view of bestselling author Robert Harris.

‘The Crown has done the Royal Family nothing but good in some ways,’ he says. ‘Nobody really takes it literally, do they? I am sure that the majority who watch it have a handful of salt beside them.’

Harris, whose novels include Fatherland and Enigma, tells me: ‘The Crown has reinforced the position of the Royal Family as essentially the world’s royal family: there isn’t another dynasty on the planet, not even the Kennedys, which has captured humanity’s imagination in the same way. That is quite an achievement for a hereditary monarchy in the 21st century.’