LONDON — Move aside Lady Mary, the leading lady on everyone's lips right now is Queen Elizabeth II.

The nation watched Her Majesty celebrate her 90th birthday this year, but now the world is getting a glimpse into the early days of HRH's reign with the release of Netflix's transfixing new show The Crown.

The famously private royal family has always endeavoured, successfully or not, to keep its family squabbles and intrigues out of the spotlight. But with a family as well known as the royals and a public thirsty for gossip, rumours abound about what really went on behind closed doors at the palace.



Right now, The Crown is giving us the through-the-keyhole view of the royals we've been yearning for. And naturally the question on everyone's lips is: Did all of that really happen?

Did King George IV really tell dirty limericks?

In the preimere episode of The Crown we see King George VI being dressed in his royal garb before his daughter's wedding. As his valet struggles to adjust the king's collar, His Majesty appears irked shortly before losing his temper entirely, shouting "Oh for Christ's sake, James!"

As if that wasn't startling enough, King George then proceeds to recount a vulgar limerick. "There was an old countess of Bray, and you may think it odd when I say that despite her high station, rank and education she always spelled cunt with a k."

And, there we all were naively thinking that the royals were frightfully polite and not at all vulgar.

According to royal historian Carolyn Harris, George VI occasionally used coarse language and did lose his temper.



"In private, George VI sometimes swore and could be short-tempered, traits that also appeared in the depiction of the king in the 2010 film The King's Speech," Harris told Mashable.



The limerick told by George VI in episode one is not necessarily one he might have told, however. According to The Guardian, this particular limerick was put forth in emails exchanged between director Stephen Daldry and the production team.

Was Elizabeth and Philip's relationship really under strain?

According to Harris, The Crown accurately portrays the impact Elizabeth II's accession has on the Duke of Edinburgh's family life and career.



"He gave up a promising naval career to support the Queen in her role and the family moved into Buckingham Palace," says Harris.

May 15, 1954: Prince Charles and Princess Anne with their parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following their return from the Commonwealth tour. Image: PA, File via AP

The royal house remained the House of Windsor, meaning the children of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh all took their mother's family name rather than Philip's family name, Mountbatten.

According to royal biographer Gyles Brandreth, Prince Philip privately complained: "I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children."

Did an Australian film crew really witness them arguing?



In episode eight of The Crown, we witness The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh embark on a royal expedition. Tensions run high between the royal couple during an eight-week royal tour of Australia.

One scene depicts The Queen and Prince Philip embroiled in a rather ferocious fracas in which she chases him out of the chalet where they've been staying and hurls a tennis racquet at him.

Oh, and all this just so happened to be captured by an Australian TV crew.

According to the royal biography Our Queen, the event depicted in The Crown wasn't far from reality.

The Queen and Prince Philip were spending the weekend at the O'Shannassy reservoir in the Yarra Ranges of Victoria. An exasperated film crew was waiting on the grounds.

"The second cameraman, Frank Bagnall, instinctively turned on his camera when he saw the front door open and so captured the memorable marital moment," according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Queen reappeared soon after to apologise for the "little interlude", explaining that "it happens in every marriage", and the film crew destroyed the footage so as not to breach the strict rules enforced by the royal press secretary.



Was the Great Smog of 1952 really that bad?

In episode four, an almighty fog descends on London. In the show, the fog is portrayed as an immediate emergency and constitutional crisis.

People did die as a result of the fog, but the sense of urgency depicted on screen doesn't quite match up to reality.



"There was no sense of drama or emergency," Dr. David V. Bates, who was working at a London hospital at the time, told the New York Times.

"It was only when the registrar general published the mortality figures three weeks later that everybody realised that there had, in fact, been a major disaster," Bates continued.

Did Winston Churchill's secretary die?

Episode four also features a dramatic death. Winston Churchill's secretary Venetia Scott gets fatally hit by a bus after stepping out in the fog.

Image: netflix

Poor Venetia never existed in real life. Indeed, both her life and death are a work of fiction, and her character is actually based on a number of different members of the prime minister's staff.

Did the Queen really take advice from King Edward VIII?

According to Harris, the series accurately demonstrates "the strain of the position and dramatic change in King George VI's life created by the Abdication Crisis of 1936". King George VI was thrust into a role he never wanted following his brother King Edward VIII's decision to abdicate in order to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

The Crown shows Queen Elizabeth turning to her uncle for advice on aspects of her reign after George VI's death.

"It's unlikely that the Queen would have turned to the former King Edward VIII for counsel on her role as monarch," says Harris.

Did Princess Margaret have a relationship with Peter Townsend?

In a word, yes.

By 1953 Group Captain Peter Townsend had divorced his first wife and proposed to Princess Margaret, who, at 22, was 16 years his junior.

Margaret accepted his proposal but required the permission of her sister due to the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

This placed the Queen in something of a predicament. King Edward VIII's desire to marry a divorcée was opposed by the government. As a British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which at the time did not permit divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still living.

After seeking advice, the Queen asked her sister to wait until she was 25 when she would no longer required the monarch's permission. Winston Churchill arranged for Townsend to be posted to Brussels. Eventually, Margaret chose not to marry Townsend and released a public statement stating her duty to the Commonwealth and the Church's teachings about marriage as reasons for her decision.

And, the rest, as they say, is history.