The Crown 4: here's what's true (and what's invention instead)

2023 Author: Devin Ellington | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 01:33

Was Diana really bulimic? Do royals really have secret cousins? Here's what's true (and what's not) about The Crown 4 storyline

The Crown 4 is finally available on Netflix from 15 November.

A look into the private life of the British monarchy along the life of the Queen Elizabeth II (now played by Olivia Colman), it allows the people of the world to make the Windsors more real, in the sense of lifelike.

But since the royal family is not used to publicly sharing personal details and family matters, how can we be sure that the things told in The Crown 4 actually went like this?

Although many of the historical events depicted in the series actually happened, in fact, no one really knows what happened behind closed doors.

As the series progresses towards more recent times, however, fact checking becomes easier, thanks to the abundant material provided by the paparazzi over the years.

Here, then, are which of the episodes recounted in The Crown 4 they are real and which are only fiction.

Warning: the text from here on contains spoilers

Did Prince Charles really date Lady Diana's older sister Sarah?

Yes. In the fourth season of The Crown came Diana Spencer. We are first introduced to this character via the older sister Lady Sarah right in the first episode.

Lady Sarah and Prince Charles dated in 1977. It is precisely through Lady Sarah that the future heir to the throne first met the then Lady Diana Spencer - who struck him as "a very cheerful, funny and attractive sixteen year old … very lively and full of life", these are the words used by the prince during their 1981 engagement interview.

Was Diana able to choose her engagement ring?

Yes. History wants that after the proposal Diana was presented with a tray of jewelry from which she could choose.

Diana was shown several options, from which she then chose the engagement ring we all know.

Were Camilla and Diana friends?

It is true that Camilla initially tried to make friends with Lady Diana, and it is equally true that the latter did not really want to know.

When Diana moved to Clarence House, the Queen Mother's then home, on the eve of the engagement announcement, there was a letter from Camilla waiting for her, asking her to have lunch together. But for Diana, any potential friendship was short-lived.

Did Lady Diana really confide in Prince Philip?

In the fourth season of The Crown we see a scene where Prince Philip and Diana have one open heart conversation about the princess's unhappiness on Christmas Day in Sandringham.

Although it is not known whether this conversation really happened, Prince Philip, whom Diana affectionately referred to as "Pa", has always been one of the princess's earliest allies.

Indeed, Philip and Diana often communicated via handwritten letters, with the Duke of Edinburgh trying to offer his support to Diana to save her marriage.

Did Princess Diana surprise Prince Charles with a ball at the London Opera House?

Yes, and it was all Diana's idea! The princess, who loved to dance and took classes at Kensington Palace, contacted ballet star Wayne Sleep to choreograph a dance as a special surprise for her husband.

The dance, to the tune of "Uptown Girl" was done in December 1985.

Was it really feared that Prince Charles had died in an avalanche?

No. Although it was never feared that Prince Charles was dead, he actually is was involved in an avalanche that killed his friend, Major Hugh Lindsay, in the Swiss town of Klosters in 1988.

Prince Charles, who was not injured in the accident, joined other members of the group in a frantic attempt to track down Lindsay. Witnesses said that the prince looked shocked, and one said he was crying when a helicopter came to pick him up.

In the series, Diana is shown receiving the news in London, but in reality she was traveling with her husband, albeit he wasn't on the slopes that day.

Did Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher get along?

The plot of the fourth season addresses some of the tensions really existed between the queen and her first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in office from 1979 to 1990.

Although they were almost the same age and both held positions of power in a world dominated by men, the two did not get along very well. They often had conflicting opinions, including a disagreement on sanctions against apartheid in South Africa (Thatcher opposed the sanctions and the Queen in support).

Despite their differences, the relationship between the two has softened over the years. The queen honored Thatcher with The Order of Merit just two weeks after her resignation. Additionally, Thatcher's 2013 funeral was also the first funeral of a prime minister the queen has attended since Winston Churchill.

Did Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret have cousins hiding in a psychiatric institution?

Yes. One of the biggest revelations of the season comes in the seventh episode, with the discovery of the royal sisters' secret cousins. Two of the Queen's first cousins had been secretly admitted to the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Mental Defectives in Surrey in 1941 by their parents (who were the Queen Mother's elder brother and sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon).

The two cousins were born at a time when children with disabilities were considered the shame of a family.

Did Princess Diana really suffer from bulimia?

Yes. It was Princess Diana herself who confirmed, in an interview in November 1995, of having struggled with "rampant bulimia". Her eating disorder is represented throughout the fourth season.

At the time, Lady D had said, “It was a symptom of what was going on in my marriage. I was asking for help, but I was giving the wrong signals, and people were using my bulimia against me. They decided I was the problem: Diana was unstable ».

“The cause of my eating disorder was there pressure for the situation where my husband and I had to keep everything together because we didn't want to disappoint the audience, yet obviously there was a lot of anxiety within our four walls ».