Season 6: History Beyond the Episodes

[Spartan Girl]

5 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Those gym pictures were from a hidden camera the gym owner placed inside his facility.  He then sold them to whatever tabloid.  Also, when Diana was still dating Charles, an enterprising photographer figured out which flat Diana lived in and rented out the flat opposite.  He then used his camera to catch Diana in her kitchen.  She wasn't even safe in her own home, and soon after those pictures were released she moved into one of the palaces for extra protection.  Philip's "shit or get off the pot" letter to Charles was because of the lengths the press was willing to go breaching Diana's privacy.

I forgot about those gym photos. Now I’m mad all over again. Monsters.

[Ohiopirate02]

5 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I forgot about those gym photos. Now I’m mad all over again. Monsters.

Yeah, and that's why I cannot buy into the Diana's paranoia was a contributing factor in the events that lead to her death.  So many people around her took advantage of her like that gym owner and the palace security (squidgygate).  Martin Bashir's lies worked on Diana because of all the other times her privacy had been invaded since she first began dating Charles.  Diana already knew any royal bodyguards assigned to protect her were going to be loyal to the Crown first.  Why would she want to use them while in France with her new beau? 

[CeeBeeGee]

 

On 11/17/2023 at 12:40 PM, MMEButterfly said:

I quite liked the cheesiness of Ghost Diana. 

It's a well-known trope, but having suffered three deaths in the past year--none insignificant--it rang very true to me. I'm still talking to my 17 year old cat who passed just after Christmas. 

 

On 11/17/2023 at 1:45 PM, peridot said:

What's wrong with Philip too? He didn't want Diana to be flown home on the Royal plane.  I thought he liked her. 

I didn't understand the Queen's reluctance to addressing the public.  Even if they were divorced, she's still the mother of the future king.

Both of them were hidebound by protocol. Diana had divorced--therefore they had no responsibility to her, as they saw it. They were incapable of appreciating how huge this was until after the PM and Charles had pushed them hard.

 

On 11/19/2023 at 1:02 AM, MJ Frog said:

I am one of the few people who enjoyed that movie several years back called King Charles III, an imagining of Charles' accession to the throne where the dialogue was in the style of Shakespeare. Diana's ghost featured prominently there as well, though not as benign.

I saw that on Broadway--I didn't realize they'd filmed it! I'll have to check it out, I quite liked it. Especially Kate's Lady Macbeth characterization.

 

On 11/19/2023 at 5:05 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

On a purely shallow note-actor who’s playing William? His hair is ALL WRONG. It needs to be thicker and wavier on top. 

And blonder! He still had all that lovely blonde hair through college.

 

On 11/21/2023 at 12:16 AM, sistermagpie said:

It made sense to me. Throughout the show the queen's had to stick by the rules of royalty because without them, what are they? Her model as a monarch was her father, who was seeing the country bravely through a war. She was totally unsuited to this type of display. She was one of the Brits who didn't understand the behavior at all!

But still, that's her job. She was sneering at all this being a show etc., but what does she think riding around on horseback in a big hat is? 

I thought exactly the same thing! I was yelling at my laptop "Spectacle is all you do anymore! That's literally the reason you're still around, you put on a good show." Otherwise Kate and William would've been quietly married in a local C of E church.

 

On 11/21/2023 at 4:53 PM, sistermagpie said:

I keep thinking of Mou-Mou's machinations, and Bond Villain definitely came to mind, but these later eps make him like a Bond Villain crossed with a 12-year-old romantic girl, because his plans make you wonder if he knows any adults.

Like the way he thinks he's helping Dodi and Diana get married by hiring a paparazzi to out them (could have so easily broken them up). Then he thinks it's a turn *on* to bring them to his weird love nest (in his mind) house and tell Diana it needs another wildly in love couple to ilve there--nudge nudge. Then he's pushing Dodi to hurry up and propose after a little over a month? Did he write this plan in a unicorn diary with a purple sparkle pen? Because this is not how any adult romance would work, especially with a woman who just left a disasterous "fairy tale" marriage. He pays no attention to Dodi who's actually able to read the room a little (like knowing Diana's just annoyed to be detoured in Paris), but then convinces him to get just as bad about misreading romantic situations. 

