Although The Crown is well-researched in terms of costumes and character idiosyncracies, some major historical inaccuracies persist. The closer the show got to the present day, the more of an issue this became, to the point where cabinet ministers publicly stated that Netflix should precede each episode with a warning about content being a fictional dramatisation of real-life events. Netflix refused to do so.
- There is a pervasive theme of Elizabeth resenting the position that her uncle's abdication placed her in, stating that she could have otherwise avoided the burden of the crown. In reality, Edward VIII was 42 years old at the time of the abdication with no children of his own, and Wallis Simpson was 40; even before he became king, it was considered unlikely that he would produce an heir of his own, which would have left Elizabeth in line for the crown, abdication or not. However, it would have been a couple of decades before she ascended the throne (the former Edward VIII died in 1972), not to mention her father would have probably lived longer.
- Philip's naturalization as a British subject is shown being concurrent with his creation as Duke of Edinburgh the day before his marriage to Elizabeth. His naturalization actually took place in March earlier that year, in part so that the public would get used to seeing him as British naval officer, rather than a foreign prince (although he'd been in the Royal Navy for eight years at that point, having joined as a cadet in 1939).
- Charles and Anne are shown attending a party at their parent's home in Malta celebrating Philip's promotion, when in fact they remained with their grandparents in Britain, while Elizabeth and Philip were in Malta.
- Preparing for a state dinner in 1953 with President Eisenhower, Elizabeth is told that he is worried about the "military-industrial complex". Eisenhower didn't use the phrase until his 1961 farewell speech.
- Prince Philip wears a medal commemorating Elizabeth's 1953 coronation while touring Africa in 1952.
- At Elizabeth's wedding, Philip's mother appears as an old woman in a nun's habit. She was in fact middle-aged and didn't join a convent until 1949. What probably happened is that a researcher for the show misstook a photo of Princess Alice
◊ at Elizabeth's coronation as being from her wedding. - Elizabeth accuses Winston Churchill of delaying her coronation by a year for political gain. In fact, it was customary for the coronation to take place more than a year after the accession to observe the mourning period for the late monarch. George VI had only five months from his accession to his coronation because it was originally planned for Edward VIII, who abdicated less than a year into his reign; the planned coronation simply went ahead with a new monarch.
- Churchill changes his mind about reacting to the Great Smog after his young secretary Venetia Scott dies as a result of getting hit by a bus during it. Venetia was invented for the show. Additionally, London's above-ground public transport services all ceased during the Great Smog, for obvious reasons.
- Philip is shown being resentful of having to kneel before Elizabeth at her coronation. While it is true that he resented not having any official role in the early years of his wife's reign, he was always fully respectful of the Crown and what it represents, and willingly took part in the ceremony with no fuss; in any case, he would have known full well when he married her that he was going to have to do this at some point.
- Sticking with the coronation, it's heavily compressed from the real event, showing the coronation oath being administered immediately before the anointing with holy oil, when the two events were actually about forty minutes apart in the service. Also, Handel's Coronation Anthem Zadok the Priest is timed to the moment Elizabeth is crowned. As implied by its lyrics, this piece is actually sung during the anointing with holy oil, and the crowning is done in silence.
- Churchill is shown resigning shortly after Sutherland's portrait is unveiled. In reality, over four months passed between the two events.
- With regards to Churchill's stroke in June 1953, the series portrays him as lying to Elizabeth about the extent of his health decline. Historically, Elizabeth was well aware of his extreme ill health, and Operation Hope Not was formulated as a reaction to this health crisis (although it would only be implemented more than a decade later, leading Lord Mountbatten to quip that Winston "kept living and the pallbearers kept dying"). During the incapacity of both Churchill and his deputy (Eden), the day-to-day business of government was overseen by the then Chancellor, R.A. Butler — who does not get a mention, in contrast to Lord Salisbury, a.k.a. Bobbetynote .
- In relation to Lord Salisbury, the line "history teaches, never trust a Cecil" is anachronistic, as it is reckoned to have been originally said in reference to Bobbety's grandson (who, as Viscount Cranborne in 1998, went behind Tory leader William Hague's back to do a deal on reforming the House of Lords with Tony Blair).
