The Windsors are mad about ‘The Crown’ because the broad strokes are right

TheCrown_403_Unit_00346

In all of the discussion and Streisand-Effecting of The Crown’s Season 4, one thing is very clear: the Windsors are very unhappy with this season, the season where Lady Diana Spencer is introduced and basically thrown to the wolves as she tries to navigate a marriage to a man who doesn’t love her. I hope the actors don’t take it personally – most of the ire is being directed at Peter Morgan, who writes the show. Emma Corrin was on the Tamron Hall Show (via Zoom) and she was asked about the negative reaction from the Establishment. Corrin said: “I understand why people would be upset because this is history. And even with Diana, it’s still very much fresh, everything that happens. So I do really understand if people would be upset.” Yeah – I love that she didn’t apologize. She didn’t need to. Speaking of, the Daily Beast had an excellent analysis piece about WHY the Windsors are so mad about this season.

Peter Morgan himself has said, as The Daily Beast reported, that key scenes in the first episode of Season 4 in which Charles’ great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, writes to the prince and orders him to stop his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and marry a “well-tempered girl” are “made up.” But this doesn’t invalidate what we are watching; it does not mean the palace’s whining has any validity.

If “trolling” is the most devastating insult the palace can come up with, then that is an embarrassing admission in itself. It reveals not only that the palace lacks a substantial retort to The Crown’s themes and general retelling of history, but also that what The Crown is generally showing us in Season 4 is rooted in fact.

If it is not “an accurate portrayal” of what happened, what does it get wrong? How strange that the palace source—so free and easy in insulting the work of Morgan and the Crown team—doesn’t tell us. Morgan made the Queen herself intelligible and yet still mysterious in The Queen starring Helen Mirren; his writing in The Crown, similarly, is hardly that of an embittered republican. He fillets character relentlessly, but with a fascinated eye and even hand.

What the royals are really upset about is not the presence of made-up letters; it is seeing the very personal pain of that time recognizably reflected back at them. They know the public knows what a lousy husband Charles was to Diana; they know this young woman was gaslit and traumatized as soon as she entered the family. But all the books and newspaper articles about such things do not compare to seeing it on screen.

Here, the royal family is shown for what it is: an institution and machine that you either adapt to, get crushed by, or learn to craft a place within. The Crown Season 4 shows that the royal family used Diana, ignored her pain, and then were horrified when she grew strong herself and learned to dexterously play them at their own game.

The condemnation of The Crown is unmerited from the royal family because the series could have actually been much harsher towards the institution. Instead, Morgan and his collaborators are sympathetic to all the main players, even when the viewer could be forgiven for feeling very little. Even when somebody does something awful, or says something high-handed or cruel, the camera and script stay with them long enough for us to understand motives and causes.

This fourth season doesn’t just tell the story of a turbulent decade in recent royal history. It puts the royals on glossy trial. Yet somehow this interrogation—despite all the huffing and puffing from the palace—does not damn them. The Crown is relentlessly, sometimes irritatingly, fair to the royals; it seeks to understand and contextualize all their excesses, eccentricities, and frailties.

[From The Daily Beast]

Yep, all of this. It’s not like Peter Morgan has gone so far away from the actual history: the entire season is very rooted in fact, and despite the palace insults towards Morgan, he has been pretty fair to most of the Windsors throughout the series. This piece gets to the fundamental issue of why the Windsors hate this season: because they KNOW they mistreated Diana, a beautiful, charismatic, sympathetic young woman and instead of breaking her, she learned from them and threw it all back in their faces. And she’s still haunting them now. As she should.

TheCrown_402_Unit_00718

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

93 Responses to “The Windsors are mad about ‘The Crown’ because the broad strokes are right”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Cecilia odette says:

    “… and then were horrified when she grew strong herself and learned to dexterously play them at their own game” that’s exactly what i want meghan and harry to do aswell. Beat the royals at their own game. And it will come in time.

    Other than that i think this article hits the nail on the head. For more than 20 years the palace PR could put out whatever they wanted and portray that family as they wanted to be seen by the public. The crown reminds everybody that behind the scene’s they are barely what you would call a family.

    • BayTampaBay says:

      I think the “Palace” is worried about a connection between Diana & Meghan in a sense of ugly history repeating itself. The “Palace” has learned nothing.

