25 Facts About The Royal Family (And What "The Crown" Season 6 Gets Right And Wrong)
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1.First, in real life, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were reportedly given special permission to join the crowds outside Buckingham Palace to celebrate the end of World War II on VE Day. In a 2015 documentary, their cousin Margaret Rhodes recalled, "It was like a wonderful escape for the girls. I don't think they'd ever been out among millions of people. It was just freedom — to be an ordinary person."
"We were terrified of being recognized — so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes," Queen Elizabeth recalled in an interview with the BBC. "A grenadier officer among our party of about 16 people said he refused to be seen in the company of another officer improperly dressed. So I had to put my cap on normally."
2.Elizabeth and Margaret, alongside their cousin and a few others, reportedly did make it to the Ritz to party that night before returning to the palace, where they got to watch their father, King George VI, make a second public appearance on the balcony as they stood among the people outside Buckingham Palace.
The 2015 movie A Royal Night Out was all about Elizabeth and Margaret's night out on VE Day in 1945.
3.The photos of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed kissing were really published on the front page of the Sunday Mirror and reportedly attracted bids of £500,000, which was roughly $630,000. Photographer Mario Brenna reportedly "made about £1.7 million, or $2.1 million, from the photos of the couple."
British photographer Jason Fraser, who helped Mario sell the images, said that after they were published, "over 2,000 photographers arrived" hoping to capture photos of Diana and Dodi.
4.The famous diving board photo of Princess Diana, which is depicted in The Crown, was taken a week before her death in Paris. The moment came after the Sunday Mirror published photos of Diana and Dodi kissing. What was reportedly supposed to be a quiet holiday aboard Mohamed Al-Fayed's private yacht in Portofino turned into a "media circus."
This photo of Princess Diana has become so memorable that it inspired SZA's album artwork for her album SOS.
5.The Crown shows Princess Diana buying a gift for Prince Harry before her death in 1997, and Prince Harry said that the story has been told so many times, he has "no idea if it's true." In his memoir Spare, he wrote how his Aunt Sarah, Diana's sister, brought him the present for his 13th birthday, which was less than a month after Diana's death.
"I tore at the wrapping paper, the ribbon. I peered inside," Prince Harry wrote. "What…? Mummy bought it for you. Shortly before… You mean in Paris? Yes. Paris. It was an Xbox. I was pleased. I loved video games. That's the story, anyway. It's appeared in many accounts of my life, as gospel, and I have no idea if it’s true." Many noted that the Xbox had not been released at the time. However, he could've been gifted a PlayStation, as seen in The Crown.
6.Trevor Rees-Jones, who was hired as a bodyguard for Dodi by his father, revealed that he and Alexander "Kez" Wingfield, another bodyguard, "suggested" that Diana and Dodi leave out the front of the Ritz Paris in "the regular two vehicles" instead of leaving out of the rear of the hotel in a single vehicle with no security, as Dodi suggested.
In an interview with Larry King Live in 2000, Trevor said, "We had advised both Henri Paul and Dodi that our — our method was to leave from the front of the hotel. There was two vehicles there, and the crowd was pushed back. As to why Dodi wished to leave from the rear of the hotel I don't know."
7.After the fatal car crash, police reportedly seized "20 rolls" of film from seven photographers who were at the site of the crash. The book Diana: Death of a Goddess says that while some people rushed to help the victims of the crash, many took photos. One photographer reportedly "was beaten at the scene by horrified witnesses" who spotted them taking photos.
The police took the 20 rolls of film from the paparazzi pursuing Diana in an attempt to develop the photos "for clues to the crash" that ultimately resulted in the deaths of Diana, Dodi, and Henri.
8.Prince Charles reportedly fought for a public funeral for Princess Diana, despite Queen Elizabeth II wishing for a private service. Prince Charles and prime minister Tony Blair reportedly insisted that Diana's coffin be placed at St. James's Palace and the funeral held at Westminster Abbey.
A public funeral was initially in question largely because Diana had lost her status as her royal highness after her divorce from Charles in 1996.
