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Netflix’s The Crown premiered in November 2016 and wrapped up after a six-season run in December 2023. Created by Peter Morgan, the show followed the story of Queen Elizabeth and the challenges she faced during her decades as the Queen of England.
Although the show depicts major events in the lives of the royal family, there are elements of fiction in this dramatized version of the royals. It provided the audience with an intimate look at the lives of the royal family of England and also showed the real-life twists and turns that altered or impacted their lives.
In this article, we list 10 such twists from The Crown.
1) Former King Edward VIII abdicates the throne
The series begins with the first twist in Elizabeth’s life. Edward VIII abdicated his throne as the government and church were not accepting his relationship with Wallis Simpson, a divorced American socialite.
Therefore, his younger brother, George, became the King, making Elizabeth next in line to the throne.
2) Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen Elizabeth
Princess Elizabeth received the news of her ascension to the throne when on a trip to Kenya with her husband. As her Father, King George, dies in his sleep due to deteriorating health, Elizabeth becomes the new Queen at the age of 25.
The news comes as a surprise to her as she did not accept to ascend the throne at such a young age.
3) Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend’s love story
One of the early scandals in the lives of the new generation of the royals was Margaret’s relationship with her father’s assistant, Peter Townsend. Margaret wanted to marry Peter but needed her sister’s approval as she was not 25 yet.
However, Margaret and Townsend never get married as he is sent to Brussels, and their relationship slowly fades.
4) Prince Phillip’s mother, Princess Alice’s interview with journalist John Armstrong
Princess Alice is brought to Buckingham Palace after Athens is deemed unsafe for her. In season 3, the audience gets to see the extraordinary life the woman has lived. While talking to Armstrong, who came to interview Princess Anne, she reveals her life of being institutionalized and reportedly being treated by Sigmund Freud himself. She also revealed the cruelty incorporated into her in his care that she had to escape.
Initially, trying to find something scandalous about the royal family, Armstrong ends up being impressed and wrote an endearing article about Princess Alice.
5) Queen Elizabeth’s art advisor was a Soviet Spy
In season 3, the biggest twist comes when Anthony Blunt, Elizabeth's art advisor, gets revealed as a spy. This was a real-life incident.
Just like it is shown in the episode, Blunt was discovered by the MI5 intelligence officers. However, to save their reputation, Blunt was given immunity and worked for the royal family for 15 more years after the discovery of him being a KGB agent.
In 1979, Margaret Thatcher exposed Anthony Blunt. That’s when he was stripped of his knighthood.
6) Elizabeth’s response to the Aberfan tragedy
After the delayed response of Queen Elizabeth to the 1966 tragedy that killed 144 people, including children, it quickly became political and brought Elizabeth in a negative light in front of the people.
In The Crown, it is shown that Elizabeth tries hard to bring tears to her eyes but is unsuccessful. She even tells Prime Minister Wilson that she has always been like that. She cannot show her emotions well.
This moment shows the viewers how, after years of suppressing her feelings as a member of the royal family and living a highly isolated life, Elizabeth struggles to show her emotions.
7) Princess Diana’s mental health struggles
Season 4 of The Crown dives deep into Diana and Charles’s relationship. It also showcased the struggles of the young Diana.
Diana suffered from Bulimia, an eating disorder that started after her marriage to Prince Charles.
The show depicted the complications of her straining marriage with Charles and her personal challenges that started with the marriage.
8) The Crown reportedly mocks Prince Andrew’s association with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
In a scene in Season 4, Andrew talks to his mother, the Queen, about an actress he was supposedly dating in 1981 and the movie she did. The conversation suggested that in the movie, the actress played a 17-year-old girl who meets various types of older men who try to abuse the vulnerable young girl.
The whole scene was to throw shade at Andrew and his ties with the infamous criminal.
9) Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s complex relationship
Season 4 of The Crown showed that the Queen and Thatcher clashed in their views regarding apartheid. The show depicted that the clash even cost the queen’s press secretary his job.
However, the scene was highly fictionalized and was based on a newspaper article which had been debunked by many historians.
10) Revelation of the Queen’s hidden cousins
In one of the greatest twists in the show, Princess Margaret encounters her hidden cousins, who were thought to have died a long time ago. Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon were the first cousins of the queen as they were daughters of the Queen's mother’s brother, John Herbert Bowes-Lyon.
In a fictionalized version of the event, Margaret confronts her mother about hiding their cousins like these just because of the stigma against mental health. Her mother questions if the news was made public, it would have caused so much harm.
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All six seasons of The Crown are available on Netflix.
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