One The Crown S5 Plot Twist Is Pure Fiction, And Two More Are Actually True
Season 5 of The Crown bringing the British royal family to the 1990s was released on Netflix earlier this month, and just like after the previous seasons, viewers are left to question the historical accuracy of some scenes.
So which events of season 5 were based on facts, and which were born out of the creators' imagination?
The very first episode of season 5 shows a scene that is pure fiction.
The secret meeting between Prince Charles and Prime Minister John Major to discuss Queen Elizabeth's abdication never happened in real life.
In reality, Prince Charles and Princess Diana indeed went on a trip to Italy, which happened in August 1991. The trip was quite short due to the tense family relationship and the inability of the couple to be together on one yacht.
By August 19, Diana followed by Charles came to Balmoral in Scotland to be at the bedside of her friend Adrian Ward Jackson dying of AIDS. Besides, John Major denied that the question of abdication was ever discussed between him and Prince Charles.
However, Diana's secretary Patrick Jephson wrote in The Telegraph that the talk about the public poll, showing that the Queen's abdication was what people really want, did take place, but with another prime minister.
Along with pure fiction, the plot of season 5 has some plot twists based on real events.
For example, the story of Princess Margaret reuniting with her old flame Group Captain Peter Townsend looks plausible. The beginning of the couple's relationship was shown in the earlier seasons of The Crown. They fell in love when Margaret was only 17 years old.
The couple's relationship fell through due to a huge age gap, social barriers, and primarily because the princess chose the monarchy over love. In the 1990s, the couple did indeed meet again at a reunion of HMS Vanguard crew members. However, Townsend's note and rekindled feelings might be just fiction, since no confirmation followed.
Another truthful fact is that Prince Philip's DNA helped identify Romanov family remains. Season 5 shows Elizabeth and Philip's trip to Russia and tells the story of the execution of the Romanov royal family by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
After many years, the remains of the Russian imperial Romanov family were found, and to identify them the scientists needed the DNA of their distant relatives. Since Prince Phillip and tsarina Alexandra shared a common ancestor, his blood sample helped scientists identify the remains that were buried later in the presence of the members of the British Royal family.