Lady Glenconner, a lady-in-waiting to the late Princess Margaret, has condemned Netflix’s The Crown for its portrayal of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh’s sister.
Prince Philip’s elder sister, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, died in 1937 after the plane she was travelling on to the UK crashed in Ostend, Belgium due to foggy weather.
The second season of The Crown depicted Cecile’s death as being connected to Philip.
The fictional scenes showed Philip being involved in an incident at his boarding school which means he can’t join his family in Germany during the half-term holidays.
As a consequence of this, in the show Cecile must fly to London to attend a wedding with her family.
However, in real life Cecile’s decision to fly to London had nothing to do with her younger brother.
During an appearance on This Morning on Monday (21 November), Lady Glenconner said The Crown’s portrayal was “completely untrue” and hurtful.
“What was in The Crown was not true at all. Of course that didn’t happen,” she told viewers.
“And I don’t know why they have to do that because the real thing about the royal family is so interesting.”
Glenconner said that “luckily” members of the Royal Family are unlikely to watch the Netflix series.
“The one thing I minded very much was when Prince Philip was accused of killing his sister, which is completely untrue, I think it was so hurting.”
However, royal historian and author Hugo Vickers told The Sunday Times that Philip was deeply “upset” by the fictional storyline.
Vickers said the late royal had also sought legal advice and considered taking action against the show’s creators.
“I know Prince Philip consulted his lawyer about it, to ask ‘What can I do about it?’ He was very upset about the way that was portrayed,” Vickers said.
“He was human. He could be hurt like anybody else.”