      • Mignionette says:

        Agreed. I think the MoS case is going to be settled away from prying eyes now. I wonder if H&M got an advanced viewing of s4 and their Lawyers saw the opportunity to give the BRF a moments reflection for humility.

        Add the change of political guard in the US and they must both be breathing easier.

      • Myra says:

        I agree. A lot of people have been connecting the dots so not only does this season undo two decades of carefully crafted PR but also exposes a three years smear campaign.

    • Elizabeth Regina says:

      Harry and Meghan are already doing that anyway. They have a strategy and they are sticking to it with a few tweaks here and there. The palaces on the other hand have one play book which is not working. Trying to gaslight an entire nation, by organising all their mouthpieces to attack, deny and deflect, especially during these times will simply not wash. We can all see the parallels and rank hypocrisy for ourselves and the House of Windsor looks pathetic.

  2. Becks1 says:

    This article completely hits the nail on the head and encapsulates what we’ve been saying here for the past week. The royals are trying to hyper focus on things like “well lord mountbatten never sent a letter like that to Charles” when that’s not really the point. the point is Charles WAS close to Mountbatten and his death DID affect him significantly. and Mountbatten WAS pushing Charles to get married. The point isn’t whether Andrew every flew into Windsor on a helicopter for lunch with his mother, the point is Andrew’s arrogance, how his mother favored him, etc. And that doesn’t even get into the whole Diana storyline.

    Morgan could have been a lot harsher to the royal family, he definitely pulled back. But if you click through to the full article he raises a good point about how the Crown is humanizing the royals. it makes them seem like people – flawed people – but people just like us. And that isn’t really good for a family that thinks its matriarch was anointed by god to rule.

    • Dee says:

      Andrew taking the helicopter to lunch also reminded me that William took a helicopter on a trip to visit the Middletons when Kate was his girlfriend.

      • Becks1 says:

        YES that’s why I cracked up at that scene. It was definitely a dig at William.

      • Mignionette says:

        @Dee and @Becks but it did happen, although not when Andy was in the RAF. Rather when Andy is a little older and using helicopters to get to official engagements.

        I think the writers wanted to get in this extravagance as the show ends in S6.

    • Nic919 says:

      Charles really did say “whatever loves means” during the engagement interview so his lack of enthusiasm for this marriage was public from day one. The trip to Korea, Diana sitting alone at the Taj Mahal, these are all public events that couldn’t be interpreted as anything but a bad marriage falling apart.

      • Mignionette says:

        The foreign office had to apologise for Charles and Diana’s behavior on the Korea trip.

        What I find interesting is the number of men who are finding C’s behaviour totally abusive. I never expected they’d be so openly critical and disgusted.

    • farfromrealitytv says:

      And Mountbatten did send Charles a letter about fucking around a lot until he, Charles, was ready to marry Mounbatten’s niece, Amanda (who turned Charles down, but thats another story). So, Mountbatten didn’t play a neutral role. Philip was apparently the one who did send that letter saying shit or get of the can (re:Diana), and Charles has spent the rest of his life blaming his dad for his marriage when, give me a fucking break, Charles was 31 when he received the fucking letter and could have ignored it.

      • Tessa says:

        Mountbatten set up a Gigi type situation with his granddaughter Amanda and Charles. Amanda growing up before CHarles’ very eyes. Amanda could travel with Charles and her grandfather because she and Charles also were cousins. Later on, a letter came into the public domain that Charles found Amanda “disturbingly” attractive. Had Mountbatten not been killed, he may have persuaded Amanda to go through with a marriage to Charles. In the meantime while Amanda grew up, Mountbatten encouraged Charles to sow wild oats and lent Broadlands to Charles and “unsuitable” women like Camilla. Rather gross.

  3. Keroppi says:

    Spoilers:

    I just finished episode 9 where Diana made a recording for Charles for their anniversary. Cut to Charles mocking her to Anne saying how horrible this present was. It truly illustrated how horrible she was treated when she was trying. Charles comes across as a narcissistic ass who thinks the world revolves around him.

    This season is so good and even if minor details aren’t accurate. I agree that the broad strokes are right. I’m mid-30s and I remember some of this happening in real time. I can just imagine H and M sitting at home devouring this season and comparing this to how they were treated. I’m glad H made a different choice than his father.

