The embargoes have finally been lifted for reviews of The Crown’s Season 5. The screeners were sent out a few weeks ago and the critics, royal reporters and media figures who have seen this season have been itching to get into the nitty-gritty of fact, fiction and everything in between. These are not hot takes, by any means. These are people who have had days and even weeks to absorb this season and figure out whether it’s bad or good for the Windsors. Interesting, Robert Lacey has seen Season 5 and he wrote a piece about it in the Times: “The Crown: Never a truer word was said of the royal family.” Lacey is a historical consultant on The Crown, which he admits freely. But that’s his perspective on the British monarchy as well: a historian’s perspective, couched in the framework of one monarch’s reign, and whether the past is prologue for a new king. Some highlights from Lacey’s piece:
The Crown is a documentary, lol: The row surrounding the imminent fifth season of Morgan’s TV series does not centre on imagination but on absolutely solid fact. The latest complaint is not that The Crown is inaccurate. The problem seems to be that its content is all too true — and I am happy to concur with that….Through all the history that its six seasons cover, from the 1920s to the early 2000s, there has not been a decade in which the events have been better documented — and that is largely thanks to the royal participants themselves.
Charles & Diana put themselves on the record: Charles himself presented the world with his own 620-page account of his life, and especially the 1990s — the focus of season five — with the help of his ghostwriter Jonathan Dimbleby. This was in response to Diana’s own personal blow-by-blow testimonial (just 167 pages), memorably delivered on tape to the journalist Andrew Morton, who is himself a character in several episodes. The 1990s was the decade when the two leading royal protagonists in the drama chose to set out their own accounts of exactly what happened behind palace doors in two eye-popping volumes. However, 30 years later, the author of the larger volume, now King, is apparently demanding that the truth he was then so keen for us to absorb, his own authentic record of events, be consigned to oblivion.
Lacey throws the historical accuracy in King Charles’s face: So, it was fiction, was it, to declare in episode 5.05, “There were three of us in this marriage”? And what about: “I want to feel my way along you, all over you, and up and down you, and in and out . . .”? Who never said that? Let us not even go near Camilla’s “You’re going to come back as a pair of knickers” — prompting Charles’s response: “Or, God forbid, a T****x.”
The Crown is based on widely reported facts from the time: If you subscribe to Netflix and tune in next week, you will see the mechanics of how the royal voices got extracted from the ether — and, sorry, you will hear that word again. “Again” is the operative word, for you have certainly read these graphic and embarrassing sentiments before. They have been published in this and every other British newspaper on countless occasions. Like it or not, they are central to the history and identity of our present King and Queen. The imagery is lodged in the collective consciousness.
What’s changed? The rogue ingredient that has inspired the current furore is the sad demise of Queen Elizabeth this September and the accession of her son. The once controversial and disputatious prince has been transformed to grandfatherly monarch, elevated to a different sphere with all the reverence that doth hedge a king. While Mr Golden Globe Morgan CBE finds himself heading for Traitors’ Gate.
Wow, Lacey’s coming for Judi Dench’s wig: Enter the bended-knee brigade, led by Dame Judi Dench. How the British love to bow and scrape. “Crude sensationalism” is the term one might apply to Dench’s screen depictions of Queen Victoria, first in Mrs Brown, based on the scurrilous rumours that the widowed queen enjoyed an improper relationship with her Scottish ghillie, John Brown, and then in Victoria & Abdul, an exaggerated account of the queen’s relationship with another servant, her Indian attendant, the “Munshi”.
Lacey ends his defense by pointing out that Season 6 will likely start on a low note (Diana’s death in Paris) but the series will end, overall, on a positive note, with William and Kate’s love story, the Queen’s 2002 Jubilee and Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding. Again, Lacey is making this argument from a historian’s perspective. He’s saying: yes, the ‘90s were tough for you, Charles, but just own your sh-t and everything will be fine. Does Lacey really believe that everything will be fine? Probably not, but Lacey is placating Charles and trying to give Charles some solid advice. Too bad Charles won’t take it. Lacey’s also emphasizing, for everyone, that all of this sh-t is based on the historical record and reporting on the time. The Crown is a documentary, you heard it here first.