9.The royal family was criticized for their strict adherence to protocol in the wake of Princess Diana's death. There was reportedly "angry public response" to the family's initial refusal to lower the flag to half-mast at Buckingham Palace after Diana died. Eventually, the Queen ruled that all flags at royal residences would be lowered to half-mast.
The royal standard traditionally is never flown at half-mast because it's the sovereign's flag, and there is never a vacancy in the monarchy. The Union flag was placed at half-mast after the Queen left for Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey.
10.The note on top of Princess Diana's coffin from Prince William and Prince Harry that simply read "Mummy" is part of a tradition that reportedly started with prime minister Winston Churchill writing a note for King George VI after his death. The tradition continued with Queen Elizabeth II penning a note to Churchill that was displayed at his funeral in 1965.
In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II wrote a note for the Queen Mother, then in 2021, she penned a note for her husband Prince Philip. In 2022, when Queen Elizabeth II died, Prince Charles left a note for his mom in the flowers on top of her casket.
11."Willsmania" was the term coined by the press, notably when Prince William arrived in Vancouver, Canada in 1998 during his first big international trip following Princess Diana's death. At this point, William had not made any public speeches, and reportedly the "mystery" surrounding him "amplified the allure" for people, namely young women, around the world.
"Willsmania" was also notable because it came after a code of practice between the British royal family and the press was released, namely recognizing that Harry and William deserve the same privacy as other children while attending school. It also added the stipulation that the press was not allowed to interview or photograph the boys, or any member of the royal family, while they are under the age of 16 without their parents' consent.
12.When Prince William announced that he would attend St Andrews following a gap year in Chile, the university reportedly saw "the biggest increase in applications for degree courses among UK universities." Applications for the university were up 44% in 2001 from the year prior.
According to the Guardian, a majority of the applications were from young women from the United States.
13.Tony Blair was notably "heckled, jeered, [and] booed" when he spoke at the Women's Institute's national conference in June 2000. What started as "sporadic heckling" turned into the whole crowd doing a slow clap. Downing Street reportedly told Blair to be "non-political" in his speech at the conference, which was advice he ignored.
Reportedly, Blair "won applause" for referencing paying women the same as men for the same job, children going to school, and more, but then lost the crowd when he continued to go back to the "political language of collective responsibility."
14.As alluded to in The Crown, Tony Blair and president Bill Clinton were very good friends. So much so that in 2016, Clinton's presidential library released "532 pages of transcripts" that documented phone calls and/or in-person meetings between the two. The transcripts revealed they spoke about Iraq, Russia, peace in Ireland, Princess Diana's death, and more. Absent from the transcripts was any mention of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, which many were looking for while reading them.
Blair and Clinton's friendship was so substantial that Peter Morgan, who created The Crown, also wrote the movie The Special Relationship, which detailed the US and UK's relationship between 1997 and 2001.
15.While The Crown shows a scene of a young Kate Middleton meeting Princess Diana and a young Prince William, it never happened in real life. In an interview where she talked about Diana, Kate said, "I never, sadly, got to meet her." She then went on to say how she thinks Diana would've been a "brilliant" grandmother to her and William's three children.
Following Queen Elizabeth II's death, Kate inherited the title Princess Diana held of Princess of Wales. A palace spokesperson reportedly said Kate "appreciates the history associated with this role" but would "understandably want to look to the future as she creates her own path."
16.Prince William and Kate met at St Andrews, with William explaining that they were "friends for over a year first" before they started dating. Kate added that they became "very close friends from quite early on."
While The Crown shows that Kate had photos of William on the walls of her bedroom growing up, Kate said in a 2010 interview following their engagement that it was never the case. "He wishes," she joked.
17.While it's not really clear if Kate actually switched her choice of university so she could attend St Andrews once Prince William decided to go there, Jasper Selwyn, who was a career advisor at Marlborough College where Kate attended, reportedly said that she was all set to attend the University of Edinburgh.
Kate ended up wanting to attend St Andrews, but also did a gap year like William. Thus, they ended up starting at the university at the same time. The book The Palace Papers also speculates, like The Crown, that Carole Middleton, Kate's mother, had a hand in persuading Kate to attend St Andrews and get close to William. The book says, "Carole’s fingerprints are all over Kate’s first move on the royal chessboard."
