The Crown S5 E5 real history:

‘Camillagate’ tapes and a “war

council” for the monarchy’s
survival
www.historyextra.com

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Camilla (Olivia Williams) in 'The Crown'. (Image by Netflix)

What was the Way Ahead Group?

In this episode, The Crown shows this idea being mooted

at a meeting of the newly formed Way Ahead Group.
Described by the Lord Chamberlain as an “informal council
of war”, this group of senior royals and officials that was
formed in the 1990s aimed to chart a new path for the
monarchy, so it can survive “in a rapidly changing world”.

But in the drama, Charles is unimpressed by the

suggestions put on the table, railing against his fellow
attendees – including his mother, the Queen (Imelda
Staunton) – as he thunders: “We should be thinking of
something much more radical… I say why not abolish the
Civil List [a yearly sum paid by Parliament, to cover the
royal family’s working expenses] altogether? Have the
monarchy fund itself?”

Read more | Royal historian Tracy Borman on the

real events behind The Crown season 5

In reality, the Way Ahead Group did agree to some more

radical reforms. According to the Financial Times, the Civil
List was slashed so it only provided for the Queen, Prince
Philip and the Queen Mother – the Queen agreed to fund
the other royals’ working expenses herself. The royal
family also chose to cover the costs of restoring the fire-
damaged Windsor Castle themselves (as covered in our
guide for episode four) rather than asking taxpayers to
step in.

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Charles’ rival court?

Later in the episode, Charles goes as far as to set up a

“rival court”, having cited it as a tradition dating back to
the 18th-century. Afterwards, Princess Anne relays this to
a shocked group including the Queen: “Charles has been
slowly but surely setting up his own court at St James’s,”
she says, “his own Camelot.” 
Historian and royal commentator Dr Ed Owens told
HistoryExtra: “The court set up by Charles at St James’s
palace was not so much designed to rival that at
Buckingham Palace but instead to give the Prince of
Wales greater freedom in terms of running his everyday
activities.” 

He continued: “Charles had carved out a new, independent

role for himself as Prince of Wales and this was
essentially his way of assembling a team of trusted
advisors who could help him carry out his work, free from
the oversight of Buckingham Palace.”

Likewise, The Crown’s portrayal of a Charles who was

chafing at the bit to become king doesn’t reflect the
nuances of the situation. Although in 2004 Charles himself
apparently revealed “nobody knows what utter hell it is to
be Prince of Wales”, he also said, according to this 2018
BBC article, that: “It’s vital to remember there’s only room
for one sovereign at a time, not two.”

Royal biographer Penny Junor has also weighed in on his

feelings surrounding the ascension. When discussing
Charles’ attitude to ascending the throne at the start of
2022, she said: “This is a moment that he has been
dreading all his life really, because his achieving the top
job – the job he’s been training for and preparing for all
these years – does inevitably mean the death of his
mother, and he loves his mother very dearly.”

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As part of his earlier preparation for becoming king,

Charles threw himself into charity efforts, supporting more
than 400 organisations. The Crown focuses particularly on
his work with The Prince’s Trust, as we see him deliver a
rousing speech to an audience of young people, telling
them that “I want to reach those that are being overlooked,
rejected; to make sure that you’re being given a chance.”
The prince seems to relish his involvement, even good-
naturedly being pulled in to a breakdance circle at the end
of the episode.

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According to The Prince’s Trust website, Charles set up the

charity in 1976 (following on the heels of the Duke of
Edinburgh’s Award which Prince Philip had launched in
1956), to help young people overcome their
disadvantages. Over the decades, the trust has continued
to grow, forming high-profile partnerships with groups like
the Premier League, and by 2020 it had helped one million
young people.
What happened in the Camillagate tapes?

Aside from Charles’ gripes over his position as heir, his

relationships also dominate the episode. Although still
married to Diana, their relationship has broken down, and
Charles is embroiled in a relationship with Camilla Parker
Bowles (who is married to Brigadier Andrew Parker
Bowles).