- Churchill is depicted as openly holding his political rival Clement Attlee in contempt, even reciting the apocryphal quote "An empty taxi arrived and out stepped Atlee". when in fact the two men were friendly rivals who had forged a close relationship in Churchill's War Cabinet.note
- As this BBC article revealed, unlike the portrayals in the series, the Queen and Sir Anthony Eden (the Prime Minister at the time) did not object to the idea of Princess Margaret marrying Peter Townsend; their only stipulation was that Margaret renounce her place in the royal succession (so she would not become Queen in the very unlikely scenario of Elizabeth and all of her children dying), but she still would have kept the Princess title and all of her royal possessions and duties. It was Margaret who decided that she didn't want to marry him after all. Eden, himself a divorcee who had remarried, was actually quite sympathetic.
- Harold Macmillan really did go to see Beyond the Fringe, and Peter Cook really did spot him in the audience and ad-lib his impersonation of Macmillan in order to personally humiliate him. However, according to Jonathan Miller (one of Cook's fellow-performers), the response in the theatre was one of embarrassment because Cook had clearly gone too far, not the hysterical laughter depicted in the show.
- Charles is shown to be overly sensitive and miserable in every school he goes to. While he reportedly hated Gordonstoun with a passion and consciously chose not to subject his sons to the same experience, he was actually quite happy attending primary school with other children his age and willingly took part in many physical activities. Furthermore, in the 1970s he stated that he was glad that he attended Gordonstoun, and the toughness there was "all much exaggerated by report."
- Despite what "Paterfamilias" claims, there is no evidence that Philip ever had any difficulties during his time at Gordonstoun (he had in fact been a student at its German sister-school, Schule Schloss Salem, before the Nazis forced its Jewish founder to flee to Britain and found Gordonstoun). Also the implication that his sister Cecile and her family's tragic flight had anything to do with his supposed misbehaviour, causing his father to hold him responsible for their deaths, is complete fiction — they were actually on their way to the wedding of Georg's brother, Prince Louis. It's even been claimed that Prince Philip considered suing the show's producers over the inaccurate portrayal of his sister's death.
- In a flashback to Edward VIII's abdication speech, Wallis Simpson is shown being right there beside him as a supportive presence. In actuality, she was off at a friend's house in France, lying on a couch and sobbing as she listened to the speech over the radio.
- Wallis corrects a reporter who addresses her as "Your Royal Highness", pointing out that she is only entitled to be known by the title "Your Grace". While it's true that she was officially denied the Royal Highness style (which would usually be granted to a woman marrying a man entitled to use that style, which Edward VIII was after he abdicated), within her own household she was addressed as such.
- Lord Altrincham never had a private meeting with Elizabeth herself, with Martin Charteris being the closest he got. The show acknowledges this by having Elizabeth insist that the meeting will forever remain secret from the public and they'll deny it if Altrincham tries to publicize it.
- In a flashback to the Second World War, Caucasian and African-American soldiers are portrayed as serving alongside each other. In reality, the US Army wasn't integrated until 1948, three years after the war ended.
- In a flashback to 1943, Elizabeth is told she's to become the heir apparent. She was never made the heir apparentnote , and was always the heir presumptive, even when it became abundantly clear that she would inherit the crown. On the other hand it's possible that Tommy Lascelles is speaking somewhat loosely in this scene, meaning that she'd be treated as an heir apparent from that point forward, even if she technically wasn't.
- In "Olding", the Queen visits Churchill after his final stroke. In actual fact, she did not visit him at this time, by which he was reported to be incapable of holding a conversation. On this subject, the royal family is celebrating the birthday of Prince Henry (the Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of George VI) when Elizabeth is informed that Churchill has died. In reality, Prince Henry's birthday was on March 31, while Churchill had died on January 24. Prince Henry was also known within the family as "Harry" rather than Henry, although that might have been changed so as not to confuse audiences by having a very different Prince Harry to the modern-day one note .