Also: “Enter the bended-knee brigade, led by Dame Judi Dench. How the British love to bow and scrape.” Ouch and ouch. “Kiss-ass wankers,” Lacey muttered under his breath.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Netflix/The Crown.
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- London, UK, 19th Sep 2022. King Charles III. Behind the Coffin, King Charles III walks with Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward behind him, followed by Prince William and Prince Harry and Peter Phillips, and others. The Queen Consort, Princess of Wales, Duchess of Sussex and others follow in cars. The funeral procession for Queen Elizabeth II makests way from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, via Horse Guards Parade and the Mall. People line the street and watch military personnel march, and the coffin pass along the route. The procession is led by massed Pipers and Drums of Scottish and Irish Regiments, The Brigade of Gurkhas, the Royal Air Force and a total of 6,000 representatives from all three Armed Forces.,Image: 724175863, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Imageplotter / Avalon
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- King Charles III during a visit to Aberdeen Town House to meet families who have settled in Aberdeen from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine.,Image: 731299261, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Use subject to restrictions. Editorial use only, no commercial use without prior consent from rights holder., Model Release: no, Credit line: Jane Barlow / Avalon
And at the end of the day, Lacey is a royalist, even though he obviously values his reputation as a historian. Think how sharp his barbs would be if he were a republican. And he also soothes the whine king in the article by informing him that there are actually scenes in this series which he will love.
“..values his reputation as a historian” After reading parts of BoB, I found Lacey’s style to be more in keeping with that of camp gossip than historical analysis. BoB didn’t read like it was written by someone who’d earned a reputation as an historian.
Perhaps not, but it’s all historically documented fact.
Suck on it, Charlie. You know what you did.
The truth is that all of this history is well and widely known. They can’t weasel out of it while so many of us who saw it unfold in real time are still breathing. It all actually happened, and it was documented at the time. I’m not a historian, but I was around for all of it. And I’m not so old as to have forgotten the details. Neither is Lacey.
The sad thing about reputations is that they are often unearned, whether good or bad. And for white men, sterling professional reputations come with impressive ease. Peter Morgan hired Lacey as historical consultant on The Crown.
Kate and Wills love story? Seriously? Please pass the barf sack.
I wonder if they’ll show Kate walking down the catwalk in a see-through dress. That would make heads explode.
I think they should show Kate’s Marilyn Moments, esp. the one where she’s walking on a windy runway and her flimsy dress blew up to show the world her bare bottom. Throw in the topless pics too.
I think the Lifetime Movie showed the fashion show in the see through dress and William coming on to her after the show.
Miss Jupitero, my thoughts exactly.
Jaded, +1 on the Marilyn moments.
I hope they don’t omit khate stalking her prey and changing universities. the devil is in the details. jecca should also make an appearance.
If you have to resort to the Hatebridge love story to end on a “positive note”, then the situation is worse than anyone could have imagined.
The issue is not whether or not tidbits of gossip actually happened, but whether they were historically significant …a private conversation illegally recorded may be true, but what DIFFERENCE does it make ? Other than to make us feel superior or in the know .
Well, the story isn’t about all of history; it’s about the history of Queen Elizabeth II’s life as a monarch and about the royal family around her. So, there events that are significant to her public life and others that are significant to her private life. When she made her 40th anniversary speech to the public and called 1992 “annus horribilus” she meant a series of events that she considered significant – her 3 children’s divorces, Diana’s book, the fire at Windsor, relentless press – these made a difference to her personally and they made a difference in how the public perceived her reign and the royal family, in general. In effect, her private life affected her public life. To ignore how this happened is to ignore the story.
I disagree. The king has made the issue the stuff he’d rather forget about, how poorly he treated Diana, how he & Camilla kept up a decades-long affair throughout his marriage, how he helped turn the media against his own wife, who then hounded her to her death. And that is all historically significant.
And what Euridice said, who said it much better.
The history of this family is not based on tidbits of gossip or illegally recorded conversations, it’s about the deeply disturbing way in which this family clings to money and power, and basically does what they want with it. They are being shown for who they really are — grifting, money grubbing, adulterous, back-stabbing, deceitful, predatory Machiavellians. That’s what makes it historically relevant because as much as they call themselves public servants, they are the exact opposite and it’s time this gets revealed.
