[This story contains spoilers from the final season of The Crown.]
With the release of the last six episodes of The Crown on Netflix have come new questions about the fictionalized depiction of the British royal family.
In part two of the sixth and final season of the critically acclaimed historical drama, the stage is set for the future heirs to the throne as Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Camilla Parker Bowles (Olivia Williams) are granted permission to wed, and Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) rekindle their relationship after a brief break.
“Those couples coming together felt like a beautiful end to our story,” executive producer Suzanne Mackie told The Hollywood Reporter in a previous interview. “That, in a way, peace is restored to the land.”
In staying true to his original vision of ending the series in 2005, writer and creator Peter Morgan had to also find a way to conclude the Queen’s story nearly two decades before the actual end of her reign upon her death in 2022. The resulting storyline in the final episode, “Sleep, Dearie Sleep,” depicts Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) in an existential crisis, pondering the weight of her crown and whether it’s time to pass on its responsibility to her eager son, Prince Charles. Ultimately, she decides to honor her duty as queen and remain on the throne as she did in real life.
“Episode 10 — apart from it being the finale — I think, is beautiful,” said Mackie in a separate interview with THR. “It feels like a culmination of the long 68-episode journey we’ve been on. Stephen Daldry directed it so beautifully and Imelda is just breathtaking in it as the Queen. One senses the Queen’s absence and, through that episode, you sense what she meant to us. Suddenly, it feels like she’s gone and so it feels like the ending of The Crown coincides with the end of her reign.”
But, did Queen Elizabeth actually consider abdicating from the throne? And, how accurate are the depictions we see of Prince Charles and Prince William’s relationships? Read on for answers to those questions and more.
Did Mohamed Al-Fayed and the public at large really blame the royal family for Princess Diana’s death?
Episode nine, “Hope Street,” begins with Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw) speaking to the media about alleged proof that the royal family had his son Dodi (Khalid Abdalla) and Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) killed once they learned she was pregnant with the Egyptian business heir’s child. Later in the episode, that allegation is proven false during a press conference led by the commissioner of the metropolitan police, Sir John Stevens, in which he relays the results of the investigation.
Operation Paget was indeed the name of the official inquiry into the deaths of Dodi and Diana and the conspiracy theories surrounding the fatal car crash in 1997, the basis for which were the public statements made by Al-Fayed. The investigation, which was opened in 2004, later encompassed more widespread claims posited in the media.
“The Stevens inquiry is a really important story,” explained Mackie. “At the time of Diana’s death, there was such a blaming of the press and paparazzi that felt a bit disproportionate, if I dare say. There’s no doubt that she was hounded, but the truth was that the security protocol for her was lacking, to say the very least. They changed their mind too many times, and that was the biggest mistake they made, coupled with the biggest contributor, which is that the driver was over the limit.”
Episode five, “Willsmania,” shows Prince William struggling with the news reports that surfaced in the wake of his mother’s death, placing partial blame for it on his father, whose testimony was a part of the 2004 investigation. At the end of the episode, the father and son repair their relationship at the urging of Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce), who offers William an alternative perspective on his own son’s grief.
“In a way that scene was a sort of a justification against the accusations that Charles had, probably not only from his sons, but from the public generally, that he was in some way responsible,” West told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I think that, particularly around Diana’s death, he (Charles) was the villain of the piece, and I think perhaps now that we’ve had 25 years of retrospective to look back on, we might judge that— I certainly have judged that — as being a bit harsh on him.”
Were Harry and William always at odds?
The theme of “the heir and the spare” has been a constant throughout The Crown, beginning with the story of Edward VIII’s 1936 abdication of the throne to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson in season one, and continuing on through the stories of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville), Prince Charles and Princess Anne (Claudia Harrison), and Prince William and Prince Harry (Luther Ford) in season six.
There’s notably a greater focus on Prince William in the final season due to his standing position to one day be king. And though the series begins to show a differing of opinions between the brothers, notably their stance on their father marrying Camilla as William tells Harry, “I’m just trying to be an adult,” when he expresses approval to the queen upon being consulted, the writers and producers were careful not to paint an unfair picture of their relationship as young men.
“We didn’t want to impose what we know now on then because we’re not telling the story now, we were telling the story then,” Mackie explained to THR. “That would feel manipulative, I think. [Peter] wanted to write about the brothers and William meeting Kate in a very objective way, and a lot of research had gone into it.”
Did Kate Middleton’s mom really have a hand in her daughter dating William?
Episode seven, “Alma Mater,” shows a teenage Kate Middleton having a chance encounter with Prince William while Christmas shopping with her mom in 1996. Carole (Eve Best) gives Kate money so she can meet the future King and Princess Diana, who are collecting donations — a scene that foreshadows future orchestrating on the part of Kate’s mother, who’s revealed to have suggested her daughter take a gap year like Prince William and switch schools to meet him at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, which she does.
