Royal historian Tracy Borman on

the real events behind The Crown

season 5
www.historyextra.com

The unravelling of the marriages of Charles and Diana,

then Prince and Princess of Wales, Andrew and Sarah
(‘Fergie’), Duke and Duchess of York, and Anne, the
Princess Royal, and Captain Mark Phillips, are played out
by an all-new cast in the penultimate series of the
blockbuster biopic, penned by Peter Morgan.
The unravelling of the marriage of Charles and Diana
(played by Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki) is covered
in the drama's fifth season. (Image by Netflix)

But how much of it is true? As a historian of the monarchy,

I should be well-placed to sift the fact from the fiction. Yet,
such is the level of impeccably researched period detail in
the screen portrayal that I found myself revisiting many of
the original sources with which I have spent so much time
over the past three decades. So, and without giving away
too many spoilers, read on if you want to find out the truth
behind those scandals behind the Queen’s ‘horrible year’.

Read more about the history behind each episode of The Crown
season 5:
 The Crown S5 E1: ‘Queen Victoria Syndrome’ and a
second honeymoon
The Crown S5 E2: Prince Philip’s ‘keeper of secrets’
and Andrew Norton’s book on Princess Diana
The Crown S5 E3: exiled royals and the al-Fayeds
The Crown S5 E4: the Queen’s “annus horribilis” and
Princess Margaret’s relationship with Peter
Townsend
The Crown S5 E5 real history: ‘Camillagate’ tapes
and a “war council” for the monarchy’s survival
The Crown S5 E6 real history: the Romanovs’ murder,
and Philip’s “spiritual companionship”
The Crown S5 E7 real history: the introduction of
Martin Bashir, and a royal education
The Crown S5 E8 real history: Diana’s Panorama
interview causes fireworks
The Crown S5 E9 real history: the divorce settlement
between Charles and Diana

Princess Anne and Mark Phillips

Princess Anne (played by Claudia Harrison) was the first

of the Queen’s children to set off down the aisle. Her
choice of husband had come of something of a surprise,
since Lieutenant Mark Phillips of the Queen’s Dragoon
Guards was a complete unknown. A keen horseman and
show-jumper, he moved in the same circles as Anne, but
had kept a low profile during their courtship, meaning that
the announcement of their engagement came as a shock
even to their friends. The couple were married in
Westminster Abbey on 14 November 1973 – the 25th
birthday of Anne’s elder brother, Prince Charles. Although
the marriage produced two children (Peter and Zara) and
gave a much-needed boost to the monarchy’s public
image after the disastrous 1969 fly-on-the-wall BBC
documentary, The Royal Family, behind the scenes all was
not well.

The 1969 documentary Royal Family revealed the

Windsors’ home and working life. Philip reportedly
persuaded the Queen to allow the fly-on-the-wall television
film, which was criticised by some and is said to be
unofficially banned. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto via
Getty Images/Getty Images)
As hinted at in an earlier season of The Crown, Anne and
her husband had little more than their love of horses in
common and they soon grew apart. Then, as the latest
season accurately depicts, Anne met Timothy Laurence, a
commander in the Royal Navy and an equerry to her
mother, while he was serving on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
News of their relationship broke when The Sun newspaper
revealed private letters from Laurence to the princess in
1989.

Anne and Phillips divorced in April 1992 and she married

Laurence before the year was out. Whether, as The Crown
has it, Anne had to overcome the Queen’s objections in
order for the marriage to take place is less certain. It is
telling, though, that they chose to be wed at Crathie Kirk
near Balmoral Castle. Unlike the Church of England at the
time, the Church of Scotland permitted the remarriage of
divorced persons, which enabled Anne to avoid the turmoil
faced by her great-uncle, Edward VIII, and her aunt,
Princess Margaret – both of whom fell in love with
divorcees, the former resulting in a constitutional crisis
that led to the abdication in 1936.

Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson

A month before Anne’s divorce, her younger brother Prince

Andrew (played by James Murray) formally separated
from Sarah Ferguson, his wife since July 1986. Nicknamed
‘Fergie’ by the press, she was not noble by birth, but her
family could trace their descent to King James VI and I
and had long moved in royal circles. She and Andrew had
known each other since childhood and, with her informal,
gregarious nature, she seemed a breath of fresh air for an
institution steeped in tradition and protocol.

The newly-created Duke and Duchess of York had two

daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, and enjoyed
considerable popularity for a time. But their marriage, like
Anne’s, ended with adultery. First there were the rumours
surrounding the Duchess’s close friendship with Texan
millionaire Steve Wyatt, who was pictured with one of her
young daughters. Then, shortly after the Duke and
Duchess separated, the paparazzi secured a much saucier
shot when Sarah was snapped having her toes sucked by
her ‘financial adviser’, Johnny Bryan, as she sunbathed
topless. As depicted in The Crown, the tawdry media
coverage caused the Royal Family considerable
embarrassment.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana

In the Netflix series, as in real life, the collapse of both

Anne’s and Andrew’s marriages proved to be a mere
sideshow compared to the far more sensational and high-
profile split between the Queen’s eldest son and his first
wife. Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki are the on-
screen Prince Charles and Princess Diana, each putting in
a performance that is exceptionally well-observed and
utterly compelling.

From the beginning, Charles and Diana’s relationship had

been played out in the glare of the media. As the heir to
the throne, Charles was one of the most eligible bachelors
in the world and Lady Diana Spencer (‘Shy Di’, as the press
nicknamed her) was a beautiful, virginal bride of just 20
years old. “Here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made”,
pronounced the archbishop of Canterbury in his address at
the wedding, which took place in St Paul’s Cathedral on 29
July 1981.

It is no small irony that in this age of mass

communication, we know fewer of the Queen’s
personal opinions and feelings than those of her
predecessors

The reality was nothing like a fairy tale. At the time of their
wedding, the couple barely knew each other; Diana later
claimed that they had only met 13 times before the
engagement, fewer than the number of dress fittings she
had prior to the wedding. Cracks soon began to appear,
although only those within Charles and Diana’s most
intimate circles knew that there was any cause for
concern.
More like this

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

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown. (Image

by Netflix)

The public’s fascination with the royal couple by no means

abated after the furore of their wedding had died down.
Within a year, Diana had fulfilled her duty by producing a
son and heir, William, and two years later Prince Henry
(known as ‘Harry’) was born. If anything, the press interest
grew ever more intense, particularly in the princess, whose
popularity far exceeded that of her husband.
Compassionate, accessible and tactile, Diana had the
common touch that Charles seemed to lack.

But other, graver sources of tension in the marriage grew

strained, not least the 12-year age gap and their wildly
different characters and interests. Most damaging of all,
there was infidelity on both sides. It was later claimed that
even before his marriage to Diana, the prince had renewed
his relationship with a former girlfriend, Camilla Parker
Bowles, whom he had first met in the early 1970s. It would
be revealed that he had told Diana on the eve of their
wedding that he was not in love with her, prompting her to
confide to a friend: “I felt I was the lamb to the slaughter.”

Charles and Diana: “The War of the Waleses”

The marriage collapsed like a house of cards. Every detail

was subject to insatiable scrutiny by the press, who coined
it “The War of the Waleses”. In June 1992, journalist
Andrew Morton published a book entitled Diana: Her True
Story, which named Camilla as Charles’s lover and detailed
Diana’s struggles with mental health and bulimia. As The
Crown depicts, the princess had secretly cooperated with
Morton, providing him with taped recordings via an
intermediary, her friend Dr James Colthurst.
Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown, wearing
the so-called 'Revenge Dress' during the War of the
Waleses. (Image by Netflix)

And still, worse was to come. Transcripts of two deeply

intimate phone conversations, were published. The first,
appearing in The Enquirer in August 1992, was between
Diana and her close friend James Gilbey, who called her
“darling” and “squidgy”, while she complained about “all
I’ve done for this f***ing family”. Royal watchers across
the globe were still reeling from this when, in early the
following year, a private conversation between Charles and
Camilla was published. It soon got dubbed “Tampongate”
after an especially intimate remark made by the prince.
Both transcripts have been incorporated into the script of
The Crown, which also portrays the personal impact that
they had on the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the
Royal Family. Those details are, necessarily, speculative.