I think these recorded conversations, tampon gate, squidgy gate, whatever else showed just how badly the relationship had broken down and how much a facade it was. Also, it illuminates how intrusive the press was and ruthless in getting into their private lives. Was it ever really explained who recorded those conversations or how the press got them? Remember the paparazzi swarms? I think there is a bigger context beyond Charles being gross on tape.
@L4Frimaire — the Tampongate conversation was inadvertently recorded in 1989 by some young geek using a high-tech scanning device and stumbled on the telephone conversation by accident. He sold it to the tabloids 4 years later after the separation was announced for a big payday. The Squidgygate conversation was recorded by a 70 year-old ham radio enthusiast who also came upon it in 1990 by accident and sold it a couple of years later. So while the press wasn’t actively trying to record private conversations at that point, they sure jumped on recordings others had made and paid them handsomely for it.
He might be ‘right’ about historic facts in this column in The Times, but to me, Lacey has lost his credibility as a historian the minute he edited his first book ‘Battle of the Brothers’ in such a way, to please William and to trash Meghan, and blatantly lied about known facts and circumstances that occurs while she was in the royal family/firm. It seems that his ‘knowledge’ of (historical) facts can be bought by and adjusted for any party with enough coins.
By the way, he wrote his piece in this sneering way, because his fellow ‘royal experts’ have called him a traitor for his Netflix consultant work this time (not before). He feels attacked, he’s defending himself, mind you.
His colleagues in the British media have been bashing him for this piece saying that he’s discredited and nobody should listen to him. They had no problem with Lacey when he revised his book to take William’s side. The press and the Palace just don’t want people to be reminded of the terrible things they did to Diana
Well if the reviews are to be believed this season will go quite soft on charles and camilla. So charlie boy can relax now.
From what Online reviews I’ve seen, the show is very favorable to Charles and Camille. But they have set that up from the beginning. I am just really fascinated by how and who is telling the story. The show has always been favorable towards the monarchy and if they don’t like something, the family has the media, their friends put pressure on you from every angle.
Charles really made much ado about nothing. One reviewer noted that this season was VERY sympathetic towards both him and Camilla while being extremely critical of the late queen and Diana.
Seems The Crown went for the star-crossed lovers angle, which is a damn shame considering what we know of how he and Camilla treated Diana AND the fact that Camilla wasn’t his only mistress.
Charles is hardly a grandfatherly king.lacey left out Charles tantrums over pens.
How can one be grandfatherly when using two of your grandchildren as pawns in a proxy war with you and your son, and deciding before they were even born that they would be a problem and denied their birthright because of how they might look?
Hilarious. “How the British love to bow and scrape.”
This hits hard, when he is talking about the embarrassing conversations from Charles and Camilla: “Like it or not, they are central to the history and identity of our present King and Queen.”
Since Lacey is associated with the series, this may carry less weight, but it will be interesting to see if other members of the rota chime in. How can they resist? So many of them were right on the spot.
I do wonder if the series will come for William as well, or if they will go with the “Cambridge fairy tale” version of events.
Rebecca English says the script borders on defamatory and that she wouldn’t be surprised if the Palace releases a statement after the show comes out. I would love for this to happen because any statement would only embarrass the Royal Family further.
… Except that Will and Kate’s “love story” is that of him basically being forced to marry his stalker because she wouldn’t go away. Nor would her mother. The RF needed heirs, end of story.
It is a story of William settling after 10 years after being turned down by women he was interested in
Will there be a scene rushing to change universities when she hears where William is attending
I believe it was Vanity Fair that wrote a piece about Kate being ” the last girl standing” and implying she was the only one who would accept his proposal after multiple rejections from others.