Then in this ep he goes even further, sending things to be put in the coffin and imagining that he's basically going to be part of the royal family now that his son died with one of their ex family members. I did like how he was angry about them acting like there was only 1 person who died in the car crash when he was acting as if there were only 2 people who died in it.

And I still didn't buy that this character would have any kind of enlightenment just because Dodi died. (And why would the Arab world consider him a hero...?)

I love this whole post, especially the unicorn diary and the purple sparkle pen 😂 And I thought that too, like--what? Why is he a hero?

 

My thoughts as I watched it:

Philip and HM not wanting to use the "Queen's Fleet" to retrieve Diana's body because she was "no longer" a royal or an HRH--the first of many unforced blunders. They simply didn't have the imagination to see this terrible event for what it was, nor what the English reaction would be. I'm not a Charles fan but he certainly did, from the jump.

I'm no fan of Mohammed but his grief was quite moving. As little as I like him, he didn't deserve to lose his oldest son so violently.

Well done, casting! The actress playing Lady Sarah McCorquodale is a dead ringer for her, from the red hair down to that Spencer jawline.

God, I'm banging my head against the wall at HM's obdurate idiocy. Morgan's movie The Queen explored this very well, but she's just being so obtuse. Charles was absolutely right in every respect. And yes, you did insist on a divorce after the Panorama interview, after doing nothing to help Diana hold onto her marriage. (Small note--absolutely right except for insisting the boys walk behind the caisson. I don't think anybody--i.e., the public--expected or particularly wanted that--it seems terribly cruel. They were children. Harry wasn't even a teenager yet.)

Why would the muezzin address the crowd in English and not Arabic?

I wrote about this week in my history blog (there are historical spoilers in the entry).

Edited December 7, 2023 by CeeBeeGee

[Roseanna]

On 12/5/2023 at 10:12 PM, Ohiopirate02 said:

Diana already knew any royal bodyguards assigned to protect her were going to be loyal to the Crown first.  Why would she want to use them while in France with her new beau? 

Because they could their profession and had access to intelligence information. 

Anyway, Diana could have got security from the French policy simply by telling the British embassy that she was in Paris.

[Straycat80]

I couldn’t find anything on this but: did Mohammed Al-Fayed really give that blistering statement (in season 6; Episode 9) to the press after it was determined that the RF had nothing to do with Diana and Dodi’s deaths? 

[Demian]

3 hours ago, Straycat80 said:

I couldn’t find anything on this but: did Mohammed Al-Fayed really give that blistering statement (in season 6; Episode 9) to the press after it was determined that the RF had nothing to do with Diana and Dodi’s deaths?

The show appears to be screwing with the timeline.  This season ends with Chuck getting married for the second time, which happened in 2005, but the inquest apparently happened in 2008:

Grieving father with accusations aplenty

Mohamed Al Fayed rips royal family over deaths of Diana and Dodi

Al Fayed attacks UK royals as 'Dracula family'

I'm not positive, but I think the press conference in the show is entirely fictional, though it does contain things Al Fayed actually said.

Edited to add:

There's also this contemporaneous piece from Sky News that might have inspired (along with other news reports at the time) the press conference scene.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Demian

[formerlyfreedom]

27 minutes ago, Demian said:

The show appears to be screwing with the timeline.

They have been messing with the timeline since the first season. Definitely a work of fiction, inspired by actual events.

[Roseanna]

As Philip said, Harry's fancy uniform had two errors: soldiers in the Afrika Korps (actually none of Wehrmacht soldiers) didn't wear the swastika on their arm and it was the "original" swastika that has been used for centuries in many cultures whereas the Nazi swastika lies on its side.   

On the other had, Harry had an Iron Cross ribbon. 

Even if Carole Middleton had been scheming", what was the probability that William and Catherine would stay together after the university, not to speaking of marriage. 