- Another interesting criticism that's been made about "Olding" is how the show does not mention the fact that Anthony Blunt was later (in 1979) publicly exposed as having been a Soviet agent and stripped of his knighthood (in contrast with the use of the closing captions to explain what later happened to other one-episode characters like Lord Altringham and Michael Fagan). On the subject of Blunt, he actually confessed to having been a Soviet spy in April 1964 and the Queen was informed of this at the time — which was several months before the general election which resulted in Harold Wilson becoming Prime Minister thanks to a narrow Labour victory. The notion that Blunt used knowledge of Prince Philip's supposed links to the Profumo scandal as a means of blackmailing the royal family (and, by extension, the British government) into not exposing him back in the 1960s has drawn criticism; in actual fact, the decision not to make Blunt's confession public was probably taken in order to prevent further embarrassment for the British intelligence services, as it had only been a year since Kim Philby's flight to Moscow.
- In "Margaretology", Princess Margaret is shown winning over President Johnson with a bawdy Limerick contest. There is no evidence such a contest happened. The timing of her being requested to do a state dinner is also different, as in reality the visit to the White House was in the itinerary long before she left England.
- In "Aberfan", Prince Philip visits the scene of the disaster, followed by the Queen several days later. In reality, the two visited Aberfan together, not separately. In the same episode, Harold Wilson uses the term "hypermarket", which was coined by a Frenchman two years later.
- In "Bubbikins", Philip is shown as being distant from his mother, objecting to her staying at the Palace and not bothering to visit her once she arrives. In actual fact, he was the one who encouraged her to move to London, and after she did he visited her regularly. Her interview with a republican-leaning journalist from The Guardian never happened; the journalist himself is a fictional character.
- In the same episode, Philip suffers a flashback to the day his mother was insitutionalized. In reality, not only was he much younger than portrayed (Finn Elliot who plays the young Philip is 17, when Philip was nine at the time), but he was not there that day, having taken out for the day.
- Also in "Bubbikins", when Adeane is listing the foreign broadcasters who are interested in the documentary, he mentions the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. At the time, it was known as the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The ABC did not become a corporation until it was restructured in 1983.
- In "Coup", Lord Mountbatten is approached by a number of bankers and businessmen alarmed at Labour PM Harold Wilson's socialist policies. Their plan is to overthrow the elected British government, take it over themselves, and install Mountbatten as a figurehead ruler. He takes the plan seriously enough to approach the Queen for her blessing and is only dissuaded when Elizabeth tells him in no uncertain terms to knock it off. In reality, most accounts say that while Mountbatten was indeed presented with such a plan by Cecil King (the owner of the Daily Mirror, ironically a very pro-Labour newspaper), he immediately called it treason and said he would have nothing to do with it.
- Princess Anne's love life is limited to her fling with Andrew Parker-Bowles, coinciding with Charles' relationship with the then Camilla Shand. In reality Anne was married to Mark Phillips in 1973, yet even during the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, we see no mention of her husband. He finally appears in Season 4, albeit briefly, and their relationship and wedding is never shown.
- Martin Charteris continues to appear as the Queen's private secretary in series 4 episodes set in the 1980s. In reality, he was replaced by Philip Moore in 1977.
- Roddy Llewellyn is shown abandoning Margaret after knowledge of their fling is leaked to the public, but in reality their relationship lasted eight years.
- While Lady Diana Spencer did meet Charles when he came to her estate to visit her sister, they met during a hunting party not while she was whimsically dressed as a forest creature for a Shakespearean production.
- The evening before Charles' and Diana's wedding Elizabeth tells Charles how her grandfather King George V entered an arranged marriage with the fiancee of his late elder brother, but gradually grew to love his wife. While it is true that George V's consort, Princess Mary of Teck, was hand-picked as a suitable future queen by Queen Victoria, in real life the marriage was very much a love match from the beginning. Charles' situation is more similar to that of George's elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, who was forced to end his engagement to his great love, the French Princess Helene of Orleans, when her father would not let her convert from Roman Catholicism.