    • Becks1 says:

      I also thought Charles’s gift to her was interesting – the first edition history of her family home – that’s a lovely gift in theory, but clearly Diana was not really interested in it and Charles honestly did seem to think it was a very good present. They just did not mesh well at all, and THEN you factor in Charles being an a-hole etc and its no wonder the marriage was such a disaster.

      • Shoesnotblues says:

        Also, it was rather more the family seat. Diana only lived there for a few years between her father inheriting in 1975 and her marriage in 1981. Her brother is the one who inherited Althorpe and would possibly have been more interested in the book.

      • Keroppi says:

        Becks1 – it really illustrated well that neither one of them understood each other

      • HayGrl says:

        If they were honest with her, she could have made an informed choice. You may be the figurehead princess, and breed a few children, but you will not feel loved by any in-laws, let alone your own husband. Charles chose to lie and treat her like crap for any, everything or nothing. She was the last global beauty without guile or a shiton of obv plastic surgery. Diana is still missed, today.

    • BW says:

      I just finished The Crown and immediately watched Diana: In Her Own Words.

      The actress really did an amazing job of portraying Diana. But wow “In Her Own Words” wrecked me. I don’t think I could have taken the crap the royal family and paparazzi gave Diana and then gone out with a smiling face to meet crowds.

      • NotSoSocialButterfly says:

        That doc brought me to tears.

      • Dani says:

        I did the same! By the end of the doc I was hysterical it was so upsetting!! She honestly looked miserable throughout the entire doc and her eyes constantly gave it away. Poor girl. She wasn’t much older than me when she passed, I just can’t imagine.

    • Tessa says:

      I understand it was a filmed scene where Diana danced to All I ask of you from the Phantom of the Opera, no singing involved. I would not be surprised if Charles trashed it In real life to both Anne and Camilla.

    • Ann says:

      That scene really encapsulated why these two were so wrong for each other. Both DID put some thought into the gift, though Diana obviously put a great deal more actual effort into hers. But Diana was not what Charles might have thought her to be, a typical member of the landed Gentry obsessed with her family’s country pile. Lady Mary she was not. And Charles hated “public displays”……of any sort, and certainly of anything touching on emotion. Honestly, I know Diana meant well, but I understood why the performance made him feel so awkward. Yes, they were watching it in the privacy of their own home, but she had still literally orchestrated a Big Show for him, with all the heartstrings.

      Of course it was wrong of him to go whine and mock her to Anne. I’m just saying, theirs was a misalliance, one he grossly mishandled. I’m not sure why they made it a song and not a dance which it apparently was IRL? Maybe just to up his cringe factor? At any rate, again, no excusing his lousy attitude and actions. I just thought it was such a telling moment/exchange. He should have given her jewelry, and she should have given him…..a book about a palace.

      We did end up watching the Diana Documentary after finishing the season. It was so hard and sad to watch. Thinking of how much weight she was carrying, literally and figuratively, with her pregnancies, particularly with William. Feeling sick the whole time, and apparently NO ONE else in the RF had had morning sickness? Seriously? And the whole country waiting and watching while she was in labor, which was apparently a tough one. And not consulting her before scheduling his first photo session? So much pressure, and she withstood it so well in public. No wonder she was roiling inside.

    • Dani says:

      I watched it with my husband and even he was confused as to what man wouldn’t love for his wife to do something like that for him. My husband would have been over the moon jumping off the balcony if I did the Uptown Girl bit for him. It just shows how he truly wasn’t in love with her, wasn’t interested in her, and would prefer if she just faded in to oblivion.

  4. S808 says:

    “They know the public knows what a lousy husband Charles was to Diana; they know this young woman was gaslit and traumatized as soon as she entered the family. But all the books and newspaper articles about such things do not compare to seeing it on screen.”

    YUP!! It’s one thing to read about it but to see it? They’ll never outrun the ghost of Diana and they don’t deserve to. A whole new generation will learn what they did to her and have a front row seat to a generally accurate depiction of what happened. Folks who already know the story are angered once again. A lot of their effort to move past what happened and paint diana as the problem has been rightfully undone. The Crown is still trending #1 on US Netflix btw!

    • Nyro says:

      This. And there are lots of tweets recommending “Diana In Her Own Words” on Netflix as well. So people are discovering that The Crown didn’t even cover the worst of it. I’m loving the reaction from the Gen Z crowd. They hate the royals! I really don’t think William is going to ever sit on the throne. And the general public are seeing through his call for a BBC investigation too.