Usually royals meet their future spouse later than in their early 20ies. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Roseanna
changed a letter

[Spartan Girl]

I don’t mind the screwing with the timeline as much as I mind the show talking with both sides of its mouth where Charles is concerned, and not just in terms of Diana. It’s showing him behaving like an insensitive jerk yet telling us “oh he’s very modern and caring actually.” That isn’t nuance, it’s trying to have it both ways. If this show was a complete work of fiction that didn’t involve real people, we’d be calling the writers out for inconsistency.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 hours ago, Roseanna said:

the "original" swastika that has been used for centuries in many cultures whereas the Nazi swastika lied on its side.   

Yes. Hindus use it in prayers and when celebrating Diwali. ALSO, we have circles placed in the open squares. But that didn't stop ignorant fools from accusing me and my family of being Nazis. Hitler just had to BASTARDIZE the symbol.

Edited December 15, 2023 by GHScorpiosRule

[OlderThanDirt]

I don't care for the actor playing Harry so charmlessly although I know that's the way he is written.

But in real life, why couldn't Princess Anne have taken him under her wing as a second child destined to spend life in the spotlight but never the star. I hope they have better ideas about preparing Charlotte and Louis for real life.

[MadyGirl1987]

29 minutes ago, OlderThanDirt said:

I hope they have better ideas about preparing Charlotte and Louis for real life.

I think Charlotte and Louis are already better placed due to the fact that in the Wales family, there will be two that don’t inherit instead of one sibling that does, one that doesn’t. I kind of wonder if that played a role in William and Kate having three kids even though all her pregnancies were rough on her with the extreme morning sickness. 

[Roseanna]

2 minutes ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

I think Charlotte and Louis are already better placed due to the fact that in the Wales family, there will be two that don’t inherit instead of one sibling that does, one that doesn’t. I kind of wonder if that played a role in William and Kate having three kids even though all her pregnancies were rough on her with the extreme morning sickness. 

Kate has two siblings and have good relationshio with them, so she evidently thought that three children is good.

Also, Charlotte, is a girl which probably makes her more like Anne than Harry. 

[Salacious Kitty]

16 minutes ago, Roseanna said:

Kate has two siblings and have good relationshio with them, so she evidently thought that three children is good.

Also, Charlotte, is a girl which probably makes her more like Anne than Harry. 

Who knows? She could turn into a Margaret party girl. 

[MadyGirl1987]

33 minutes ago, Salacious Kitty said:

Who knows? She could turn into a Margaret party girl. 

I don’t see that happening. It could, of course, but I feel the reason Margaret was a party girl was kind of due to the times she lived in. Nothing was really expected of her, and she never got formal education. I’m sure Charlotte is being raised with the expectation that she will go to college or learn some type of trade/business or that she will have a set role as a working royal if she chooses.

[Salacious Kitty]

9 minutes ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

I don’t see that happening. It could, of course, but I feel the reason Margaret was a party girl was kind of due to the times she lived in. Nothing was really expected of her, and she never got formal education. I’m sure Charlotte is being raised with the expectation that she will go to college or learn some type of trade/business or that she will have a set role as a working royal if she chooses.

I hope you're right. I felt that the alternative needed to be brought up. 

[Spartan Girl]

I just feel like the final two seasons of The Crown was a complete 180 from the first 4 seasons. The show used to call out stuff like Uncle Nazi, the hidden cousins, etc. Now the writers just decided to softball the royal family for the end. I did like the respectful bowing out it gave to Elizabeth and Margaret (and Philip) but that’s about it.

And come on, there’s no fucking way she was ever considering stepping aside for Charles. She was ride or die to the end.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Worst.Season.Ever.

I fell asleep watching three of the episodes on the last half. Only the episode with the VE Day flashback was the one that held my interest.

The trailer showed Claire Foy in a car in COLOR laughing-was that in one of the episodes I must have fallen asleep watching? 
 

As  for the SORASimg of Harry? Like I posted in the epic episode thread-he looks like a serial killer in the making. He and the actor playing William SUCKED. I may just watch the first season again to cleanse the palate.