- The show heavily implies Charles and Camilla's physical affair continued right through his early marriage to Diana. Charles, however, has staunchly insisted that his physical affair with Camilla ended in the late 1970s and did not resume until 1985. His emotional affair, on the other hand, did continue. However, during his engagement to Diana he's seen tearfully leaving Camilla's house before insisting to Diana that he's ended things with her.
- As for Diana, she's shown hooking up with Major James Hewitt note in Series 4, but doesn't enter into a relationship with another man until she meets Dr. Khan after her marriage to Charles has irretrievably broken down; another of her alleged lovers, the England rugby captain Will Carling, is Adapted Out.
- It is unlikely that Prince Philip ever mocked Margaret Thatcher for her scientific background, given his own interest in the sciences.
- In "Favourites", the disappearance of Mark Thatcher during the Paris-Dakar rally is shown as coinciding with the start of the Falklands crisis. In reality, Mark Thatcher was lost and found in January 1982, while the Argentinians first appeared at South Georgia Island in March 1982.
- In "Fagan", the Queen and Michael Fagan are depicted having a long conversation about the effects of Margaret Thatcher's policies before he gets arrested, but in an interview in 2012, Fagan himself said the Queen immediately ran out looking for security, and they never exchanged any words. Fagan also benefits from a very Sympathetic P.O.V., whereas in real life he came across as something of a Stalker with a Crush towards the Queen, and was later in trouble with the law for dealing heroin. Which the closing credits for that episode do not mention.
- The episode "Terra Nullius" portrays Bob Hawke as openly hoping for an imminent Australian republic, and comparing the Queen to a pig in an interview on the Australian current affairs program 4 Corners. 4 Corners itself responded that it was an inaccurate representation of the interview (even getting the date and location wrong), with Hawke saying in the real interview that while he'd like a republic, he didn't see it as a priority. Furthermore, the show misrepresents the concept of Terra Nullius as an extension of British imperial power over Australia, when in actuality it was the legal concept that declared the land of Australia as unoccupied prior to British rule (which was, of course, inaccurate).
- In "The Hereditary Principle", the plot involving the Queen's cousins, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, is largely inaccurate. The two women had been placed in a hospital for people with developmental disabilities by their mother (Fenella Bowes-Lyon (née Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis), the Queen Mother's sister-in-law) in the 1940s, and until 1982 the Queen Mother genuinely believed that they were dead, quite possibly because they were mistakenly listed in Burke's Peerage as having died (whether or not this was an intentional act on the part of their mother, who most likely provided Burke's with this information, is ambiguous) note . The Queen Mother found out that they were actually still alive through the mental health charity Mencap, of which she was a patron; Princess Margaret and her friend Derek "Dazzle" Jenkins played no part in this. After finding out, the Queen Mother sent money for toys and sweets to be bought for her nieces for their birthdays and Christmas, although as far as is known, no member of the Royal family ever visited them.
- The Queen Mother was also one of ten children, so the Queen had about eighteen biological maternal cousins alone. While Margaret's right to point out that Nerissa and Katherine are particularly close to her and Elizabeth in age, most of their cousins were born within ten years or so of them, and aside from the family of their mother's eldest sister, neither the Queen nor Margaret seemed to be particularly close to any of them.
- The fourth season finale, "War", has Margaret Thatcher, facing a serious threat to her power, meet with the Queen to ask for her to dissolve Parliament. Not only was no meeting between them held fitting this time period, but the idea of even Margaret Thatcher making such an outrageous demand is highly implausible to say the least.note In the same episode, Diana's trip to New York is shown as as coinciding with Thatcher's resignation. In reality, the trip happened in 1989, while Thatcher resigned in 1990.