The episode chooses to depict how one late-night phone

conversation between the pair is recorded by an amateur
radio enthusiast, who stumbles across their call by
chance. The conversation quickly turns from one of
Charles’ upcoming speeches to more intimate topics, with
the prince admitting: “God, I wish I could just live inside
your trousers or something”. When Camilla asks, “What
are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers?” Charles
replies: “Or, God forbid, a Tampax – just my luck.”

Read more | Charles and Camilla: a history of their

romance
Camilla (Olivia Williams) and Charles (Dominic West in
'The Crown' (Picture by Netflix)

The steamy conversation is sold to The Daily Mirror. In The

Crown’s portrayal the editor refuses to run it immediately,
due to the fear of “being responsible for breaking up a
royal marriage”, so the tapes are put on ice. That is,
however, until Diana and Charles announce their formal
separation three years later, when the papers view the
tapes as fair game.

We then see the royal family’s horrified reaction to the

scandal play out on screen, with Philip coming down
particularly hard on Charles – in the episode, he berates
him in front of his family, telling his son how “ashamed” he
is.
While the content of the tapes might seem like The
Crown’s creators have taken some artistic license, the
audio is lifted almost word-for-word from the real-life
transcript (although we see a shortened version of the
conversation play out on our screens). When the tapes
were published in People in 1993, they did cause
widespread uproar.

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Ed Owens told HistoryExtra: “A large section of the British

population seem to have been interested in what was
simply the latest instalment of ‘royal sleaze’ (there were
several such royal sex scandals in the early 1990s).
Thousands more readers than usual purchased the
Sunday newspaper The People in order to get their hands
on a copy of the full transcript of the conversation.”

In terms of how the Queen and Philip felt about the tapes,
Owens says: “Little is known about how Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip reacted to the Camillagate tapes. But one
can speculate that the Queen would have been horrified
that such a lewd, private conversation had been made
public.”

More like this

Netflix’s The Crown: the real history behind the royal drama

Was Charles interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby?

The Crown depicts Charles, still reeling from the fallout of

the tapes, being persuaded by some of his advisors to
reveal a different side of himself to the nation. They
suggest he takes part in a TV special, where he would be
interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby. “There is an element of
risk,” Charles’ private secretary Richard Aylard tells him,
“as the interview was bound to touch on his marriage, but
there’s a far greater prospect of reward.”
Portrait of television personality Jonathan Dimbleby,
February 19th 1972. (Photo by Ron Stone/Central
Press/Getty Images)

As The Crown shows, Charles was indeed interviewed by

Dimbleby in a TV special, Charles: The Private Man, The
Public Role, which aired in June 1994. As Sarah Gristwood
told HistoryExtra, during the two-and-a-half hour special
Charles “admitted infidelity and revealed both a lack of
sympathy for Diana… and a worrying distance from his
family”.

Read more | Free-spirited drama or fake news? How

The Crown morphed from 'safe' territory to
controversy
In the interview he also positioned himself as defender of
‘faith’ in a more abstract sense, rather than solely as the
defender of the Church of England. At the time, this latter
comment was criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

When did Diana wear her revenge dress?

Princess Diana in 1994, attending an event at London’s

Serpentine Gallery (left), and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana,
portraying the same moment in the so-called 'revenge
dress' in The Crown. (Images by Netflix/Getty Images)

In the episode, it’s implied that Diana steps out in her

iconic ‘revenge dress’ after watching Charles’ interview. In
reality, Diana wore the dress on the same night that the
interview aired, 29 June 1994. She was attending an event
at London’s Serpentine Gallery, and the revealing
asymmetrical black dress soon made its way into the
headlines.

Owens told HistoryExtra: “Some voices in the British press

celebrated Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ as an act of defiance on
her part, challenging her husband’s admission of infidelity
through a powerful statement of female sexuality. Of
course, by wearing the dress she was also challenging
Charles for space on the front pages of the newspapers
the morning after his famous interview with Jonathan
Dimbleby was aired.” The so-called ‘War of the Waleses’
had truly begun.

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Romanovs’ murder, and Philip’s “spiritual
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