Even though it feels like season two of The Crown has just left our screens, we’re already looking forward to its third season – and mourning the loss of its stars from the episodes ahead.
It was announced last year that this season would be the current actors’ last, with the characters recast to older actors to reflect the passing of time – something that is set to happen every two seasons.
With Claire Foy and Matt Smith leaving impossibly big shoes to fill, fans have been obsessed with news of The Crown castings, from who will take on the role of Princess Margaret to whether the Queen’s corgis will remain the same.
But it wasn’t the first photos of Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip or the startling pay gap between Claire Foy and Matt Smith that got everyone talking this week. Instead, it was Queen Elizabeth’s thoughts on the Netflix show.
It is public knowledge that the monarch is a fan of the show with one of its stars Vanessa Kirby overhearing Princess Eugenie claim that ‘Granny is a big fan’.
It emerged this week however that there was one particular episode in season two that Queen Elizabeth wasn’t such a fan of, saddened at how her family was portrayed.
The episode in question? Season two episode nine – the episode where we see a young Prince Charles sent off to Gordonstoun, the same school Prince Philip attended when he was younger.
Viewers were shocked by the interaction in the episode between Philip and his son when he calls him ‘bloody weak’ for crying at being bullied.
This is something that the Queen it seems was also shocked by when watching The Crown, insisting that it is not factual.
‘The Queen realises that many who watch The Crown take it as an accurate portrayal of the Royal Family and she cannot change that,’ a senior courtier told The Express. ‘But I can convey that she was upset by the way Prince Philip is depicted as being a father insensitive to his son’s wellbeing.’
The insider continued: ‘She was particularly annoyed at a scene in which Philip has no sympathy for a plainly upset Charles while he is flying him home from Scotland. That simply did not happen.’
This article originally appeared on Marie Claire UK
