Photo: Netflix
Keep reading if you want to find out what was real and what was just for show. And, it goes without saying, spoilers ahead!
False: Churchill’s Assistant Venetia Scott and Her Death
Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty
While her role on the series leads to a great turning point on Churchill’s part, it doesn’t appear thatScott ever existed, according to theRadio Times.
False-ish: The Great Smog and London’s Reaction
While the Great Smog plays a central role onThe Crown, the panic it shows was apparently not all together accurate. While the Great Smog was denser and longer-lasting than previous “fogs,” the long-term effects of the Great Smog weren’t realized until several weeks — and even years — later as Londoners were already used to bad air quality. Still, despite not causing an outright panic or near-political crisis, the Great Smog still had a devastating impact, including poor visibility, widespread illness and deaths. (It’s estimated thatthe Great Smogcaused somewhere between 6,000 to 12,000 deaths.) The Great Smog also influenced environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968, which led to a reduction in air pollution.
True: Queen Elizabeth’s Friendship with Porchie
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WhilePhilip(Matt Smith) is off flying planes and checking out waitresses at gentlemen’s clubs, Elizabeth gets a bit of her fun onThe Crownwhen she takes up horse breeding alongside her childhood friend Porchie, aka Lord Porchester and later Earl of Carnarvon (Joseph Kloska). Elizabeth’s obvious excitement — and blushes — around Porchie leads to fight with Philip, causing her to declare that while many people wanted her to marry Porchie, she fell in love with Philip, and he’s the only man she’s ever loved. (Philip’s silence is surely a sign of more marriage troubles to come on season 2.)
Porchie was indeed a real person and was extremely close to the Queen, who took him on as her racing manager in 1969. While there were rumors that Porchie and the Queen had an affair — including claims that he is Prince Andrew’s biological father — there has never been any actual evidence of a romance. As on the show, Porchie went on to marry Anglo-American Jean Margaret Wallop, and the couple had three children — Henry, Carolyn and George, who is the current Earl of Carnarvon. Porchie and Elizabeth remained close until his death in 2001.
True: Lord Mountbatten’s Influence Over Prince Philip
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, with his nephew, Prince Philip, in 1965.Douglas Miller/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty
Philip’s closeness with his uncle, Lord Mountbatten (Greg Wise), is the cause of some courtier rumblings onThe Crown, mostly because they don’t want to see the Mountbatten family take over the Windsors. In real life, Mountbatten did hold considerable influence over Philip and acted as a father figure after the future Duke of Edinburgh was sent to live with the Mountbatten family when he was 7. (Philip’s mother, Prince Alice of Battenberg, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to an asylum when he was young, while his father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, ditched his family to live in Monte Carlo after being exiled from Greece.) Mountbatten was close to Elizabeth’s dad, King George VI (Jared Harris), andengineered the first meetingbetween then-princess Elizabeth and Philip when the royal family toured the Royal Naval College in 1939. Mountbatten continued to remain close to Philip and the royal family, particularlyPrince Charles(now King Charles III), up until his tragic death in 1979 at the hands of IRA terrorists.
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The repeated line about Mountbatten being the “man who gave away India” is also somewhat true. Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy of India in 1947, with the explicit goal of overseeing the country’s move toward independence, which had already been agreed upon. He is also regarded as the man who controversially broke up India — separating Muslim Pakistan from the rest of unified India as part of a negotiation deal with the country’s leaders. As also referenced onThe Crown, Mountbatten’s wife, Lady Mountbatten (Linda Peters), had an affair with famed Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
True: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s Nicknames for the Royal Family
“What a smug stinking lot my relations are, and you’ve never seen such a seedy, worn out bunch of old hags most of them have become,” he wrote
True: Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend’s Romance
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“She could have married me only if she had been prepared to give up everything — her position, her prestige, her privy purse,” he wrote. “I simply hadn’t the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would have lost.”
Margaret later married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, a volatile marriage that ended another scandalous divorce in 1978.
AsThe Crowndepicts, courtiers were wary of Elizabeth’s children taking on Philip’s chosen last name of Mountbatten, as they feared that this gave too much weight to the Mountbatten family over the Windsors. In 1952, Elizabeth announced that her children would use the last name of “Windsor” when needed, although, in 1958,she quietly changed the nameto “Mountbatten-Windsor,” perhaps a sign that the exclusion of his last name had become a sore spot for Philip.
Probably False: Prince Philip’s Refusal to Kneel in Front of the Queen
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While Philip did push back against tradition on family issues like his children’s last names and their education, he would have understood and respected the significance of kneeling in front of Elizabeth at her coronation — and also likely balked at the breech of protocol as a royal himself.
“I doubtPrince Philipever spoke those words to his wife because he came from a royal house which had borrowed so much of its ritual and protocol from the British Royal Family,” expert Christopher Wilson toldthe Daily Mail, referring tothe tense sceneonthe Crown. “He knew full well what was expected of him in public and was prepared to go along with it.”
source: people.com