@Julia you’re right and you can still read the article here.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/12/william-and-kate-201012
Thanks @xantha! That was a fun read with all the appropriate shade and references to leggy heiresses around every corner. Even better, it was punctuated with ads for the upcoming series Dangerous Liaisons. 🤣
@xantha – thanks – enjoyed the read. What struck me is how clearly it says Kate did…nothing for a decade. And that narrative – which we’ve all been aware of here – never seems to get any real traction elsewhere. When I look back at my 20’s – such growth and adventure – finishing university, starting career, figuring yourself our etc. With no career, no continued education, it reiterated what a very empty decade it was which is sad…
Lacey is skimming reality on this one because by 2005 William was still playing the field and kate was just waiting. And by the time this airs, I think the distance between W and K which is already too obvious will have become more obvious. They don’t want regular people watching them interact because normal people with eyes can see that all is not well with them.
Kate and wills wedding was covered in a lifetime movie. I hope Kate and wills relationship is realistic and depicts the negative side.
I friggin’ love that Lifetime movie, but obviously it’s a sappy romance that ends with a wedding. Meanwhile, the Meghan & Harry Lifetime movie morphed into a trilogy because the wedding was just the beginning of their story.
How juvenile that they’ve starred out the word Tampax as if it’s obscene. Ooooh nooooes are we all fifth grade boys?
I found that hilarious 😂
When I was a kid, we were indoctrinated on how to hide all evidence of menstruation from delicate male eyes. This shit has to change.
I had a friend I college who turned a giant tampon box into a purse. It was brilliant.
In my day, Seventeen mag would run ads like “I’d be mortified if he knew.” We’ve come a long way, baby. (Or have we?)
The bestseller back in the 70’s was The Sensuous Woman, which included an entire chapter on how to perform an expert blowjob, tips on how to hide all signs of menstruation, and best of all, how to wake up at dawn to put on full makeup and false eyelashes before crawling back into bed before The Almighty Man awakes.
But the way Lacey ends this article by asking if the crown will end with the fairy tale story of William and Kate felt like…a hint of something else. But maybe I’m reading into that? Lacey knows pretty well what that story is actually like. Didn’t he document it truthfully in his book and it wasn’t always so flattering?
For godsakes, the series needs to end with Margaret having one last hear to heart with the queen before she passes. Everyone knows she’s the breakout character and the closest thing to an Audience surrogate.
TBH, they have years to reconsider where the series should end but a season 7 makes so much sense. Now that TQ’s life story is complete, that’s where the series should end.
Lacey is no different from the the knee bending brigade, he is dancing for Netflix, because he is getting paid.
After the Crown is over, he will be back boot licking the Windsors.
I just watched Grace Randolph’s (American) take on the season. I don’t agree with everything she says, but it’s still very interesting to see. She thinks the show is pro Charles and Camilla or at the very least even handed when depicting each person’s point of view. She pointed out how how Diana had absolutely nothing in common with the Windsors.
She accuses Diana of being emotionally stunted and not really knowing what she wants. But fails to acknowledge that, if that’s the case, it’s because Diana was a very young, sheltered, naive young lady when she was chosen to be Charles brood mare when he never really loved her. And forced to grow up and exist in this fucked up institution. She also said the show depicted how Diana asked for mental health care and was denied. (Sound familiar!?).
She also says that the Queen comes off as the villain as she doesn’t seem to care about how anyone in the family feels because she believes they are there to worship her and do her bidding. And therefore she gets why everyone in the family is so miserable and sneaking off to do their own thing.
Kinda weird to accuse a teenager of being “emotionally stunted” and “not knowing what she wants”. What’s Charles’ excuse?
To be clear, she was referring to 30-something Diana, but, yeah, I agree about Charles.
ETA: Grace seems to saying in a round about way that, like Harry has said, they’re all victims of the institution they are part of and trying to uphold.
We say that child actors are emotionally limited to the age at which they became famous. Why wouldn’t that also apply to a 19 year old bride who suddenly became one of the most famous people on earth? And also she did know what she wanted. A fairytale. A prince who’d adore her and love her for life while they raised beautiful children.
Diana was decidedly not emotionally stunted she was a teenager courted by a 32 year old. If she were emotionally Stunted she would have put up with Charles shenanigans and not complained
Yeah, when a man in his thirties marries a very sheltered girl just weeks out of her teens and then carries on with another woman right from the get-go, his wife is not likely ever to mature as most teenagers do. Diana was far from perfect, but she was far more sinned against than sinning right from birth. Her birth family was also a dumpster 🔥.