    • ArtHistorian says:

      It doesn’t help that the parallels to Meghan (and Harry) practically writes themselves. It really highlights that the BRF and the Palace really haven’t learnt a single thing from Diana debacle.

  5. Noki says:

    I wonder how much stuff of the lesser public royals they need to make up. Like Princess Anne in the Crown of course she was younger but was she really such a brat and green with envy over Diana. And wow Princess Margaret was a complete elitist snob.

    • ShazBot says:

      It is well established that Margaret was an elitist snob.

      And I think the idea of Anne being a snobby brat who was jealous of Diana is probably true – they all were. It still comes out sometimes, every time there is a new Royal that Anne should have to curtsy to, the rules get changed and she doesn’t have to curtsy to basically anyone except her mother and brother.

      • molly says:

        Anne was lost to me when she got all snobby about the new generation of royals using tools like social media(!!) to do their work. No, she’d rather blaze through a million events a year wearing gloves, a purse, an overcoat, and a scowl where no pictures get run and no one cares. That’s how she sees royal work being done.

      • ProfPlum says:

        Back in the day, there was a whole narrative about the bad blood between Diana and Anne. Anne was jealous of the press attention Diana received and wasn’t very welcoming. When William and Harry were born, Anne wasn’t selected as a godparent, even though Charles was Zara’s godfather. Apparently, when Harry was christened, Anne and Mark sent Zara and Peter to the festivities but stayed back at Gatcombe Park to host a shooting party.

        https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ibtimes.com/why-princess-anne-was-accused-feuding-charles-diana-after-skipping-2804865%3famp=1

      • Betsy says:

        @Molly – pretty sure Anne was throwing shade at William and Kate for talking about modernizing but never actually doing any work. Harry and Meghan do both.

    • Becks1 says:

      Margaret, by all accounts, was a complete elitist snob and she did spy on Diana (there are stories of Diana sneaking out through different entrances so Margaret couldn’t hear her car coming and going or something like that.)

      The Anne being a brat about Diana thing was interesting because it goes against Anne’s current persona – a royal who doesn’t care about attention and just gets on with it. But I think the point of that scene was to show that ALL the royals had a problem with Diana’s celebrity, not just Charles.

      • Nyro says:

        Anne cared about attention when people actually cared about her. She certainly wasn’t turning down magazine cover photo shoots and showing up on various red carpets in her day. That was pretty much over once Diana showed up.

      • Pop says:

        I don’t think Anne was jealous of Diana. I think Anne was just sick of being compared to her all the time. They completely ignored her great work with Save the Children and Riding for the Disabled, because she wasn’t as glamorous as Diana and unlike Diana Anne never felt the need to play up for the cameras.

      • Myra says:

        Isn’t the real life Anne known to be rude and a bit of a snob? She was also on the magazine covers in her day. I can see her reluctantly resigning to the fact that there was less media interest in her with the arrival of the more charismatic Diana.

    • Dani says:

      I think she probably also had an issue with how much Phillip liked Diana and Anne was supposed to be his golden favorite.

  6. Seraphina says:

    When one has blood on their hands, it’s never easy to wash it all off. And so she will continue to haunt them.
    I did find it unsettling to watch because it was almost like I was reliving all the photos I saw as young girl. The actors do a phenomenal job (which is why BRF is upset). I also find it sad that I always envied Diana and all she had when she was miserable and unhappy and causing damage to herself.

    • BW says:

      “I also find it sad that I always envied Diana and all she had when she was miserable and unhappy and causing damage to herself.”

      THIS. So much. I feel so guilty for envying her.

      • molly says:

        It was a great car jam back in the day, but it wasn’t until I became an adult that I thought more about the Britney Spear song Lucky. “Oh, yeah, I guess it is pretty sad and lonely at the top. I definitely wouldn’t want to be famous, now that I think about it.”

    • Thirtynine says:

      I felt that too, Seraphina. It triggered me back into that emotion I felt when it all went down the first time. To be honest, if I felt that, who only watched in dismay as an admirer of Diana, that may explain a lot of the Palace’s howling now. The Crown, especially Emma’s uncanny performance, must have triggered the BRF hugely, and that is reflected in their reaction. For all the talk of being cold and lacking emotion- it seems there’s plenty of resentment, and anger and jealousy being expressed.