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

The trailer showed Claire Foy in a car in COLOR laughing-was that in one of the episodes I must have fallen asleep watching?

It was in the penultimate episode where Elizabeth was remembering the newlywed days with Philip.

And I too am going back to the earlier, better seasons.

[formerlyfreedom]

FYI, discussion of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral services ARE appropriate for this topic as the planning for them was extensively discussed in the final episodes. This is limited to discussion of the services themselves. Thank you!

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 12/15/2023 at 2:12 PM, OlderThanDirt said:

But in real life, why couldn't Princess Anne have taken him under her wing as a second child destined to spend life in the spotlight but never the star. I hope they have better ideas about preparing Charlotte and Louis for real life.

I think it was harder for a younger brother being compared to the older brother (Harry) or a younger sister being compared to the older sister (Margaret) where had the birth order been switched, the other would have been the monarch/future monarch, than it was for Anne, who was probably never really compared with Charles (unless we believe the part where Philip said she'd have made the better boy and vice versa).  And once Andrew was born, despite being the 2nd child, Anne wasn't even 2nd in line to the throne anymore.  I don't think she ever had younger/2nd child syndrome the way Margaret and Harry did. 

And even though Charlotte would be next in line after William had she been born before George, I still don't think that a younger sister would feel as competitive with an older brother.  Not sure about Louis, but it is true that Charlotte and Louis will have each other.

[CeeBeeGee]

Quote

Charles talks a lot about streamlining the monarchy but also built that whole massive house that cost however much money, because his ideas about cuts are always about other people and not him. Andrew shouldn't get a big wedding because he's not the heir, but Charles is going to build a garden to reflect his inner soul. And he considers himself modern for this.

If you're talking about Highgrove, that was built when Charles was still Prince of Wales, and Duke of Cornwall (as William now is). The income from the Duchy is private income (and self-perpetuating at that), not taxpayer supported. (Someone feel free to correct me if there's more nuance.)

[Roseanna]

On 12/15/2023 at 9:12 PM, OlderThanDirt said:

But in real life, why couldn't Princess Anne have taken him under her wing as a second child destined to spend life in the spotlight but never the star. 

Diana didn't like Anne and vice versa. Charles would have wanted his sister to be a godmother, but Diana rejected.

[Ohiopirate02]

7 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

If you're talking about Highgrove, that was built when Charles was still Prince of Wales, and Duke of Cornwall (as William now is). The income from the Duchy is private income (and self-perpetuating at that), not taxpayer supported. (Someone feel free to correct me if there's more nuance.)

The Duchy of Cornwall's income is not technically taxpayer supported, it's rental income and investments.  So, someone living in a property owned by the duchy pays rent plus income taxes that also go to support the Crown.  There's also some old rules in place where if someone living on a duchy property dies without a will the duchy inherits.  Supposedly, Charles used that income stream to fund his various charities, but that cannot be definitively verified.  Both the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster do not have to disclose all of their financial information.  Then there's the royals being exempt from various taxes that every other British citizen would have to pay like estate taxes and income tax.  At one point, Charles did voluntarily pay income taxes as the Duke of Cornwall.  Don't know if William will continue that tradition or if Charles will do the same as the Duke of Lancaster.

[dubbel zout]

On 12/19/2023 at 10:06 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't think she ever had younger/2nd child syndrome the way Margaret and Harry did. 

Yes, I think gender played a big part in why Anne wasn't resentful of Charles being the heir, as well as having a very different personality from Margaret and Harry.

[Absolom]

My post was lost that said Charles didn't build Highgrove House.  He bought it.  It was built in the 18th century, I believe.  

[sistermagpie]

On 12/20/2023 at 12:51 AM, CeeBeeGee said:

If you're talking about Highgrove, that was built when Charles was still Prince of Wales, and Duke of Cornwall (as William now is). The income from the Duchy is private income (and self-perpetuating at that), not taxpayer supported. (Someone feel free to correct me if there's more nuance.)

