Erin Doherty’s sardonic, take-no-prisoners Princess Anne was an indisputable standout in The Crown’s third season. In contrast to the rest of her buttoned-up family, Anne is openly disdainful of royal pomp and tradition, would much rather be listening to David Bowie records alone in her room, and has absolutely no qualms about showing it. She’s a breath of fresh air, played meticulously by Doherty. And yet the more time I’ve spent thinking about Anne’s role in this season—and more importantly, what was left out—the more unsatisfying it feels.

Season three begins in 1964 and ends in 1977, which is important in terms of understanding just why Anne was so underserved onscreen. During this actual time period, the real Princess Anne survived a kidnapping at gunpoint, married her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, and became the first member of the royal family to compete in the Olympics.

Princess Anne in 1975. She was 24. Tim Graham Getty Images

None of these events are depicted in the show—instead, Anne’s weightiest storyline is her part in that stranger-than-fiction romantic quadrangle with Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla Shand, and Prince Charles.

Juicy as that situation was, it doesn’t qualify as much of a storyline for Anne, who ends up being roped into a palace intervention in Charles and Camilla’s romance.

Compare this to the reality of what was going on for Anne circa the early 1970s. Asked by Harper’s Bazaar what piece of research had surprised her the most, Doherty immediately responded: “When I found out that she had resisted a kidnapping, that blew my mind!”

Erin Doherty as Princess Anne watches her younger brothers Andrew and Edward play in season three of The Crown. Des Willie / Netflix

This story is, indeed, mind-blowing, and Smithsonian Magazine’s full rundown is a must-read. On March 20, 1974, a 26-year-old man named Ian Ball followed Anne’s car home from a charity event, forced her driver to stop, and shot her bodyguard in the shoulder as he emerged from the car. Ball then tried to force his way into the car and ordered Anne, at gunpoint, to get out. Per Smithsonian:

Instead of panicking, she had what she later called “a very irritating conversation” with her potential kidnapper. “I kept saying I didn’t want to get out of the car, and I was not going to get out of the car,” she told police. In response to one of Ball’s pleas, Princess Anne retorted, “Bloody likely.”

How much more cinematic does it get? This episode writes itself! After Anne refused to get out of the car, several men confronted and ultimately captured Ball—including a former boxer, two chauffeurs and three policemen—but as Smithsonian notes, “it was the princess herself, a force to be reckoned with in her own right, who kept Ball distracted from his goal.”

As Doherty noted in her Bazaar interview, this event shaped her performance as Anne despite being left out of the actual show. “The fact that someone had a gun in her face and said, "Right, you're gonna be kidnapped now,’ and she just said, ‘No!’ I don't know how she did it. That says a lot, I think. That did inform the performance, because if you're grounded and stable and confident enough to tell someone no when they have a gun in your face, I feel like you've got things sorted, pretty much.”

The kidnapping would have been an incredibly rich storyline not only for Anne, but for those around her. A major part of Queen Elizabeth’s arc this season—which emerges during the Aberfan episode—is her self-described inability to show emotion, so wouldn’t it be fascinating to see how she reacts to her daughter’s life being threatened? And while I ended up enjoying the Prince Philip-centric episode “Moondust” more than I anticipated, it’s still pretty galling that we spent an entire hour on Philip having a fictional midlife crisis about the moon, and no time at all on his daughter's accomplishments.

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#FBF Princess Anne training with her horse 'Goodwill' before competing in the 1976 @Olympics Three-Day Event pic.twitter.com/G9CF0szJnj — The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) November 13, 2015

Two years later, Anne became the first member of the royal family to compete in the Olympic Games, riding the Queen’s horse Goodwill in the equestrian event at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. While this may not justify its own episode quite as clearly as the kidnapping, it’s pretty baffling that Anne being an Olympic athlete didn’t even warrant a mention. Why not have Philip's midlife crisis—which was fueled by insecurity in his own accomplishments—begin after watching his daughter recognized for her talent on the global stage, rather than the moon landing?

Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, watching the moon landing. Netflix

And while Charles’s courtship with Camilla was the focus of two entire episodes in season three, Anne’s 1973 marriage to Phillips was skipped over entirely. Admittedly, marriage might not have fit with Doherty's footloose and fiercely independent Anne, and Peter Morgan and his team have certainly earned the right to get a little creative with the timeline in the name of dramatic effect. But far from exaggerating the truth, The Crown actually downplayed how extraordinary the real young Princess Anne was, and skimmed over several of the most significant events in her life altogether.

Had Charles survived a kidnapping or competed at the Olympics, there’s no chance either would have been ignored—in fact, they would likely have been the focus of a nuanced and emotional episode like “Tywysog Cymru,” the stellar season three installment in which Charles undergoes a political awakening as he prepares for his investiture as the Prince of Wales. Erin Doherty’s Anne is simply too good to be sidelined, and we can only hope season four rectifies some of season three's omissions, timeline be damned.

Season three of The Crown is available to stream on Netflix now.

Watch the trailer here:

Emma Dibdin Contributor Emma Dibdin writes about television, movies, and podcasts, with coverage including opinion essays, news posts, episodic reviews and in-depth interviews with creatives.

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