  7. Snuffles says:

    They’re mad because people are connecting the dots and realizing the family treated Meghan the same way they treated Diana. Any hope or appearance that the family grew and learned from their past mistakes with Diana, that they had modernized and changed with the times is GONE. It’s crystal clear that NOTHING has changed and they are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again.

    There are a LOT of people on social media saying they finally understand and respect why Harry and Meghan left. That’s pissing off the Windsors as well because it flies in the face of the narrative they are trying to spin that Harry abandoned his duties and country.

    • betsyh says:

      THIS should be the major take away from this season of the Crown.

    • downtherabbithole says:

      “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”…even *IF* ALL of Season 4 was made up (which it wasn’t), you can’t unsee or undo everything with Meghan and Harry – the rolled eyes at their wedding (couldn’t stand to be decent for even 45 minutes???), the blatant icing-out at the Commonwealth Day Service, a “beloved” grandson not being able to get a meeting with his grandmother in late 2019…I’m sure 10 years from now, they’ll say that wasn’t true either. But it was. We witnessed it in real time.

    • Nic919 says:

      I think that’s the main issue here. Meghan was treated poorly by the Windsors which includes William and Kate, and the only difference is that Harry was there for her and he knew to get out. Harry lived through his parents bad marriage as much as William, and the lessons he took were obviously far different. He knows the institution is rotting and can’t be fixed.

      • Diplomanatee says:

        Agree. I think William focused on finding someone who wouldn’t make Diana’s perceived “mistakes” (according to the RF), whereas Harry focused on not making his dad’s mistakes himself 🙂

      • Tilewa says:

        This x 100!

  8. Mignionette says:

    “The Windsors are mad about ‘The Crown’ because the STORY LINE IS 70-80% right”

    ^^^Fixed that for you.

    So I have gone through various archives and press cuttings and the Crown Stories are ripped straight from interviews of her friends, family, Royal Reporters and general footage.

    Richard Kay is doing a storming job denying his own journalism. There is a whole article which confirms the scene where Diana leaves her flat for KP and the letter from Camilla which led to the famous lunch.

    There is another clipping which confirms the convo between Anne and Charles.

    I am now beginning to believe that S4 is far more accurate than we had first thought.

    • sunny says:

      As several commentators here wrote, and I agree, it could have been sooooo much worse for the family. Even with some of the major details left out(he wasn’t just cheating with Camilla), the royals come off as unsympathetic because they were AWFUL to Diana.

      So glad the public is being reminded of all the bs the royals pulled. Couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Also glad to see people making the Meghan and Harry parallels. The family continues to learn nothing.

      • Mignionette says:

        “it could have been sooooo much worse for the family.”

        Doesn’t Morgan allude to this in one of Princess Anne’s scenes when she says;

        “It’s a rare case of what was going on in the background being worse than what was reported in the papers”

      • Nic919 says:

        Yes I thought that line was meta as well.

    • Pop says:

      Which clipping is this?

      • Mignionette says:

        @Pop clipping confirming letter from Camilla is dated 18/09/17 in the Fail by Richard Kay.

        clipping confirming convo between Chuck and Anne is from about a year earlier. I’ll see if I can find the date. Also again a Richard Kay article.

        Kay has bizarrely been playing both sides whilst Diana was alive and then thereafter.

  9. Cafecito says:

    “They aren’t sophisticated or cultured or elegant or anything close to an ideal “

    “They are boorish, snobbish and rude”

    It was well resumed

  10. Eleonor says:

    All of this is spot on.
    I have seen some old Diana video.
    And God knows if she tried: she started working a lot, she spoke briefly in Welsh, she gave a speech in sign language. She was in her early 20’s (take that future Queen and Ceo) and you can tell she was scared as hell, because she was ALONE facing world wide attention. But she was brave and went on.
    At the same time she was human, that’s why people loved her, and The Firm tried to get rid of her with the label “Diana is unstable”.
    F@%& them all.

    • Mignionette says:

      The irony being that what they saw as weakness the public empathized and related to.

    • Dani says:

      When she gave that speech about when her diary of events runs out she will no longer be acting as a royal (its in the Diana doc) you can see how sad and scared she was, but how brave she was able to be at the same time. She was maybe 33-34 but she was so smart and warm and you’re just drawn to her I really wished I could reach in to the screen and hold her. It’s all so sad.