 

On 12/20/2023 at 8:57 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

The Duchy of Cornwall's income is not technically taxpayer supported, it's rental income and investments.  So, someone living in a property owned by the duchy pays rent plus income taxes that also go to support the Crown.  There's also some old rules in place where if someone living on a duchy property dies without a will the duchy inherits.  Supposedly, Charles used that income stream to fund his various charities, but that cannot be definitively verified.  Both the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster do not have to disclose all of their financial information.  Then there's the royals being exempt from various taxes that every other British citizen would have to pay like estate taxes and income tax.  At one point, Charles did voluntarily pay income taxes as the Duke of Cornwall.  Don't know if William will continue that tradition or if Charles will do the same as the Duke of Lancaster.

Just to be clear, my point there wasn't that those things were being directly financed by taxes or not, but that Charles inherited a whole lot of income for doing nothing and wasn't talking about downsizing his own life, just as his ideas about streamlining the crown would mostly come down to getting rid of stuff he didn't want. Like not seeing the need for other royals who weren't him to really be royal. 

4 hours ago, Absolom said:

My post was lost that said Charles didn't build Highgrove House.  He bought it.  It was built in the 18th century, I believe.  

Whoops--yes, that was me who said that. It was the gardens I was really referring to because that's what he was doing in the episode.

[GHScorpiosRule]

OMGEEE!!! Sorry if I missed this elsewhere, but HOW did I miss that Sheen reprises his Tony Blair in The Special Relationship  4 years after The Queen?!❤️🥰🥰😍😍🥰🥰 AND that we got the real one at the end? PERFECT CASTING because I thought is was Sheen at first? 

All this to say Morgan should have gotten Sheen to appear in this series. 

Too bad we don’t have an unpopular thread because I still didn’t see Imelda as the Queen. She was just too…stiff and flat.

[Lorna Mae]

Just saw Ruritania. Two things:

1. Anyone ever read The Queen and I? I see there was a TV movie made of it, about five years ago, so I can't believe Peter Morgan never heard of it. Election Night, 1992. The Queen goes to bed before the results are finalized. Next thing, she and the rest of the Windsors have been deposed by a rogue party and sent to live in council housing. Things fall further and further apart, both in the family and in the country, in only a few months.

Spoiler

It was all a dream. The first chapter ends, "It was the Queen's nightmare," and everything in between that and the last chapter is exactly that. 

 Anyway, TQaI is a satire, worth reading, though I do not recommend the "sequel", Queen Camilla. The opening scene was clever, don't get me wrong, but it makes me wonder how well known TQaI is. The author is the same woman who wrote about Adrian Mole, fwiw. 

2. During the run-up to Her Late Majesty's funeral, I was watching BBC World pretty much nonstop, and I remember a lot of people being trotted out for sound bites, like townspeople near Balmoral, and palace workers with unique jobs. I don't remember any specific job titles that were mentioned, but some of them were along the lines of Herb Strewer. 

Edited January 2 by Lorna Mae

[dubbel zout]

It's long out of print (alas), but if you can find it, Di and I, by Peter Lefcourt, is a hilarious imagining of a post-divorce Diana living in the United States. There is a bit about Fergie (the duchess, not the Pea) that was so funny I laughed for a good five minutes.

13 hours ago, Lorna Mae said:

2. During the run-up to Her Late Majesty's funeral, I was watching BBC World pretty much nonstop, and I remember a lot of people being trotted out for sound bites, like townspeople near Balmoral, and palace workers with unique jobs. I don't remember any specific job titles that were mentioned, but some of them were along the lines of Herb Strewer. 

Some of those jobs are connected to a specific event, like a coronation or a funeral, and they're probably paid for that time only. Hardly a drain on anyone's budget, which is why Blair's focus on that aspect of the royal expenses was really missing the forest for the trees, IMO. 

[nora1992]

16 hours ago, Sailorgirl26 said:

Was that god-awful tacky-ass ring really on display as well? Because there is no way in hell Diana would have ever worn that thing--yet another reason why I don't believe for a second they were some epic love story and were engaged when they died. I am 100% in the "summer fling to make Hasnat Khan jealous" camp. 

