Next month, the eagerly awaited second season of The Crown returns to our TV screens. The lavishly filmed story of the Queen’s early life was a huge success last year.
The Netflix series also prides itself on meticulous research. With eight full-time researchers drawing on official papers, newsreels, memoirs and private letters, it even employs an etiquette consultant. As the action this time moves from the Fifties into the Sixties, there will be a similar focus on accuracy.
So just how impressive has the production been? Here, we examine key moments from the new series by comparing them with photographs of the actual events at the time, or events close to them.
A kiss from Mummy for shy Charles
The scene from The Crown with the Queen (Claire Foy) kissing the head of her son (Billy Jenkins) is set 1957 when Charles was a pupil at Hill House in Knightsbridge, the first heir to the throne to attend school. In real life, Charles was already getting used to official portraits. In 1954, aged six he poses shyly with his mother (right)
During the Fifties, family and duty were firmly separated in the House of Windsor. Usually, the Queen went to the Buckingham Palace nursery to see Charles and Anne, but occasionally they were allowed to interrupt ‘Mummy’ working at her desk with its red box of official papers.
More often they were in the charge of Mabel Anderson, a young Scottish nanny who looked after them for most of the day. The scene from The Crown with the Queen (Claire Foy) kissing the head of her son (Billy Jenkins) is set 1957 when Charles was a pupil at Hill House in Knightsbridge, the first heir to the throne to attend school.
In real life, Charles was already getting used to official portraits. In 1954, aged six he poses shyly with his mother.
After 124 days, prodigal Philip returns
Crisis averted. After Philip’s absence of 124 days on his 1956-57 solo world tour, which had led to headlines about the state of the royal marriage, the Queen and the Duke were reunited in Portugal for an official visit
Crisis averted. After Philip’s absence of 124 days on his 1956-57 solo world tour, which had led to headlines about the state of the royal marriage, the Queen and the Duke were reunited in Portugal for an official visit.
There are some curiosities here. The couple actually disembarked from a BEA airliner, but in The Crown they are descending from a BOAC jet.
However, the costume department has gone to great lengths to dress Philip in a tie decorated with hearts — just as he wore that day in February 1957.
Earlier at their private reunion, the Queen had, as a joke, put on a false beard because she’d heard that Philip had grown one during his absence.
But when he emerged he was clean-shaven.
Charming the Lion of Africa
In the scene recreated for The Crown there is no handbag, but the sash, white gloves and ivory gown look spot on
Nothing symbolises the wind of change sweeping through Africa more starkly than the sight of the Queen dancing with Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah — the Lion of Africa — during her state visit in 1961.
In the scene recreated for The Crown there is no handbag, but the sash, white gloves and ivory gown look spot on. They even have a copy of the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara smuggled out of Bolshevik Russia and bought by the Queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary.
The visit to Ghana was crucial. By 1961, Nkrumah was increasingly authoritarian and stoked anti-British feeling. There were reports of bomb explosions in Accra, but the Queen was ‘indignant’ at suggestions she should not go, feeling it would show a ‘lack of moral fibre’.
The visit was a resounding success. Nkrumah was captivated by the monarch, later presenting Prince Charles with his one of his most prized boyhood gifts of a bow and quiver full of arrows.
The visit to Ghana was crucial. By 1961, Nkrumah was increasingly authoritarian and stoked anti-British feeling
An ice-blue encounter with Jackie
An age gap of only three years separated monarch and First Lady (Claire Foy and Jodi Balfour) and both dressed in blue for their Palace dinner
Camelot meets monarchy. In 1962, apart from Hollywood’s movie stars, the Queen and Jackie Kennedy were the most glamorous women on earth. But they were also rivals.
An age gap of only three years separated monarch and First Lady (Claire Foy and Jodi Balfour) and both dressed in blue for their Palace dinner.
The Prince Albert sapphire brooch worn by the Queen is recreated well, but, while HM’s gown was a perfect fit, The Crown’s version isn’t. And, in reality, Jackie wore a much more demure dress than the shoulderless TV version.
A year earlier, Jackie’s husband, President John F. Kennedy. also dined at the Palace with the woman who, as a little girl, had made polite conversation with his father, Edward, U.S. ambassador to London.
Despite the smiles, there was an edginess between the two women before the Queen was won over by Mrs Kennedy’s charm. But they were never friends.
Despite the smiles, there was an edginess between the two women before the Queen was won over by Mrs Kennedy’s charm. But they were never friends
The first televised Christmas message
In the official picture of the broadcast (right), the surroundings were remarkably similar to that of the scene which appeared in The Crown (left)
On December 25, 1957, the Queen made her first televised Christmas message from the Long Library at Sandringham.
Ever since her Accession, the Queen had resisted appearing on TV on Christmas Day on the grounds that most of the Commonwealth did not possess sets — and also because she did want to allow the ‘paraphernalia’ of TV production to interrupt her own family celebration.
But radio ratings had dipped and she accepted the inevitable. In the official picture of the broadcast, framed pictures of Charles and Anne are visible on her desk — otherwise the two images are remarkably similar.
Charles arrives at ‘Colditz with kilts’
Gordonstoun, 1963, and a pivotal moment in the life of the young Prince Charles
Gordonstoun, 1963, and a pivotal moment in the life of the young Prince Charles. Philip had decided that his son would be educated at the same spartan Scottish school where he himself had flourished.
He thought it would be the making of his timorous son.
The Queen Mother, displaying the wisdom of her years, had suggested that Eton, close to Windsor, would suit Charles’s temperament better.
As she had suspected, her sensitive, art-loving grandson hated Gordonstoun, later characterising the place as ‘Colditz with kilts’. He was bullied and miserable, and begged to leave. His parents refused.
Bearded Philip’s solo world tour
Christmas 1956 and a bearded Philip, (Matt Smith, left) two months into the world tour he’d embarked on, broadcasts to the nation from the Britannia. Had he a beard by then? Certainly by the time he and his equerry explored The Gambia by canoe the following February (right), he had what the Navy call a ‘full set’, but they were travelling in rough country
Christmas 1956 and a bearded Philip, (Matt Smith, left) two months into the world tour he’d embarked on, broadcasts to the nation from the Britannia.
Had he a beard by then? Certainly by the time he and his equerry explored The Gambia by canoe the following February (right), he had what the Navy call a ‘full set’, but they were travelling in rough country.