So many British establishment members try to slut shame Diana by saying she was crazy or starting cheating first etc. She married him at 19 and he was in his 30s. Even if she wanted to marry him, she was never told that he would keep Camilla on the side or all the other women that get hidden by the media.
So did Diana react poorly when she realized that Charles was never going to give up the other women? Sure but that is a normal reaction. And Charles was the heir so he had all the power that she didn’t.
And he’s still trying to control her image from beyond the grave which only shows he’s got a lot to hide.
The crown will end up making him look more sympathetic than he deserves.
It’s not like he was known to treat his own children with any more respect either. Both William and Harry were used as pawns by him to help craft his image. It’s who he is. That William now joins in this mess is what’s disappointing.
Diana did not act poorly imo she was justified in not liking it and complained Charles should have put all the cards on the table before he proposed and told Diana that Camilla would always be in his life.
Acting poorly would be being quiet and taking it. Being a doormat is acting poorly. Allowing the patriarchy to use you however it wishes is acting poorly. That’s what they wanted from Diana, and that’s what they wanted from Meghan. But Meghan has a real husband.
I can’t tell if Lacey’s the first out of the gate with his take, but getting this in the Times as soon as the embargo lifted gives it heft. I read the article from a screenshot in a Richard Eden Twitter thread this morning and detected no lies. Lacey states his case really well and barely pulls his punches. Eden and others might whine that Lacey’s just after the money and has no “integrity” for reporting this defense of The Crown, but people aren’t buying it. I mean, which thing is likely to garner more attention, a restatement of the lurid truth or a pathetic cry about “integrity”??!! Netflix appreciates the free publicity.
Oh my, oh my, the press have been waiting to unload, but all looking around to see who would go first. So, is it Lacey? Will he give them courage?
My bet is this will start the tabloid ball rolling towards more big reveals and opining on how truly vile and underhanded the BRF really is. To quote Shakespeare…”There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
Isn’t this a metaphor though? Life ebbs and flows with the tide, so take your best shot with high tide? Julius Caesar is not easy for me to grasp so I’m sorry if it’s a clumsy interpretation but your quote is spot on.
I mean he’s right and that’s why the palace is trying so hard to discredit this season. We saw this play out in real time. The worst parts of this season are not going to be the fictional parts.
Happy birthday Charles!
The way the rota have turned on Lacey for saying the obvious is no different than how the GOP pundits flipped in supporting all the MAGA stuff even if they said the opposite not long before.
So many of the rota are on video discussed what Charles and Camilla did so the video receipts being thrown in their faces is hilarious.
And they forget that a large portion of people 40 and up around the world recall this story because it was the one story about the royals that hit global heights. So trying to gaslight a few generations isn’t going to work.
Just out of curiosity is the tampon company censored in the original article or is it censored for here? Why would a feminine hygiene product be too scandalous to read?
It was censored in the original article, I just left it in
Thank you for responding!
I didn’t really think it was something this website would do but I thought I’d ask in case I missed something with the rules here!
It was originally done like that when it was published in the 90s and they likely censored it to avoid a potential lawsuit from tampax.
Makes sense, thanks!
One can read the back issues of several of the actual tabloids that bleat the loudest.
They printed the salacious stories and now take offence?
The king would’ve better served if they kept quiet.
I can totally understand why the English royals are worried about season 5 of The Crown. The Crown and Spare will be a double punch to them. But it won’t be enough for them to get canceled by the United Kingdom’s citizens. They should just keep a low profile and let them pass.
It is not in Chuckie’s (or Wiliam’s) DNA to keep a low profile or keep their mouths closed. They cannot help but self-sabotage. They laughingly consider themselves devious and clever.
I’m currently reading V Low’s “Courtiers” ✨ Guaranteed ✨ to put you to sleep in 5 minutes. Seriously tho, I’ve been reading it for 2 weeks & I’m only 19% 🫣 Not for H&M smack but rather the complete and utter sh*t show that is “The Firm” — Not one member of the RF has a faking clue wtf is going on, and neither do any of the staff. KC3 seems like an absolute monster to wk for. Paraphrasing a quote here “the staff seem to invent problems in order to be seen *fixing* them.” I won’t go into the QM, QE or PP as irrelevant to this discussion, but good lord, Charles does come out looking like a total buffoon and a complete wally w/r/t expecting multiple staff to work 24/7 and take calls about identifying an orchid at 3 am on a weekend
And yet they are screaming in angry horror about at 5 am EMAIL!