I don’t remember the ring, just statues of the 2 of them, surrounded by doves.  Even the photographs were more Diana than Dodi, as I recall.

[CeeBeeGee]

7 hours ago, nora1992 said:

I don’t remember the ring, just statues of the 2 of them, surrounded by doves.  Even the photographs were more Diana than Dodi, as I recall.

🤮

[RunningMarket]

On 1/1/2024 at 9:03 PM, Lorna Mae said:

Just saw Ruritania. Two things:

1. Anyone ever read The Queen and I? I see there was a TV movie made of it, about five years ago, so I can't believe Peter Morgan never heard of it. Election Night, 1992. The Queen goes to bed before the results are finalized. Next thing, she and the rest of the Windsors have been deposed by a rogue party and sent to live in council housing. Things fall further and further apart, both in the family and in the country, in only a few months.

  Hide contents

It was all a dream. The first chapter ends, "It was the Queen's nightmare," and everything in between that and the last chapter is exactly that. 

 Anyway, TQaI is a satire, worth reading, though I do not recommend the "sequel", Queen Camilla. The opening scene was clever, don't get me wrong, but it makes me wonder how well known TQaI is. The author is the same woman who wrote about Adrian Mole, fwiw. 

2. During the run-up to Her Late Majesty's funeral, I was watching BBC World pretty much nonstop, and I remember a lot of people being trotted out for sound bites, like townspeople near Balmoral, and palace workers with unique jobs. I don't remember any specific job titles that were mentioned, but some of them were along the lines of Herb Strewer. 

Sue Townsend is my favourite author. In fact, I found my childhood copy of Adrian Mole at my parent's house and am starting to re-read the series. I also found a copy of Queen Camilla on my mom's bookshelf and I said, "That was prophetic." 

The Queen and I is hysterical. Highly, highly recommend it.

[MadyGirl1987]

I found a wikipedia page about it; here are the pictures...

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

I found a wikipedia page about it; here are the pictures...

Oh. My. God. That is....something.

[RunningMarket]

EDIT: I read the Wiki link, which does say this is the alleged ring in the second photo.

Edited January 4 by RunningMarket

[Roseanna]

@JudyObscure wrote in Willsmania:

Quote

I was living in England when she told the press (through Andrew Morton) her side of her marital problems, quickly followed by her self-serving  TV interview, all before anyone even knew they were getting divorced, blindsiding Charles and the BRF. The royals couldn't reply with their own side of the story without turning the whole thing into a Jerry Springer show, so they just had to sit quietly while almost everyone took Diana's side.

Actually Charles replied in public, and Diana's Panorama-interview happened after separation but before divorce.

Timetimetable:

1992: Diana: her true story by Andrew Morton, source Diana but she denies it

August 1992: Squidgate published (Diana and James Gilbert)

November 1992: Camillagate published (Charles and Camilla)

December 1992: separation announced by PM 

June 1994: Charles interviewed by James Dimbleby in TV

1994: The Prince of Wales by James Dimbleby published

1994: Princess in love by Anna Pasternark about Diana and James Hewitt's affair, source Hewitt

November 1994: Diana interviewed by Martin Bashir

December 199: the Queen writes to Charles and Diana

Augut 1995: legal divorce

[JudyObscure]

Maybe the girls who wrote letters to William had heard how Diana first got Charles's attention on that famous yacht party, back when he was her sister's boyfriend.  Diana told him how sorry she was about his uncle's death and how sad she thought he looked, walking behind the casket. 

I never liked Diana, I always thought the Shy Di thing seemed fake and was belied by all the attention getting tricks she used at the same time. 

I was living in England when she told the press (through Andrew Morton) her side of her marital problems, quickly followed by her self-serving  TV interview, all before anyone even knew they were getting divorced, blindsiding Charles and the BRF. The royals couldn't reply with their own side of the story without turning the whole thing into a Jerry Springer show, so they just had to sit quietly while almost everyone took Diana's side.

