A less-than-accurate affair and a secret plot that never took place.
"The Crown" might be royally binge-able, but it takes its fair share of creative liberties…
In Season 2 of "The Crown," we are introduced to Prince Charles as a young boy. He is depicted as
a shy, quiet boy whose tentativeness is met with harshness from his parents. At one point, his
father, Prince Philip, even takes the scared boy on a plane, lectures him, and eventually yells,
"Don’t be so weak! Stop being so bloody weak!"
In reality, it's unlikely that Charles' parents were actually this
cruel. According to royal historian Carolyn Harris, it's far more likely that he simply
didn't actually know his parents that well at all. Harris told Parade:
"The queen and Prince Philip were busy parents,
especially when Charles and [his sister] Anne were young children.
Charles developed strong bonds with his nannies and governesses as well as members of his extended
family, such as his grandmother, the Queen Mother, and his granduncle Lord Mountbatten."
While there’s footage out there that depicts the parents playing and interacting with their kids,
their busy schedules didn’t always allow for quality time.
This meant that Charles and his sister would often spend most of their time with other family members
and caregivers. Chances are, if the royal parents wanted to toughen up their son,
they would have left that task to a nanny or governess.
In "The Crown," the young Prince Charles is sent off to his father's old boarding school,
Gordonstoun in Scotland. In the show, the young boy hates his time at the school
and is ruthlessly bullied.
"Are you ready for how tough it is?"
"How do you feel being far away, sir?"
"Is this good for him, sir?"
"Is this the right school for him?"
It seems there is some truth to this depiction. According to Hello! magazine,
as a child, Prince Charles even wrote:
"The people in my dormitory are foul.
Goodness, they are horrid. I don't know how anybody could be so foul."
However, years later, Charles expressed some fondness for his old school,
later adding in a 1975 speech at the House of Lords:
"I am always astonished by the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun and the careless use
of ancient clichés used to describe it. It was only tough in the sense that it demanded more
of you as an individual than most other schools did — mentally or physically."
Looking back, Charles realized he was lucky to attend Gordonstoun, saying it taught him
about himself, his own abilities, and even his own disabilities, adding in his 1975 speech:
"It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative."
Either hindsight is 20-20, or Charles didn't actually
hate the school as much as we were led to believe.
Remember that scene in "The Crown" where Lord Mountbatten and the Queen Mother
work together to try and separate Charles and Camilla? Well,
surprise — that scene was entirely made up. Royal historian Carolyn Harris told Parade:
"The Queen Mother and Lord Mountbatten would have discouraged a match between Charles and Camilla.
However, the scenes where the Queen Mother and Lord Mountbatten actively conspire together to
arrange Camilla's marriage and keep Charles and Camilla apart are dramatized for the series."
"I like her very much indeed."
"Hmm."
"The situation is complicated."
Apparently, Mountbatten did dissuade Charles from staying with Camilla, but not in the way the show
depicts. In the series, Charles receives a letter on the day of Mountbatten's death.
As show creator Peter Morgan told the official "The Crown Podcast," that letter never happened.
"What we know is that Mountbatten was really responsible for taking Charles to one side at
precisely this point and saying, 'Look, you know, enough already with playing the field,
it's time you got married and it's time you provided an heir,'" Morgan explained, via Express.
Sounds like Charles' family's disapproval
of Camilla was somewhat less dramatic in real life than it was on the show.
Beyond the fabricated scenes on "The Crown," according to some experts,
Prince Charles' personality may have been altered for dramatic effect.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, royal expert Hugo Vickers claimed:
"They always liked to portray him as a kind of wimp. This time, though,
he's not only portrayed as a wimp, but also as a very angry, unpleasant person yelling at his
wife ... it's really, really disgraceful what they've done to him in this season."
"If you had anything between your ears other than self-obsession,
you would know public displays like that horrify me!"
All of this was far from the truth, Vickers claimed.
Former royal butler Grant Harrold also claimed that
Charles' explosive side on the show wasn't accurate. He told Insider:
"In seven years of working for him, he never raised his voice to me — not once,
never. And we were close; I was around him a lot."
Instead of being angry and loud, Harrold said, quote,
"He's strong, powerful, and compassionate. And I think he'll make an amazing king."
However, another ex-butler, Paul Burrell, claimed that there may have been some
truth to the portrayal. He told the Sun:
"Josh O'Connor plays Prince Charles as a rather uncaring,
cold person. And I'm afraid that's what I saw behind closed doors."
In "The Crown," Charles has a brief relationship with Sarah Spencer,
Diana's older sister. While Charles did date Sarah in real life,
the show left out a few details about how their relationship began and ended.
According to the biography "Diana: Finally, the Complete Story," Sarah and Charles met
at a house party during the Royal Ascot. As author Sarah Bradford wrote via the Oprah Daily:
"Prince Charles enjoyed Sarah's sparkiness and irreverent wit,
and they made each other laugh. After that, the pair were spotted at polo matches,
the theater, house parties, and even on a Swiss ski holiday."
However, Charles reportedly ended their relationship when Sarah made
a comment to Woman's Own about the Prince, saying:
"There is no chance of my marrying him. I'm not in love with him."
In a very memorable scene in "The Crown," Charles meets a young Diana in the front
hall of her family home, while he's there to visit her sister, Sarah. Diana, meanwhile,
is dressed in an elaborate and whimsical tree costume for a rehearsal of "A Midsummer Night's
Dream." The pair peer at each other from behind large floral arrangements in the empty room.
