Royal Expert Fact Checks Every Season of ‘The Crown’

Vanity Fair’s Royal Correspondent Katie Nicholl is quarantining from London and fact checking scenes from seasons 1, 2, and 3 of ‘The Crown.'

From wardrobe to Royal Family dynamics, Katie breaks down Royal fact from fiction and explains what the show gets right.

- The pictures thatTony takes of Margaret,as I say, are unlike anythingthat has ever been seen,and when they end up on thefront page of the paper,well, it's almost enoughto make the queen chokeon her Corn Flakes.My name is Katie Nicholl, VanityFair's royal correspondent,and today I'll be reviewing clipsfrom the television show "The Crown".[regal instrumental music]I'm here in London, inisolation like many of you,house-bound, so whatbetter opportunity than nowto dip into the threebrilliant series of "The Crown"to really depict what isfact and what is fiction?Please excuse any technical difficultiesbecause we are recording on Skype.It's the best way that wecan bring our VF reviewsto you at home.Sit back and enjoy.- [Winston] Ma'am, word has reached methat it is your desire that youand your children keep yourhusband's name, Mountbatten.- It is.- Ma'am, you must not.It would be a grave mistake.- This is from actually my favorite seriesof "The Crown," the first series,partly because I just thinkClaire Foy was absolutely outstandingplaying Princess Elizabethand then the queen.This scene is a really powerful scenebecause as Elizabeth comesto terms with being queen,she became queen when shewas just a young girl,her father George VI had died.There was so much changefor her after that,and one of the major changes was Philipand what his position in thehousehold was going to be.And this scene, you seeChurchill making it very clearwhat Philip's title has to be.- His real name, you'llnot need reminding,wasSchleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburgof the Royal houses of Denmark and Norwayand, latterly, of Greece.- It is absolutely the casethat the prime minister at the time,Winston Churchill, hadconcerns about Philip,the Duke of Edinburgh, what his title,what his name should be.- [Winston] And should be no exception.- Yes, I am queen, but I am also a woman.- You see the queen explainingthat she isn't just a queen,she is a wife as well.And she knows that, you know,Philip is a strong man, hecould be quite opinionated,and he had already feltvery much relegatedto second place, like he was always goingto play second fiddle to his wife,so she knew that giving him a title,a name in his own right,so that he had a placeand a prominence in thefamily was really important.You know, and the queendid put her foot down,she made it clear thathe had an important rolewithin the royal family, andhis past, and his history,and his heritage couldn't simply be erasedbecause it was more convenientfor the British government.Well, I was lucky enough tovisit the set of "The Crown"for the first series, andI was absolutely blown awayby how beautifullyproduced this series was.The attention to detail, the recreationof Buckingham palace,you know, I have to say,they did do a brilliant job.- Trade Unionists andbusinessmen in the Abbey?- If you want to stay on the throne, yes.- In a trimmed-down televised coronation?- If you want to avoid a revolution, yes.You forget, I have seenfirst-hand what it is likefor a royal family to be overthrownbecause they were outof step with the people.- Not a lot of people realizethat Philip has been a hugemodernizer for the royal family.You know, this about her coronation,whether or not it's going to be televised.Elizabeth feels thatit cheapens everythingby having it in people's living roomsthat she feels that she hasbeen taught by her fatherthat the magic ofmonarchy is its mystique.- I left Greece in an orange crate.My father would have been killed.My grandfather was, I'mjust trying to protect you.- From whom, the British people?You have no idea who theyare or what they want.- Oh, oh, I'm justJohnny Foreigner, again,who doesn't understand, fine, fine.- A lot of this background is accurateabout Greece, where Philip came from.He's able to bring a differentperspective to Elizabeth.Philip is astute enough to recognizethat the people need toget behind her as Queen.They want to feel a part of this.- You want a big overblownceremony costing a fortunewhile the rest of the countryis on rations, have it.But don't come bleatingto me when your headand the heads of ourchildren are on spikes.- I think it's true tosay that the depictionof Philip is a little bit of a stereotype,you know, that he isvery brusque and abrupt.Without a doubt, he's a strong character,I think probably the producerson this show have capitalized on that.- If you put it in their homes, allow themto watch it with theirdinner on their laps.- It will democratize it, make them feelthat they share in it, understand it.- All right.All right.- Well, you see the queen in this scene,giving into her husband.It was the firstcoronation to be televised,and it was a great success.So ultimately, I thinkon many key occasions,the queen does listen to her husbandwhen actually it goesagainst her natural instinct,and I don't think peoplegive Philip enough creditfor being the modernizerin the royal familythat he has been on so many things,from driving electric carto saying to his wife,"You want the people to get behind you?"Let them into your living room."