I thought it was an unforgivable thing for her to do, particularly to her children who never needed to know there were "three in the marriage,"  she certainly didn't mention that she had, had an affair before Charles and Camilla did.  If she had counted her own affairs, there would have been about seven in the marriage.

The Crown has been my favorite show and I knew we would  eventually have an episode about her, but this many? I thought it was over after Season five and now I've just watched Part one of Season six and had to listen to William  being told that it wasn't Charles's fault -- but stopping right there. 

If only someone at some point in time had told Charles and Harry that their mother was not killed by the paparazzi, the Fayed family, or Charles.  If they must blame someone,  blame  Diana,  a grown woman with children who wasn't  mature enough or responsible enough to put her seatbelt on. 

In the official final report, doctors agreed that the four people in the car would have had an 80% chance of survival if they had been wearing theirs.

59 minutes ago, Roseanna said:

@JudyObscure wrote in Willsmania:

Actually Charles replied in public, and Diana's Panorama-interview happened after separation but before divorce.

Timetimetable:

1992: Diana: her true story by Andrew Morton, source Diana but she denies it

August 1992: Squidgate published (Diana and James Gilbert)

November 1992: Camillagate published (Charles and Camilla)

December 1992: separation announced by PM 

June 1994: Charles interviewed by James Dimbleby in TV

1994: The Prince of Wales by James Dimbleby published

1994: Princess in love by Anna Pasternark about Diana and James Hewitt's affair, source Hewitt

November 1994: Diana interviewed by Martin Bashir

December 199: the Queen writes to Charles and Diana

Augut 1995: legal divorce

Thanks, I left England and wasn't watching it all as closely by the time  Charles was interviewed by Dimbleby, I wasn't aware of that.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Roseanna said:

Actually Charles replied in public, and Diana's Panorama-interview happened after separation but before divorce.

 

Yeah, that was a huge thing that did him no favors. My memory of the impression it gave was that he was sayiing he was the real victim because his dad made him marry her.

ETA: Also, remember the royal family does have other ways of replying in the press without openly replying in the press.

Edited January 4 by sistermagpie

[Sailorgirl26]

On 1/3/2024 at 7:49 PM, MadyGirl1987 said:

I found a wikipedia page about it; here are the pictures...

Oof. Not a lot leaves me speechless, but as @sistermagpie said, that's.....something. that's all I've got. 

Edited January 5 by Sailorgirl26

[Sailorgirl26]

Season 6 episode 9 triggered a debate about the real statue/memorial for Dodi and Diana in Harrods.

It was removed in 2018, thankfully, because it's just...bad.  and why an albatross? That would be in life--an albatross pulling them down. They wouldn't be dancing under a freakin' albatross! A dove, maybe, or a phoenix.

And I take offense to his rude comment about Diana's memorial fountain in Hyde Park. I saw it and it's beautiful--I can often miss the symbolism in some art, but the movement and various textures were so clearly reflective of the various stages of her life. It was beautiful.

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a45807850/princess-diana-dodi-al-fayed-harrods-statue-innocent-victims-history/

Edited January 5 by Sailorgirl26

[swanpride]

Regarding the "softballing" in later seasons...I am actually not sure if they really did it less in the first seasons. Yeah, they picked up some scandals again, but all of them were given a twist to show the royal family in a better light. The Nazi connection was there, but the show made sure to emphasis on how much the part of the family which was currently ruling was not part of it, distancing them as much as possible. Yes the show talked about the unwanted crazy inlaws, but all of this was basically spun into a sympathy story for Magsreth and again, with a heavy emphasis on "nobody currently alive was actually responsible". Even Aberfan put a heavy emphasis on how much the royal family was supposedly grieving in the background. 

I suspect it just becomes more obvious now because they can't hide behind the "another generation was responsible" wall, and because they have gotten closer to very current discussions, starting with the question how much the royals cost the tax payer. It isn't really surprising that the show spends a whole episode to address this question, landing firmly on "all this is important" without addressing the actual issue which is why the royal family shouldn't pay for a lot of those things with their own damned money instead of billing the state. 

I think the glossing over just got more obvious because more recent events are better remembered.