While this meet-cute may be the perfect otherworldly introduction to Princess Diana,
it isn't exactly what happened in real life. According to a 1981 article in the Daily Times,
Diana was first introduced to Charles in November of 1977 when he came to her family home for a
pheasant hunting trip. According to Diana, they met, quote, "in the middle of a plowed field."
Charles later recalled their first meeting, adding:
"I remember thinking, what a very jolly and amusing and
attractive 16-year-old she was. And, I mean, great fun and bouncy and full of life and everything."
In "The Crown," we don't get to see too much of Charles and Diana's courtship.
What we do see is a lot of chaperones and guarded conversations. At the beginning of their romance,
we see Diana approach Charles' car and offer her sympathies at the death of Lord Mountbatten.
After that, they become engaged fairly quickly.
In real life, chances are that the couple did have some alone time together. In fact,
the conversation about Lord Mountbatten reportedly happened in private — and went very differently.
Apparently, the pair found themselves sitting on a bale of hay and Diana expressed her sympathies.
In the documentary "Diana: In Her Own Words,” Diana said:
"The next minute he leapt on me, practically. It was strange. I thought,
'This isn't very cool,' but I had nothing to go by, because I'd never had a boyfriend."
Charles even asked her to come back to Buckingham Palace with him,
but she allegedly declined, as she was trying to "play it cool."
In "The Crown," Princess Diana struggles with her mental health after marrying
Prince Charles and even develops bulimia. According to many reports, this is all true.
However, the way that her husband dealt with Diana's mental health problems
in real life was reportedly a little different from what we saw on Netflix.
As royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith told USA Today, Charles became so concerned that he
decided to take action to help her — something we never see in "The Crown." Smith further explains:
"In the autumn of 1981, Charles was so alarmed by Diana's rages,
signs of depression, and overall volatility that he took her to London to see a psychotherapist,
Dr. Alan McGlashan. She only saw him eight times, but Charles continued regular therapy until 1995."
According to a letter written by McGlashan,
Charles was actually concerned about his wife rather than distant and uncaring.
"The Crown" makes no secret of the fact that Prince Charles becomes jealous of
Diana as she becomes more and more popular with the public.
"Eight minutes they were on their feet,
cheering you. Tomorrow, the newspapers will be about nothing other than you!"
According to most accounts, Charles was fairly jealous in real life, too.
According to Paul Burrell, Diana's butler and friend,
Charles wasn't always very supportive. Burrell recalled to The Sun:
"Diana said to me, 'I thought when I got married that my husband would be there for me,
to care for me, to support me, to encourage me, but he isn't.’ People that jump up and say,
'Well, that's not factual,' well, that's pretty close to the truth."
The "problem,” he explained, was, quote,
“seeing an unknown young girl rise while Charles's star doesn't."
According to Burrell,
everything "The Crown" showed about the pair's Australia trip was true. In fact,
Burrell added that the show's creators "could have gone further" to show Charles' jealousy.
If you think "The Crown" is an accurate depiction of what Prince Charles might have been like behind
closed doors, you might be surprised to learn that the royal was probably a lot
busier than he appeared on the show. As one royal expert, Hugo Vickers, told Vanity Fair:
"I mean, does [Charles on 'The Crown'] ever do any work? Does he ever do an engagement?
Does he ever actually achieve anything? No, they didn't show a single thing that he does."
According to Vickers, Charles has always spent most of his
time working for the royal family. Vickers said:
"Prince Charles is very dedicated, and he's done everything that he's been asked to do
all his life. He's parachuted in the sea [as colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment],
gone into the Navy. He's lived with crofters on funny little islands up in Scotland. He's gone
on government departments. He's traveled around the Commonwealth. He set up the Prince's Trust."
By the sounds of things,
the real-life Charles isn't quite as idle as he is shown to be on Netflix.
One of the biggest departures from reality in Netflix's "The Crown" was the Camilla
storyline. In the show, Charles and Camilla are shown to be carrying on a romantic affair
while Charles is still married to Diana. While this did happen,
some experts say that the timeline we see in the show isn't quite right.
For instance, in the show, Charles heads straight to his home in Highgrove to spend
time with Camilla after his 1981 trip with Diana.
As described by Sally Bedell Smith in a conversation with Vanity Fair:
"This is false. He went to Buckingham Palace. At that time, Highgrove was
under renovation and redecoration, which Diana supervised with her mother's interior designer,
Dudley Poplak. Charles and Diana didn't move into Highgrove until late 1981."
Smith also shared with USA Today that Charles and Camilla hadn’t continued their affair until 1986,
after Diana had an affair of her own with her protection officer.
In "The Crown," Diana comes across as a far more sympathetic figure than Charles.
However, according to some royal biographers,
this bias toward Diana hides the truth of their relationship.
Sally Bedell Smith told Vanity Fair:
"[Diana] mocked Charles' ideas and declined to read her own briefing
material or take the advice of the courtiers assigned to help her.
As their marriage frayed, she abused Charles emotionally, taunting him for the medals he wore,
for instance, and telling him he would never be king. To his credit — and contrary
to some of what I am told appears in 'The Crown' — Charles did not respond in kind."
We may never really know exactly what Charles was like as a young man — however,
it's safe to say that "The Crown" does take a few artistic liberties with his story. Whatever you
choose to believe about the new king, "The Crown" certainly knows how to tell a compelling story.