- Bermuda, Jamaica,Australia, Ceylon, Uganda.It's going to be hot, Your Majesty.To that end, we've been workinga great deal with organza,crepe de Chine and shantung silk.- This would have absolutely happened.The queen would have been presentedwith a look-book, with textures,with fabrics, with gowns,with ideas, nothing isby chance when it comesto the royal wardrobe,everything has been carefullycoordinated, carefully picked.- We also wanted to featuresomething particularto each location, so we thought sprigsof native wild flowers indigenousto each country that you're visiting.- She will color coordinateor her aides will colorcoordinate her outfitso that she uses the colors to pay tributeto the host nation.- On Her Majesty's arrival in Sydney,we propose a white organza dress scatteredwith pale yellow wattle blossom.- How many dresses are there?- [Hartnell] One hundred.- One hundred.And hats?- Thirty-six.- Pairs of shoes?- [Hartnell] Fifty.- Isn't this all a bit much?- Well it does soundlike a lot, doesn't it?That many pairs of shoes.For queen Elizabeth,who was about to embarkon an all important tourof the common world,she was away for nearly six months,but when you look at thatcommon world's tour wardrobe,she really wore some spectacular hats,she played with color, and don't forgetthat this was a tour designedto grab headlines around the world.It made her visible,she had the world stageas a platform, what she worewas incredibly important,whether that is her use of block color,her absolute passion for hats,her penchant for Launer handbags,she has owned these styles, these brands,she has made them her own.Being quite short, youknow, she's not muchover five foot, a hat and astrong color is a great wayto pop out and be seen in the crowd.- We don't know who you are, either.The rest of us, outside the palace gates.- That's because we keepfeeding you the fairy tale.- So in this clip, we'reseeing Tony Armstrong-Jones,who Margaret went on tomarry, photographing herin his studio.- Like this.- Ah.Jesus.I'm sorry, but,[photo falls]Cecil is a disgrace.- When they refer to Cecil,they're talking about Cecil Beaton,who for many years was the photographerthat the royal family would go tofor official portraits and pictures,but the pictures that Tony tookof Margaret were completely different.[camera clicks]- But that business with Peter Townsend.- One of the things I loveabout Margaret is the love affairsthat she has were so wellcaptured in "The Crown".There is a real sexualtension between them,but I think it's really well captured.[soft sensual music]The pictures that Tony takes of Margaret,as I say, are unlike anythingthat's every been seen,well, it's almost enoughto make the queen chokeon her Corn Flakes, as yousee later on in this series.Vanessa Kirby plays Margaret beautifully,there is an amazing, notjust physical resemblance,but the way that she has Margaret's isms,from the way that shelights her cigarettes,to the way that she dances,the way that she moves,she really does have Margaret down to a T'cause she's everythingthat the Queen can't be,because she's the youngersister who can be the Queenof Mustique, the royal rebel,flamboyant when it comesto partying and entertaining,and an absolute loverof all things sartorial,and the royal wardrobefor Margaret is absolutely fantasticin this series of "The Crown".- So what are you going to do?- Princess Anne has a reputationfor being probably themost down to Earth royal,and there is a brilliantscene in that episodewhere Prince Philip,her father, is sat down,and said, "We need you to sitdown with the journalist."- Actually I was hopingwe might talk aboutwhat you're going to do.I would like to offer youto the Manchester Guardian.- Prince Philip, as we said earlier, wasin charge of the royalfamily and its image.So he sends Anne to beinterviewed by The Guardian,not a paper that was goingto be sympathetic to the royal family.On this particular moment,the Duke of Edinburgh suggestsgoing for a left-wing paper.- Why them?Why not the DailyTelegraph or the Daily Mailor someone we could expectto be a little bit friendly?- Not only is the likeness so uncanny,she has all of Princess Anne's feistiness,she has Anne's one-liners down to a T.- Because in the light of allthis criticism, an endorsementfrom our most vocal criticswould represent moreof a turn around.- If we can get an endorsement.- You're the most thrifty,feet-on-the-ground,low profile, unpretentiousroyal we've got.If anyone can salvage this, you can.- And the interview is a great successbecause it really scratchesbeneath the surface.So this idea that PrincessAnne was really pushed outto promote a differentimage of the royal family,it did happen.So this idea of the royalsusing the press is somethingthat continues today.Happened then, still happens now.What "The Crown" hassuccessfully done is boostof in interest in theBritish royal family.You hear people talking about it nowin a way that they didn't before,so Peter Morgan, the creatorfor "The Crown" really tappedinto something that fascinates us,prompts a national conversation,and I think probably hastriggered a huge interestin the British royal family,people who perhaps mightnot have been so interestedin the queen and whatthe royal family does,are now taking much more of an interest,and that's largely downto the popularity, Ithink, of "The Crown".