WARNING: This article contains spoilers from The Crown season 6
The sixth and final season of Peter Morgan’s Royal Family drama has landed on Netflix.
Only the first four episodes of the new series have been released with fans left to savour the last outing. The final six instalments come out next month on December 14.
Season six, part one deals with Princess Diana’s (played by Elizabeth Debicki) final days and death and the fallout for the Royal Family, particularly Queen Elizabeth II’s (Imelda Staunton) delayed response.
The storyline will focus on the events The Crown’s creator Morgan previously covered in his 2006 Oscar-winning film The Queen.
In The Crown, the Queen is lambasted by her son Prince Charles (Dominic West) for failing to step into action after Princess Diana died in a car crash.
The Queen remains stoic and almost unfeeling as Prince Charles is emotional over his ex-wife’s death as he implores the Queen to be “mother to the nation” after she asks: “What do people want from me?”
Prince Charles says: “You’ve seen the images on the television. Diana gave people what they needed. All over the world in their thousands. And they adored her for it.”
In the series, the Queen even has a conversation with Princess Diana’s ghost and tells her: “You’ve finally succeeded in turning this house upside down. It’s nothing less than revolution.”
But Princess Diana says it was never her intention to cause such ructions within the institution.
The Queen eventually delivers a speech addressing Princess Diana’s death – but how accurate were the events depicted?
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How long did the Queen really take to respond to Diana’s death?
Princess Diana died on August 31 in a car accident in Paris, plunging Britain into a seismic outpouring of grief the likes of which the Royal Family hadn’t seen in modern times.
On September 5 – nearly a week after Princess Diana’s death – Queen Elizabeth II addressed the nation in a televised speech from Buckingham Palace in which she spoke “from the heart” and her words were both as a grandmother and the head of state.
In her message, she paid tribute to Princess Diana: “She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.”
Speaking exclusively to Daily Express, author of Queen Victoria’s Descendants and historical expert Marlene Koenig said: “I was thinking about this question because the Queen was presented as cold or callous in all of this.
“A couple of points, one thing: Diana was no longer married to Charles and she had her own life.”
The author continued: “Her concern was – we have to remember the Queen was also a mother and a grandmother – and at the moment she had to put Grandma hat on because the welfare of her two grandsons were important to her in this situation than the people outside putting down flowers to be honest.
“The idea was that the Spencers should take care of this because she was a member of their family. To Charles’ credit, he put his foot down. He went to Paris to bring her home and he was really the one pushed for the funeral – and it wasn’t a state funeral, it was an official funeral.
“Of course, the Queen didn’t want that but eventually I think she came around to it because you also had the Prime Minister [Tony Blair’ who played this all up and, ‘Oh, the Queen was cruel’ and all that.
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“Her concern was her grandchildren and we forget about that. She thought she was doing what was best for two boys who lost their mom.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for Charles when his sons woke up and have to sit down with them and told them their mother had died. One of the most difficult things he’s had to do and shelter them and being in Scotland was the best place.
“But then enter Tony Blair and his bit about the ‘People’s Princess’,” Koenig explained.
“The original People’s Princess was Queen Victoria’s cousin Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, of Teck, who was the mother of Queen Mary and there’s even a biography called ‘The People’s Princess’. She was really the first royal to start making duty and engagements and pushing out, changing how royals did things. She was called the People’s Princess.”
She went on to say about the newly-elected Blair: “Of course, he played to the crowd.” Adding: “Yes, of course they’re grieving but she had two grandsons who lost their mom and they were first and people seem to dismiss that and she needed to put them first.”
Koenig said even at the time, she stressed in interviews how the British people were grieving but “the two most important people were those young boys”.
She said the Queen wanted to make sure Princes William and Harry were “kept out” of it.
The historian said: “Of course the Queen came out and spoke to the people and they went out to the crowds and I think there was also a sense, ‘Will they boo?’ and they weren’t. People applauded because she responded and she did the speech on TV in all this. She was kind of forced into it […] and did it and did it well but on paper she was right: Diana was no longer a member of the family.”
Interestingly, Princess Diana’s death led to changes including lowering the flag to half-mast which has now become a custom.
“It certainly set a change. Now when any of the British royals die they put the flag at half-mast,” Koenig said.
The Crown season 6, part 1 is streaming on Netflix now
The Crown season 6, part 2 will be released on Netflix on December 14
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