  11. Sofia says:

    Yup to this whole article. The Crown does have some historical inaccuracies and blunders (why is Charteris who retired in the late 70s doing in the 80s?) but the themes and plot lines are fairly accurate.

    No show or documentary will ever get things 100% accurate and true.

    • Mignionette says:

      I don’t think that was Charteris. Wasn’t that Heseltine ?

      • Sofia says:

        I think it’s definitely Charteris. Same actor (Charles Edwards) and I’m pretty sure Liz calls him Martin.

      • Mignionette says:

        ^^^ Oh ok I wonder why they fudged that badly.

        I wonder if it was to avoid defaming Philip Moore who btw later was given a grace and favour apartment by the Queen for throwing Martin Shea under the bus.

  12. My3cents says:

    I think he was much more gentler with them than what he could have portrayed.
    Not just in their treatment of Diana.
    They come of much more sympathetic and wiser than I believe they all actually are.

    • CoKatie says:

      I completely agree with you. I think that Season 3 really established the issues which Charles had (not feeling appreciated, emotionally distant with parents, reliant on outsiders for praise and recognition). As a matter of fact, Morgan made a point of driving that home when Charles would get ragey with Diana, due to sheer jealousy, in Season 4.

      When a young girl (let’s face it, she was not yet a woman) is brought into YOUR house, under YOUR roof, her protection and guidance should have been guaranteed by the Queen. Margaret, with her well known brutal, snobbish remarks should have been checked by her sister, the Queen. The Queen set the tone for Diana’s treatment.

      As for Anne, I have read other articles online that match up to what we see in Season 4. Frankly, if my brother brought home a young woman half his age, I would be having a heart to heart with him. If truly love, Mazel Tov. If not, I would be in his corner to argue against. At the same time, I would make sure that I was as helpful and welcoming as possible to his bride to be. Isn’t that just normal?

      I was impressed with Phillip who DID seem to at least make an effort with Diana. The rest of them SHOULD be ashamed of their treatment of Diana. The portrayals seems to be accurate and a lifetime of accountability is finally coming due. Sorry Charles. All your attempts to rewrite history over the past 20 years have been for naught. We all see you.

  13. Lucylee says:

    Open the brocade curtains. Even the intruder commented on how rundown the palace interior was which is a metaphor for how tattered the fabric of the family is away from public view. This family’s behavior towards Diana is reminiscent of how their ancestors had no problem child brides. Make no mistake, Diana was pursued and swept away by the fairy tale myth. They story line suggests all of her dates with Charles we’re chaperoned. Did they ever have time alone to get to ”know” each other or was that supposed to be on the wedding night, too. I have to stop my imagination from thinking about what that must have been like for her already knowing he didn’t love her. Truth be told, The Crown could be a lot worse. Think about the children learning that they were not conceived in a loving relationship and the whole world knows it. That family needs to champion mental health and they should be first in line at the psychologist’s office. Same characters only the time period has changed, google is at our fingertips and social media allows people to consume content and respond in real time. Putting lipstick on this pig does not hide the fact that it is still a pig and the palace is a pig pen that stinks.

    • Lizzie says:

      The Crown doesn’t show it but her family urged her to go through with the wedding when she was having second thoughts. Like Middletons, the Spencer’s were thinking of themselves and being close to the crown. They weren’t ever in her corner.

      • Feeshalori says:

        I remember the Diana years so well having followed the fairy tale romance and the breakdown of the marriage afterwards. And l always remember from a biography one of her sisters told her just prior to the wedding, “Too late to back out now, Duch, your face is on all the tea towels.” And l think Diana even recounted this in an interview. So sad on so many levels.

      • ProfPlum says:

        It’s worse than that. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Diana’s brother in law, Robert Fellowes (her sister Jane’s husband) was a secretary to the Queen and leading the effort to discredit Diana in the press and in the palace.

      • Feeshalori says:

        With family like that, who needs enemies? They are your enemy! My respect for Harry increasingly grows that he didn’t follow the royal rule book and attempt to gaslight or change his wife’s behavior, but to get her and himself out of that vile cesspit.

  14. FC says:

    They’re pissed because they “didn’t complain, didn’t explain” their way through the social-media-free Diana years and had seemed to rehab the monarchy’s image for the new generations (and got the public to forget about what they’d done to Di). Not only does this remind everyone what a-holes they all are, it introduces an entirely new generation to the reality of their horridness and validates H&M’s decision to leave — all during an era when social media magnifies every detail x1000.

