Millions of TV fans will spend today binge-watching the new series of The Crown. Series three features suggestions the Monarch had an affair with her horse racing manager. It’s not the only time producers play with the truth. Today, two of Britain’s best
WHAT will they be saying over at Buckingham Palace now the new series of The Crown is back on our screens? Not much, if past history’s anything to go by.
The blockbuster TV show is increasingly playing fast and loose with the facts, but the royals, as always, are keeping silent.
In an age when fewer people read history books but increasing numbers watch TV, history’s now being made by what we see and hear.and before too long, official biographers will be discussing as fact one of the most outrageous suggestions made by The Crown – that the Queen had an affair with her racing manager Lord Porchester.
It’s a lie, as we shall see. But who cares? Certainly not The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan. Instead of contenting himself portraying what, by any standards, is a colourful story of a remarkable dynasty, he’s deliberately turned his back on the facts and rewritten history to suit himself.
The miracle of Queen Elizabeth II and her 67 spotless years on the throne is that she’s behaved impeccably throughout, a model of decorum and dedication. But that’s boring to TV scriptwriters, so why not add a little illicit love?
Why not drag out the rumour that’s been around for ever, that she had an affair with Lord Porchester? I hate to disappoint The Crown’s devotees, but here’s the real story.
It originates not from some overheard whisper in a palace corridor or discreetly dropped hint but from the US TV show Good Morning America, some 20 years ago.
I was in New York and watching the TV when Nigel Dempster, then a famous gossip columnist renowned for mischief-making, came on to make the claim.
In those days there was no social media and, reckoned Dempster, nobody of impor
AS A historian who has written on the reign of Elizabeth II, I am fascinated to see this world played out on the small screen.
This time, we are going deep into the 1960s and 1970s, covering everything from strikes to the Moon landings, the advent of Camilla Shand to Princess Margaret’s affair with Roddy Llewellyn.
And, of course, we have a whole new cast, with Olivia Colman as the Queen and Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret.
This is a difficult period for the 40-something Queen, who must deal with strains inside and outside Buckingham Palace.
Series three shows the monarchy trying to move with the times and the Queen is more tormented by moral dilemmas than ever before.
Some are political – agreeing, for example to continue the cover-up over Russian spy Anthony Blunt, or dissuading Mountbatten from attempting a coup against Haroldwilson’s government.
We also see her conflicted feelings over how long it took her to visit the Welsh village of Aberfan in 1966, when a coal slurry heap fell and killed 144 people, many of them children – which she later said, in 2002, was her “greatest regret”. tance watching that early in the morning. So the outrageous claims he made were never challenged, just allowed to slowly and quietly gather traction over the years. When I flew back to London I asked him, was the story true or false, because it sounded so outrageous? Begging me not to repeat it, Dempster confessed he’d made it up. It was a joke, he said, just a joke. Two decades on, it looks like that humorous stab at the Queen’s virtue has now, tragically, become a piece of history.
So what other inventions has The Crown cooked up?
Lord Mountbatten enlisted the Queen Mother’s aid to kill off Prince Charles’ stated intention of marrying, at 24, Camilla Shand. The Queen Mother disliked “bounder” Mountbatten hugely and
Some criticise historical drama for “making things up”. But The Crown deals with the truth – the historical events we see did truly happen.
What we don’t know is what the
Royal Family felt about them.
The Crown is in keeping with the spirit of matters and what happens behind closed doors.
It’s because it ties in with what we know that the programme is so enjoyable and successful.
It also tells us about ourselves: 100 years in the future, people will watch it for clues about how we felt about the monarchy in the early decthere was no “plan” about Charles or anything else; they hardly ever saw each other. And Charles had no intention of proposing to Camilla, who was then on the brink of marrying Andrew Parker Bowles.
Princess Margaret “enchanted” President Lyndon Johnson on a 1965 trip towashington and secured a £1billion loan for Britain.
The trip was a disaster and Margaret was effectively banned from representing Britain in the USA for years to come. ades of the 21st century and the final years of the Queen’s reign.
Many of the dilemmas with which the monarch struggles in the series are personal, chiefly concerning Princess Margaret and Prince Charles.
Margaret wants a greater role, a more diplomatic role, and the Queen cannot grant it.
But series three is also Charles’s moment. He changes his speech at his inauguration as Prince of Wales as his desire to speak his mind conflicts with his mother. And then he falls desperately in love with Camilla Shand, who the “powers that be” see as “unsuitable” as a royal wife.
The final episode moves towards the 1980s – the time of boom, the yuppie, Reagan, Mrs Thatcher – and Princess Diana.
With Gillian Anderson making her entrance as Mrs Thatcher in series four, we can certainly expect more sparks to fly!