@ Jan90067 and the weekend 3am phone call to ID a verkakte plant isn’t even 1/10th of the *worst* of his work/staff treatment behaviour. But, yes let’s not forget about 5am business emails 🤨
I still think the BRF is afraid the public will make the correlation between Diana’s treatment by the Firm and Meghan’s. I also think BP fears Spare will validate and elaborate some parts of the Crown.
They don’t have to wait for the public to make that correlation – Harry already made the correlation for them.
I’m not making excuses for them at all. But if someone in their camp were smart, which their not. They would come out somewhere and say. “See were not racist, we did the same thing to Diana.”
I agree with you, Aquarius64. How fortuitous that this season comes out at the same time as all the hand-wringing about Harry’s book. I’d say Harry’s point of view trumps all the denials from the Palace and their Judy Denchish flunkies and does real damage to the BRF. And I’m here for it.
Sykes wrote a defense in The Daily Beast last week pointing out the obvious, that this season is sourced from its subjects own mouths. But Lacey doing it in an English paper is a different strike. Eden defending Charles is rich given the tabloids’ treatment of this whole affair.
The best thing Charles can do is to hunker down and keep his mouth shut. This is has all been documented and reported these past decades and I remember so many of these events very well. It’s taken a while but it’s all coming back to bite the Royals in the ass when they thought that it was all done and dusted and swept under the rug.
I think the producers of The Crown should hv had other historians, in addition to Lacey. He’s biased in favor of the royals and, more importantly, their handlers (the Snr courtiers whose vested interest in the monarchy is maintaining the status quo ante).
So while the obvious, objective truth & historically accurate facts can’t be hidden, they can definitely be soft-shoed such that as we’ve been hearing abt S5, it’s not as bad on charlesandcamilla as one wd hv thought.
Based on what I have read on this site I got a Netflix subscription and have barely made it to the 4th episode of the first season on The Crown.
I LOVE Matt Smith from his Dr. days and Claire Foy is perfect, but the whole thing is so dreadfully boring
I may just skip to season 2
I’ve watched all of it, but I found much of it so tedious that I fast forwarded a lot. If I needed more info I could go back and pick up a detail here and there.
I started watching Season 1, but my reaction was, I already know all this. I went on a Windsor deep dive one summer early in the Diana years, reading everything the library had. So none of it was a surprise. And I quit Netflix. I just get DVDs from the library. Recently noticed my local branch library has the DVDs. I may grab them for a snowy watch this winter, now that I know the quality has kept up as the seasons progressed.
Also, I always laugh at articles that are basically “person show paid as accuracy consultant says show is accurate.”
I hope the series does a massive time jump over the Will and Kate “love story” and ends with Harry heading out on a date with a girl named Meghan. Lol
I just read a review by American tv critic Alan Sepinwall and he said that while the performances are great, it’s actually trickier with the Charles and Diana stuff that was so public and that so many still remember. He said one of the best scenes is one that likely never happened but fits the narrative well.
Also Dominic west being cast as Charles is just extremely generous.
It was refreshing to read a review that wasn’t a defence of the British establishment.
The sheer fact that Charles and the royal establishment think they can actually gaslights the public into believing what they want . Like the interviews didn’t happen Charles own country reporter on the divorce the drama every last detail including the gross conversations with his mistress turn wife . I don’t know what the royal reporters game is why are they pretending that things didn’t happen when it did and it’s public knowledge.
Let’s be sincere. The Crown is extremely respectful towards the royal family and Charles in particular. They painted him as an attractive man (he never was) and described his relationship with Camilla as a great love story that was impossible to resist. The facts described are quite accurate, but Charles comes out all too well compared to his behavior at the time.
The funny part is that the Daily Mail had screaming headlines about all of this stuff back then…and they will now be the first to deny it ever happened.