- In "Queen Victoria Syndrome", the opinion poll supposedly stating that half of the British public thought the Queen should abdicate actually stated that 9 in 10 people thought she was doing a good job, while 4 in 10 (less than half) thought she should abdicate at some point. It was reported by The Sunday Times in early 1990, not August 1991 as stated on the show, and the phrase "Queen Victoria Syndrome" note was not mentioned in the article. It is true that Victoria experienced a steep decline in popularity midway through her reign, but this was mostly due to her extended period of mourning (nearly a decade) after the death of her husband Prince Albert, when she became something of a recluse and chose to seclude herself in royal residences rather than perform her duties as sovereign. Her popularity recovered after she began appearing in public again. In relation to this, John Major has gone on record as saying that Prince Charles never invited him to discuss this opinion poll (which was in any case published several months before Major became Prime Minister) and did not lobby him to persuade the Queen to step down.
- "Mou Mou" makes it look as if the Fayeds acquiring Harrods (1985), putting up the money for Chariots of Fire (1981, with the series also showing it winning the Oscar the following year) and Wallis Simpson dying (1986) were close to each other.
- "Ipatiev House" portrays the British government's plan to evacuate the Romanovs as being concurrent with their execution; however, the evacuation plan was made in March 1917 (shortly after the Tsar abdicated) and the Romanovs were executed in July 1918. By the time the Romanovs had been moved to Ipatiev House on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg (a city sufficiently inland to make a ship-bound evacuation totally impossible), the Bolsheviks had seized power and to them, the notion of allowing the Tsar and his family to go into exile was unthinkable — Lenin fully intended to have them killed. Furthermore, the notion that Queen Mary made the decision not to save the Romanovs for personal reasons is unlikely note as it would have been George V who would have made the final decision (perhaps with input from his wife, most definitely through discussions with his private secretary Lord Stamfordham, but the actual decision would've been his); much as he liked his cousin, he was pragmatic enough to realise how politically dangerous it would be to have the Romanovs in exile in Britain note . Back in the 1990s, the timeline of the Romanovs' remains being discovered and identified is heavily condensed, as the remains had been located before the Queen met Boris Yeltsin, and were not conclusively identified as being the remains of the Romanovs and their servants until several years after the Queen's visit to Moscow.
- In "Couple 31", Diana says that her Panorama interview scared Dr. Khan away. In actual fact, the interview happened in 1995, and Diana and Khan were together until 1997.
- In "Persona Non Grata", Princess Margaret attends Camilla Parker-Bowles's fiftieth birthday party; the Queen does not despite having been invited. In actual fact, Margaret did not attend the party, and no invite was sent to the Queen (probably because she would have likely refused it).
- A few on "Two Photographs":
- Although Diana did visit Bosnia in August 1997, some liberties are taken — her famous walk through a minefield in protective equipment, re-enacted here, actually took place in Angola in January of that year.
- It has never been proved that Mohamed Fayed commissioned Mario Brenna to take those photographs of Diana and Dodi kissing on the yacht, although by all accounts he was quite happy with the fact that they were taken. Mario Brenna, meanwhile, has described this particular plotline "absurd and completely invented", and said that no one leaked information about the yacht's whereabouts to him, he just was in the right place at the right time. Tellingly, Fayed died several months before this episode was broadcast, thus avoiding the prospect of a libel suit.
- While it's not known exactly who took the the photos of Princes Charles, William and Harry at Balmoral (and there may have been more than one photographer involved), it definitely wasn't Duncan Muir as he's a rare (for this show) fictional character. In any case, photo-shoots like this were not as out-of-character for members of the royal family as the show portrays; they routinely happened during the summer holidays at Balmoral, and still do.
- "Dis Moi Oui" shows Dodi Fayed attempting to propose to Diana, only to be stopped before he can actually pop the question. In reality, it is not known if he proposed to her or not, although his father later claimed that he had done so. He is, however, known to have purchased a ring from a jeweller's in Paris on the afternoon of the crash, and a ring was later recovered from his room at the Ritz.
- A couple of examples in "Aftermath":
- By all accounts, Charles did not go into the room containing Diana's body alone; instead, he went in with her sisters. No eyewitnesses ever reported him as having cried so loudly that it could be heard in the corridor outside, although it was noted that he was red-eyed when he came out of the room.
- Rather than running away for fourteen hours in the aftermath of his mother's death, Prince William actually went for a few long, solitary walks around the 50,000-acre Balmoral estate although he wasn't gone for long enough for people to start worrying.
