The Crown creator Peter Morgan readily admits that he makes stuff up. Sometimes events that happened a few months, or years, apart are shown to happen simultaneously (Harold Wilson firing Lord Mountbatten really took place in 1967, not 1965, like Netflix suggests). Sometimes events depicted in one place actually took place in another (Princess Diana and Prince Charles played with Prince William for photographers in New Zealand, not Australia). And sometimes conversations are had that were never really had at all. Take season four, episode one: A fictional Lord Mountbatten sternly writes to a fictional Prince Charles that he’s brought “ruin and disappointment” to the family by carrying on with Camilla Parker-Bowles. Later that day, he’s killed in an attack by the Irish Republican Army. Part of that storyline is true—Mountbatten was, indeed, assassinated by the IRA—but there’s no proof that such a stern letter ever existed. (Justifies Morgan: “I made up in my head—whether it’s right or wrong—what we know is that Mountbatten was really responsible for taking Charles to one side at precisely this point and saying, ‘Look, you know, enough already with playing the field. It’s time you got married and it’s time you provided an heir.'”)
The showrunner told The New York Times in 2019, that he assumes viewers understand that the show sensationalizes. “I think there’s a covenant of trust with the audience,” he says. “They understand a lot of it is conjecture.” But there’s one group that is reportedly not happy about this fascinating mix of fact and fiction: the royal family itself.
This week, The Times of London published an article with the headline “Royal dismay over ‘cruelty’ of The Crown.” In it, friends of Prince Charles criticize Morgan’s fictionalized letter between Mountbatten and the Prince. “That isn’t right or fair, particularly when so many of the things being depicted don’t represent the truth,” a source told the outlet. “This is trolling with a Hollywood budget.”
Furthermore, Prince William was said to be upset by the scenes that show Charles verbally abusing Diana. A source said he feels “his parents are being exploited and presented in a false, simplistic way to make money.”
Early seasons of The Crown took place 50, 60, 70 years ago. Many of the real-life figures that the characters were based on, such as Winston Churchill, Princess Margaret, and the Queen Mother, are no longer with us, having passed away in old age. But, as The Crown inches more toward modern day, it finds itself in tricky territory: how does one ethically dramatize the lives of the very much living?