The Crown: Truth behind season 3’s biggest scandals

The Crown’s long-awaited third season delves deep into the juiciest rumours that have plagued the royal family for decades. But just how true are they?

The Crown Season 3 digs deep in the royal family’s most embarrassing scandals. Queen Elizabeth II’s (Olivia Colman) family has been engulfed in messy, soapy drama for decades, and The Crown wants us to luxuriate in all the mortifying moments.

WARNING: Season 3 spoilers

Long before the British press turned on Meghan Markle, the media excoriated Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) for carrying on with a much younger man. Decades before Princess Diana would tearfully explain there was always a third person in her marriage to Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor), the Palace would conspire to separate the Crown’s heir from his true love, Camilla Shand (Emerald Fennell).

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However, The Crown isn’t only focused on the romantic scandals of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Queen Elizabeth also had to deal with a literal spy in her royal household.

The mortifying revelation that Russia had snuck into Buckingham Palace would be a source of embarrassment for decades to come.

Here’s what you need to know about the three craziest real-life royal scandals at the centre of The Crown Season 3.

THE KGB SPY IN THE PALACE

The Crown season 3 opens with an episode where Queen Elizabeth II anxiously welcomes Labour leader Harold Wilson (Jason Atkins) into office. The Labour Party featured some of the most vehemently anti-royal factions in England, which naturally set Her Majesty on edge. Also concerning to Lilibet? The rumours that Wilson was, in fact, a KGB spy.

Sir Anthony Blunt (Timothy West) was a KGB spy in The Crown season 3.

As it turns out, there was a KGB spy in her midst and it was Sir Anthony Blunt (Timothy West), an art historian who worked in the Palace as the surveyor of the Queen’s pictures.

The Crown season 3, episode 1, “Olding”, features scenes where the Queen not only learns about Sir Anthony Blunt’s betrayal but she must endure his presence for counterintelligence purposes.

Sir Anthony Blunt was a member of the “Cambridge Five”, a group of upper crust Brits whom the KGB recruited during their tenure at Cambridge University. He became a double agent, unknown to MI5 until the mid ’60s. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher exposed him as a spy, and Queen Elizabeth stripped him finally of his knighthood.

Ironically, actor Timothy West played a younger version of Anthony Blunt in the 2003 BBC miniseries Cambridge Spies.

THE WHOLE CAMILLA/ANDREW/ANNE/CHARLES THING

The Crown season 3 alleges on-and-off socialite couple Andrew Parker Bowles (Andrew Buchan) and Camilla Shand (Emerald Fennell) each hooked up with a member of the royal family to make the other jealous. In Andrew’s case, it was a cavalier Princess Anne (Erin Doherty), while Camilla and Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) actually made the mistake of falling in love.

The series depicts an alleged fling between Andrew Parker Bowles and Princess Anne. Picture: Netflix via AP.

We know from history that Camilla was considered an unsuitable match for the future king of England, but The Crown adds the wrinkle of Anne’s affair with Andrew Parker Bowles. The solution it seems is that Andrew and Camilla should wed and Charles should just get over it.

As we know, Prince Charles would go on to marry Lady Diana Spencer (who will be played by Emma Corrin in season 4), and that relationship would be fraught with discord. Charles would carry on an extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles until finally marrying her in 2005.

The Crown season 3 delves into Camilla and Charles’ beginnings. Picture: Netflix via AP.

While historians dispute The Crown’s version of events,Town & Countryreports there is an element of truth to this scandalous “love polygon”. Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles briefly dated in the early 1970s, but as he was Catholic, he was considered an unlikely match for the Princess. However, they maintained a close friendship even after their respective marriages. Parker Bowles is the godfather of Zara Phillips, Anne’s daughter, and there were rumours that the two carried on an extramarital affair but in the late ’80s.

Camilla was considered an unsuitable match for Prince Charles when the two first met. Picture: Netflix via AP.

So while Charles and Camilla definitely had a thing before her eventual marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles (and during their respective marriages to other people), royal historians don’t think their initial romance overlapped with Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles’s own possible affair.

Yes, it’s messy, and it’s confusing, but hey, that’s the royals for you.

PRINCESS MARGARET’S YOUNGER MAN

The final episode of The Crown season 3 focuses on the dissolution of Princess Margaret’s marriage to Lord Snowden and her blissful love affair with Roddy Llewellyn (Harry Treadaway).

Margaret was 43 years old when she met the 25-year-old aspiring TV presenter/pop star/gardener in 1973, and her marriage to Tony Armstrong-Jones was already in tatters. He had long been cheating on her, and she was losing her lust for life. According to RadioTimes, friends noted that both Margaret and Roddy were kind of lost when they met and immediately found solace and joy in their “friendship.”

Helena Bonham Carter in a scene from season 3 of the TV series The Crown. Supplied by Netflix.

The relationship was kept under wraps for a while, but in 1976, paparazzi caught them sunbathing together on a beach in Mustique. RadioTimes notes the photos weren’t scandalous by today’s standards. Princess Margaret was just in a swimsuit and Roddy was wearing Union Jack speedos (which The Crown introduces as part of the couple’s “meet cute”). But it was scandalous in the 1970s. The media portrayed Margaret as an older woman pouncing on a young man and implied she was doing her husband wrong.

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden finally divorced in 1978, which was a huge deal for the royal family in those days as divorce was still considered sinful and scandalous. (The Queen’s own children’s later divorces would normalise it, though.) Roddy and Margaret stayed together for eight years, finally splitting in 1981.

This article originally appeared on Decider and was reproduced with permission