- Apart from many specific instances of artistic licence, the show indulges in repeated subtle and not-so-subtle hints that since the late 1940s, most of the senior members of the Royal family have been living in near-constant fear that the Monarchy is about to be abolished. Consequently, many family conversations have the underlying theme of "this is our last chance to survive, but only if we are on our best behaviour." In reality, once the major wave of post-WWII decolonisation was over, the monarchical regime in the UK itself and in most of the other Commonwealth realms note was never seriously questioned, with only a handful of smaller island nations becoming republics in the 1970s and 80s note . Although episodes of anti-monarchical mood came and went in various segments of the society in many of the major Commonwealth realms during Elizabeth II's reign, there was never any serious republican movement in any of them until the late 1990snote . Similarly, although there certainly have been attempts by the Royal family and many British Prime Ministers to make the Monarchy more approachable and more in tune with the Zeitgeist, no core member of the Royal family is likely to have been seriously concerned that the system itself may come to an end.
- The finale, set in 2005 around the wedding of Charles and Camilla, has Elizabeth discussing the arrangements for her eventual death and funeral, but the committee acts as if this is the first time Operation London Bridge has ever been discussed. By this point in time, Elizabeth had already reigned longer than her father, uncle, grandfather, and great-grandfather combined, making it unlikely the Royal Household would wait half a century before planning the state funeral of, in their own words, the longest reigning monarch in British history. The plans were under discussion since the 1960s and periodically updated as needed until being put into action when she did die on September 8, 2022.
- That the Queen's private secretary described her as "what is expected to be Britain's longest reigning monarch" during the meeting in advance of her 80th birthday may sound unremarkable to a present-day viewer who knows that she did eventually die after 70 years on the throne and that her reign was indeed by far the longest. However, in 2005, this statement would have sounded both nonsensical and shockingly rude. At that point, Elizabeth had been queen for shortly over 53 years and was the fifth-longest reigning British monarch, her nearest competitor Henry III having reigned for just over 56 years and the record holder Victoria for over 63 years and seven months. Describing Elizabeth to her eyes as the prospective record breaker would have meant telling a 79-year old lady that she was supposed to stay alive for at least ten more years, which especially in British society (and its highest crust at that) would have been considered extremely poor taste.
- Shortly before the very last scene, in the last conversation between the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh shown in the series, Philip rather grimly predicts that the golden days of the monarchy will soon be over, but assures Elizabeth the two of them need not worry about that, since when that time comes they both will be lying "over there", pointing towards the floor of the quire in the St George's Chapel. While the spot he indicated is indeed where the coffins of senior royals are lowered under the ground during the Windsor committal service, by 2005, it had long been decided that the members of the Queen's immediate family would be laid to rest in the George VI Memorial Chapel near the north-west corner of the main chapel building, next to the remains of King George VI and the Queen Mother and the urn with Princess Margaret's ashes note . It is highly unlikely that Prince Philip, renowned for his attention to detail, would ignore this arrangement in a conversation with his wife.
- The final scene, of Elizabeth in St. George's Chapel, conflates her State Funeral in Westminster Abbey and her committal service in the Royal Vault of St. George's Chapel. The episode is titled "Sleep, Dearie, Sleep" after the piper's lament that was played at the end of the service in Westminister Abbey, and is thematically used to close out the series in St. George's Chapel. A different lament, "A Salute to the Royal Fendersmith" was played as the Queen's coffin was being lowered into the Royal Vault as the final farewell to the monarch.
- Another plot thread is the internal struggle of Elizabeth considering on announcing her abdication during her toast at Charles and Camilla's wedding reception, only to change her mind at the last moment. The Royal Family are also seen wildly speculating on the contents of the speech and coming to the same conclusion, with Charles being visibly disappointed when there is no abdication. Never once in her entire life did it seem that Elizabeth would ever consider abdication, and her speech was only notable for its "unusual sentimentality," from the otherwise formal Queen that about what could be in it. It would also be unlikely that Elizabeth would make such an announcement in the context of a toast at a private wedding reception.
