A handful of royals reportedly watch The Crown (opens in new tab), Netflix's hit show depicting the life of Queen Elizabeth II (opens in new tab). Prince Harry and Meghan Markle apparently binged the series (opens in new tab)while cooking. Princess Eugenie said (opens in new tab) she felt "very proud to watch it." Even the Queen herself is a fan (at least according to British tabloids (opens in new tab)).
The newest royal to add The Crown to their Netflix queue is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (opens in new tab), wife of Prince Charles.
The couple reportedly hole up in Birkhall, the Scottish estate formerly owned by the Queen Mother, to watch their television shows, Camilla's nephew, Ben Elliot, told Vanity Fair (opens in new tab).
He says Camilla has privately confessed to watching—and enjoying—the program. Although, he adds, she “wasn’t looking forward to the bits to come.”
Elliot is likely referring to the fact that Camilla's character will be introduced in season three.
At the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival in April, producer Suzanne Mackie revealed (opens in new tab) that Camilla, who went on to become Prince Charles's second wife and the Duchess of Cornwall after a rather scandalous affair, appears in the upcoming season.
Emerald Fennell will play Camilla Shand in The Crown Season Three. pic.twitter.com/vQVnOWzaN9October 23, 2018
Camilla will be played by Call the Midwife's Emerald Fennell (opens in new tab). "I'm absolutely over the moon and completely terrified," Fennell says about her casting. "To be joining so many hugely talented people on The Crown. I absolutely love Camilla, and am very grateful that my teenage years have well prepared me for playing a chain-smoking serial snogger with a pudding bowl hair cut."
The forthcoming season will cover the royals from 1964 to the early '70s, which lines up precisely with the timeline of when Camilla and Charles first met.
They were introduced at a polo match (opens in new tab) at Windsor Great Park in 1970. They bonded over a love of polo and the outdoors and Camilla even joked (opens in new tab) about the fact that her great-grandmother had had an affair with King Edward VII, saying, “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.”
They struck up a romance, but Charles had to leave her to serve in the Royal Navy for eight months. When he returned, Camilla was engaged to someone else. In 1973, she married Andrew Parker Bowles, an Army cavalry officer, who had previously dated Prince Charles’s sister, Princess Anne. Of course, Charles and Camilla remained friends over the years—Prince Charles even became her child's godfather.
They would later pick their relationship (opens in new tab) back up.
Since season three won't cover the '80s, we won't meet Lady Diana Spencer, who began dating Prince Charles in 1980. The couple married the next year, with Camilla reportedly in attendance. According to Charles’s authorized biography, he began an affair with Camilla (opens in new tab) five years after, in 1986.
In the mid 90s, both couples divorced, and Diana tragically died in a car accident in Paris in 1997. In 2005, Charles and Camilla, announced their engagement 35 years after they first met. (opens in new tab) They wed in a civil ceremony with Prince William as the best man.
There's still no release date yet for The Crown's third season, but earlier this summer, the Europe Press (opens in new tab) reported that the show is still filming and looking for extras in Spain, seeking both men and women between the ages of 25 and 65, with no visible tattoos.
Forbes reported (opens in new tab) that the Andalusia region of the country "has been chosen reportedly because it still has well-preserved examples of 1960s architecture that will be used as key locations visited by Queen Elizabeth during that decade."
Showrunners confirmed that season three and four are being filmed back-to-back.
"I’m writing them all at the moment," The Crown creator Peter Morgan said at a BAFTA Masterclass (opens in new tab). "We’ve got Olivia [Colman to play the Queen], which is fantastic, and now we’re just embarking on the process of casting."
Rose is a Staff Writer at ELLE covering culture, news, and women's issues. She is an accomplished and compassionate storyteller who excels in obtaining exclusive interviews and unearthing compelling features.
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