    They’re right to be scared. Charles is about to become King and it’s not a good time to rehash how much he sucks. And Wills treating Harry like sh*t plays right into that same narrative. Bottom line, the Crown is doing some serious damage to the monarchy and Diana is doing some EPIC work up there.

  15. one of the Marys says:

    I’m finding it difficult to watch actually. I remember those years and seeing it play out again, how very young she was, it’s raw. To add to that then the real time treatment of Meghan, God they’re awful!

    • Mariawas_here says:

      Hello there. I am finding it hard too My theory is that we are all finding it difficult to watch as it is a trauma and abuse broadcast, and as generations passed, many have grown to become more caring and educated on these topics. So our radars and red flags are in place more so then back then. We now know how mentally unwell the royal family is, abuse stems from generational abuse, and lack of treatment. There are so many untreated psychosis, it’s incredible to observe and realize these are people with power. To me that’s part of it too.

  16. RoyalBlue says:

    I am just SO happy Diana did those interviews so we can hear about this in her own words and can decipher for ourselves the essence of the breakdown of the marriage. Thank you Diana. You knew.

    Oh and the deceit of Charles. Using the royal protection officers to report on Diana’s dalliances, all the while he is cavorting with Camilla in the countryside.

    • Seraphina says:

      YES!!! And many say she may have exaggerated but we still have how she saw things and how she felt. She was able to leave her voice heard and not let the BRF completely write her narrative or their own. That must really burn their royal britches.

    • Untamed says:

      I agree.
      All of Diana’s interviews have historical significance. Panorama, the most significant considering she, sadly, had only two years left.

  17. BC says:

    Prince Charles picture needs to be right up there in the dictionary next to the word Narcissist and Gaslight. What a piece of work. Watching the crown and hearing Diana In Her Own Words, i just want to jump in a time machine and choke him. He is literally The Worst. The only true vengeance to me would be the monarchy dying with the queen.

  18. Marigold says:

    I watched the Australian episode last night and it was heartbreaking. It really showed Diana’s beauty and shine.

  19. kerwood says:

    Every person that I’ve spoken to who watches ‘The Crown’ (I don’t), eventually ends up comparing the royal family’s treatment of Diana to their treatment of Meghan. THAT’S why their so upset. The timing couldn’t be worse. They have a television series that is giving a step-by-step illustration of how that family beats down any woman who doesn’t agree to disappear into the woodwork.

    Diana never had the intellectual capacity or life experience that Meghan has but she knew what would play to the general public. The royal family never gave a damn about the general public before Diana came along.

    I have no doubt that every single person that is watching that show has the image of the smashed car that Diana died in. I have never believed that the royal family had Diana killed, but they tried to destroy her soul and that’s almost as bad. Flash forward 20 or more years and we’ve seen the exact same thing happen again.

    This season of ‘The Crown’ is a perfect explanation for why Harry took his family and RAN.

    • Lizzie says:

      Diana didn’t have Megan’s education but intellectual capacity? I think she was plenty intelligent to charm the world and out fox the Windsors. She just made it look effortless.

      • Becks says:

        Exactly! Diana was a girl when she married into this dysfunctional family, while Meghan was woman twice her age. You cannot compare their education and intellectual capacity. The comparisons are quite a stretch considering they came from two different worlds.

    • Oy_Hey says:

      This.
      I caught a snippet of that old Panorama interview (let’s not even think about the Bashir thing) and Diana’s own words call out what they did to MM with zero subtext. Just says it, cold.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z779vy_Jpwg

      • Angelica Schuyler says:

        Wow. I just watched that clip, and I’m literally in tears. The foreshadowing for how they have treated Meghan is uncanny. Its like they have a playbook set up for how to treat the women and they just follow along step by step. Same plays, different decade… The BRF refuses to change, but the world is changing all around them. When they look up, the world will have moved on without them….

  20. downtherabbithole says:

    Seeing this headline, it makes me think that William and Melania should roll out some sort of initiative together – they’re both equally qualified. https://people.com/royals/prince-william-shows-his-support-for-young-people-who-work-to-counter-bullying-at-schools/

    • Mignionette says:

      ^^^ Classic BRF tactic deflect, diffuse and confuse. Billy with his anti-bullying and mental health charities.