Read more | Charles and Camilla: a history of their

romance

While Charles and Diana formally separated in December

1992, there were still several more chapters of their
scandalous story, from the now-notorious Panorama
interview between the princess and Martin Bashir in 1995
to Diana’s growing relationship with Dodi Fayed (the
origins of which are traced in the third episode of season 5
of The Crown – one of the best in the whole series). Of
course, then ultimately there is Diana’s tragic death in a
car crash in Paris in 1997.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

There is, though, one more troubled marriage that the new
season portrays: that of the late Queen herself. Elizabeth II
and Prince Philip had their ups and downs over the
previous seasons, but by the end of the last one they had
emerged a stronger, more united couple. This new season,
however, sees them growing ever further apart thanks to
the disparity of their interests and intellects. Despite being
in his eighth decade, Philip (brilliantly portrayed by
Jonathan Pryce) is as full of restless energy and
intellectual curiosity as ever.
There is nothing to suggest that the Queen’s relationship
with her husband grew more distant from the 1990s,
writes Tracy Borman. (Image by Netflix)

Frustrated with his seemingly placid, plodding wife, he

develops a close relationship with the beautiful and clever
wife of the Queen’s cousin, Penelope Knatchbull, Lady
Romsey (played by Natascha McElhone) and helps her to
rediscover meaning in her life after the death of her young
daughter. It is true that the pair became close and took
part in carriage-riding competitions, and Lady Romsey was
one of only 30 mourners at Philip’s funeral in 2021. But
any hint of a more intimate relationship between them is
purely speculative.
Neither is there anything to suggest that the Queen’s
relationship with her husband grew more distant from the
1990s. In fact, the opposite seems to have been the case.
By some considerable distance, theirs was the longest
marriage in royal history. Elizabeth famously described
Philip as her “strength and stay”, and his death in April
2021 seemed to spark a steady decline in her own health,
from which she never recovered.

The Crown, season 5: an assessment

Imelda Staunton is – appropriately enough – on

magisterial form as the Queen. In a sense, she has the
most challenging role of all. It is no small irony that in this
age of mass communication, we know fewer of the
Queen’s personal opinions and feelings than those of her
predecessors. We know she liked horseracing and corgis,
spent her summers at Balmoral and Christmases at
Sandringham, but nearly all of her spoken words were the
work of others and there are precious few private remarks
on record.

Her on-screen dialogue is therefore almost entirely a work

of fiction, such as when she reflects: “Being happily
married is a preference rather than a requirement.” The
skill and nuance of Staunton’s portrayal in presenting a
woman who feels so much more than she is able to
convey, even to those closest to her, commands
admiration and respect from the viewer, much like the
Queen did from the public.

As well as assembling what, in my view, is the strongest,

most convincing cast yet, the new season of The Crown
delivers everything that viewers have come to expect from
this lavish production, from painstakingly-researched
costumes and period detail to original film footage,
cleverly adapted to include the actors rather than the real
people. And, thanks to the year 1992 offering up such a
rich source of royal scandals, the storylines are more
compelling than ever.

Watching historical dramas, I have become used to

separating my professional knowledge from my private
enjoyment. With season 5 of The Crown, such a separation
was, for the most part, unnecessary.

Tracy Borman is a royal historian and author of numerous

books, including Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the
British Monarchy from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II
(Hodder & Stoughton, 2021) and The Ring and the Crown:
A History of Royal Weddings, 1066-2011 (Hutchinson,
2011)