18.Princess Margaret suffered three strokes between 1998 and 2001, with the first one happening while she was on vacation in Mustique. Her health deteriorated in her later years as she also reportedly dealt with migraines, bronchitis, hepatitis, and laryngitis. She had also given up smoking in 1993 after contracting pneumonia and previously having a small portion of her left lung removed.
In 2002, following her death, it was also reported she experienced a final stroke on the day before her death.
19.In 1999, BBC News reported that Princess Margaret was recovering in Buckingham Palace "after scalding her feet while on holiday." Similar to what is depicted in The Crown, according to a palace spokesperson, Margaret burned her feet while "she was getting into a bath."
At the time, the incident was reportedly "overstated," with the Sunday People claiming that it was a "horrific accident" that left her "bedridden" and in need of "24-hour medical care."
20.In the Operation Paget Inquiry Report, which was the title of the British Metropolitan Police inquiry that investigated the conspiracy theories surrounding Princess Diana's death, Prince William and Diana's friends alleged there were no plans for Dodi and Diana to get engaged, with one friend saying, "There was no mention whatsoever of an engagement, nothing to even suggest she might be expecting a proposal, not for a split second."
Rosa Monckton, who went "on holiday with the Princess of Wales, sailing around the Greek Islands between 15 to 20 August 1997," said, "If Diana had been about to announce that she was getting engaged, she would have told me on the phone when she was away with Dodi. She would not have waited until she got back from her holiday."
21.The British inquest into Diana's death found that Dodi did purchase a ring, with the inscription Dis-moi oui ("Tell me yes"), and CCTV footage showed Dodi inside a Paris jewelry store. However, the inquest determined that there was "no indication" that Dodi ever gave Diana the ring prior to their deaths.
Claude Roulet, who was the assistant to the president of the Ritz Paris, where Diana and Dodi stayed before their deaths, said, "As best I can remember, it was kind of a romantic story that Dodi asked for an engagement ring and that they had to choose together the engagement ring, which was not the truth."
22.Kate Middleton really did walk in a St Andrews charity fashion show in 2002 that Prince William attended. The outfit was designed by Charlotte Todd, who was a fellow student at St Andrews, and she reportedly made the piece for only £30.
Charlotte later sold her famous piece at an auction in 2011, shortly before William and Kate's wedding, where it sold for £78,000.
23.In his 2023 memoir Spare, Prince Harry detailed the notable Nazi costume incident, writing that Prince William and Kate encouraged him to wear it. He wrote, "I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said." Harry added that they "both howled" when he tried it on, saying that even at the party, which he recalled had a "cringy" theme of natives and colonials, "no one looked twice at [his] costume."
"There were moments over the course of the next several weeks and months when I thought I might die of shame," Harry wrote, detailing the fallout from the incident after the photo hit the front page of several tabloids. He added, "The typical response to the photos was: What could he have been thinking? The simplest answer was: I wasn’t. When I saw those photos, I recognized immediately that my brain had been shut off, that perhaps it had been shut off for some time. I wanted to go around Britain knocking on doors, explaining to people: I wasn’t thinking. I meant no harm."
24.Queen Elizabeth II did not attend Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles' civil wedding ceremony in 2005, but later attended the service of dedication at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, and she hosted the reception. While some thought the Queen was snubbing the nuptials by not attending, the palace reassured the public that was not the case.
On Christmas 2004, the Queen reportedly gave Charles her consent for him to marry Camilla, after consulting with her Privy Council, who are a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the UK.
25.And finally, in the final moments of The Crown, Queen Elizabeth II walks out as "Sleep, Dearie, Sleep" plays, which was ultimately performed by the Queen's Piper inside Westminster Abbey at the end of her funeral in 2022. The song was played by pipe major Paul Burns, and his inclusion in the funeral was reportedly a personal request from the Queen.
Almost every morning, Queen Elizabeth II was woken up by bagpipes at 9 a.m. for 15 minutes, thus giving this moment a poignant significance too.
You can read more facts, specifically about Princess Diana's death and how The Crown depicted the events in 1997, here.
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