      Eugenie with her anti-trafficking/ slavery initiative

      Prince Andrew being appointed in a Trade Envoy position despite being heavily conflicted financially and subject to a whole host of financial transactions which are beyond dodgy.

      The Queen herself floating her money in Tax havens so as to avoid paying Tax.

      They’re all hypocrites and it really is time for them to go.

  21. Mamasan says:

    I was a teenager in the 80’s and I really admired Princess Diana. I think she was special to me because she was living the fairy tale or so we thought, and yet, we knew she wasn’t perfect. She made mistakes.
    But what set her apart from the other Royals was she wasn’t above the people or graced them with her presence. She genuinely interacted with everyone rich and poor, sick and well, high or low. That was what the royal family could never give to the people. That feeling of being “one people.” No us and them. The only one who comes close is Harry, and see what they did to him. Damn shame.

  22. Sara says:

    There are many allusions to the current state of the BRF in season 4 that I can’t tell if it’s just history repeating itself or if Peter Morgan was intentional:
    – Diana telling Charles’ secretary that she doesn’t want baby William to grow up and lose his humanity to be like the rest of the family.
    – Margaret lamenting to the Queen Mother that if you don’t fall in line as the dutiful, quiet, submissive woman, the family will spit you out.
    – Charles calling Diana’s work as a humanitarian selfish and raging at her for it.

    I am old enough to recall when all of this was going on during Diana’s years with them but I’m still like, that’s just what they’re doing now with the Sussexes! It makes sense that Harry recognized it easily and got his wife out of there before they destroyed her like they did to his mother.

    • ArtHistorian says:

      There’s even the scene with Margaret where her friend suggests that she might be happier if she left the royal fold – that almost seemed as if it was designed for the audience to draw the parallel to Harry deciding to do just that, especially since Margaret was so unhappy due to the toxic heir/spare dynamic (the same dynamic that has seen Will being protected but Harry being left out to dry).

      • Dee Kay says:

        I definitely thought that scene with Margaret and her friend Dazzle (the priest) was definitely speaking to our current moment, when another “spare” (Harry) took the road that Margaret would not take: the road OUT.

  23. Kat says:

    Watching the entirety of Season 4 and being mad as hell on Diana’s behalf.

    What a bunch of absolute evil, snobbish, hateful, racist pricks they were and still are.

  24. KBeth says:

    I know Diana was flawed but I think she was so much braver than ever given credit for. That family chewed her up and spit her out.
    I find it so incredibly sad that she died so young.

    I usually love Gillian Anderson but her portrayal of Thatcher really grates.

  25. starryfish29 says:

    This season was so lighthanded in its portrayal of the queen that it verged on grating, it just narrowly avoided veering too far from people’s lived experience of her. The idea that she would be self-aware enough to be offended by her children behaving like entitled twats was hilarious. As was the notion that she has such great respect for the very same leaders that led many of her colonies to independence; she name-checked my country specifically in her speech to Thatcher and I laughed out loud.
    They went pretty easy on Camilla as well, at times portraying her as well-intentioned if somewhat oblivious to the impact of her actions. The thing the royals are most upset about is that the show has finally caught up to the bits that most people were alive to vividly remember, it would be easier to challenge its accuracy if these storylines weren’t ones which we all have clear memories of. The more immediate the story becomes, the harder it is for their PR spin to take root, the distance from reality becomes too big for it to be believable. Next season will be even worse for them.

    • 2cents says:

      It’s true that the Crown showed us the light version of Camilla/Charles-gate. It was more sinister.

      I found this 1993 Vanity Fair article intriguing:

      “ ……the unmarried Charles was known to be very close to two married women: Camilla and Lady (Dale) Tryon—who markets some of her fashion designs under the label Kanga, the nickname Charles gave her. They were even said at the time to have formed a committee to vet virgins fit to marry the Prince, and put Diana at the top of the list. Where, after all, did Charles propose to Diana? Beside the cabbage patch in the Parker-Bowleses’ back garden…… Envious voices on the fringe of the royal circle accused Camilla and Kanga of nominating the rival who would cause them the least trouble. Diana was too young and innocent, the theory went, to drive off Charles’s existing female friends.”

      https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1993/02/princess-diana-revenge-anthony-holden-cover

  26. blunt talker says:

    WHEN PEOPLE SHOW WHO THEY ARE-BELIEVE THEM.