“We knew that there had been a university change, and that things had changed because of where William was going, but I hope it doesn’t come across as a too cynical portrayal of her imagination,” Mackie told THR. “I think she, like a mother, is ambitious for her daughter, and we set that up in the very opening scene of episode seven where she says, “I went for it in my life. I went for it, and I’ve succeeded. And I want the very best for you. You deserve it. You’re special.”
Kate met William at St Andrews in 2001 and the two began dating in 2003. They split briefly in 2004 before getting back together, and again in 2007 before beginning to rekindle their romance for a final time in 2008. The pair wed April 29, 2011 in Westminster Abbey. Of playing Kate in season six, actress Meg Bellamy told THR, “Learning about Kate not coming from royal roots and things like that, I realized we had quite similar upbringings. Watching her kind of be launched into this public frenzy is really fascinating and a privilege to play someone that you have to look into in that way.”
How close were Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth in real life?
Episode eight, “Ritz,” serves as a final chapter in the story of the sisterhood between Queen Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret (Manville). Though the speech the Queen delivers to her sister at her 70th birthday party in the episode is fabricated, the bond between Lilibet and Margaret was very real.
“It’s easy to discover that from reading the books,” Manville told THR. “They were clearly close; they had their childhoods together before they knew that their paths were going to be going in the direction that they went in.
As for how their sisterhood played out in the series, she added, “That relationship and the complexities of it were always rumbling away underneath every scene, even small scenes, whether they were having a little spike at each other or just giving each other a loving, supporting glance.”
The episode also chronicles the decline in Princess Margaret’s health, which is attributed to a series of strokes. The glamorous socialite, who’d been a heavy smoker for most of her adult life, experienced her first stroke in 1998 and suffered her fourth and final one on Feb. 8, 2002. She died one day later at the age of 71.
“There are a lot of images of Margaret in that time. But in a way, the most interesting thing for me is what it did to her sense of herself and how it disrupted her sense of herself,” Manville said of depicting Margaret during her last years. “She’s very defined by her glamour and how she can present herself. It was very important to her. So, to not be able to be that person was difficult.”
Did Queen Elizabeth Considering Abdicating?
At the center of The Crown finale is Queen Elizabeth’s internal debate about stepping down from the throne against the backdrop of her advisers urging her to begin making arrangements for her own funeral, which in real life was decades in the making. Questioning whether she should abdicate, however, was a completely fictitious storyline.
“That is very much a moment of Peter Morgan’s dramatist imagination,” Mackie told THR. “Of course, she would never have that conversation with anyone else, and she didn’t. We deliberately, very consciously didn’t let that happen because she wouldn’t. That would be disingenuous and doing her a disservice. She would never abdicate. Of course she wouldn’t. Her duty and her pledge was to serve till the day she died, and that’s what she did. She did it beautifully. But at this time, there had been a couple of abdications that happened in Europe, so it was in the air. It had been talked about. It was being speculated, so what Peter decided to do was to allow that conversation to happen in her. To imagine if she had had that conversation, what direction would it take.”
Morgan himself explained that he set out to create an ending that would make the audience feel satisfied they had reached the end, even though the Queen would go on to live nearly two more decades after the finale, which is set in 2005: “I wrote the final episode being an internal conversation that the queen was having about whether she should carry on or hand over to Charles. I thought one could dramatize the internal dialogue with her in conversation with her younger self. That was a fun challenge, because I was completely committed to not coming up to the present day.”
Did Prince Charles and Camilla Live Happily Ever After?
During Charles and Camilla’s wedding reception at Windsor Castle, the Queen delivers a speech in which she thanks Camilla for her patience and forbearance over the years, recognizing her as a “strength and stay for the Prince of Wales.” Though the exact words she spoke at the royal wedding in 2005 are unknown to the public, Queen Elizabeth’s speech was described as being “unusually sentimental,” with a friend of Charles and Camilla’s telling The Telegraph it was a “lovely affectionate tribute.”
The Queen’s embrace of Camilla seemed to signal a universal change in public opinion regarding Prince Charles’ longtime companion. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth on Sept. 8, 2022, Charles became King Charles III and Camila became Queen. His coronation was held at Westminster Abbey on May 6 of this year.
“I remember watching the wedding and I think we all saw a slightly different side to her. I don’t know what that precisely was, but there was something about her,” said Mackie. “The way she held herself, the way she looked, the way they obviously seemed so in love. I think that was a moment of acceptance, it was an unspoken acceptance of her. It felt like the landscape changed from there on and you see where we are now, where she’s the queen and she’s married and he’s the king.”
The Crown‘s final season, and the entire series, is now streaming on Netflix.
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