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The final season of The Crown is tackling some of the most difficult situations the royal family has faced. The death of Princess Diana in 1997 capped off one of the most controversial times in Queen Elizabeth II‘s reign because she failed to react in a timely manner to the loss of her former daughter-in-law.
The Queen remained at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and stayed silent, which set off a fury of outcries from the public. Princess Diana was a beloved royal family member, even after her divorce from Prince Charles, and U.K. citizens demanded a response. The monarch was always there, reassuring the public in good times and in bad, but this was the one event that they needed her the most — and she said nothing for five days.
The Crown tackled this issue head-on with their own Hollywood spin of what happened behind the scenes. There was quite a bit of discussion about royal protocol and how to handle a tricky situation since Diana was no longer a royal family member, yet still the mother to the future King of England. Of course, the controversial depiction included the ghost of Princess Diana having a heated dialogue with Elizabeth, which hinted at their contentious relationship even in death.
In 1997, it was then-Prime Minister Tony Blair who set the stage for Queen Elizabeth to address Diana’s death and he even encouraged her to return to London. He spoke to the nation first, opening the doorway for the royal family to finally express their sorrow. “I think she was resistant to anything that struck her as false or struck her as a public relations event in the face of something that was a profound personal tragedy,” he said in the ITVX docuseries, The Real Crown: Inside the House of Windsor, “Princess Diana’s relationship that she had with the monarchy and the relationship with Prince Charles, there was going to be a risk that the country’s sense of loss turned to a sense of anger and grievance and then turned against the monarchy.”
Blair believed that the Queen was “very sad about Diana,” but “she was concerned about the monarchy itself because the queen has a very strong instinct about public opinion and how it plays.” Queen Elizabeth may not have played her cards right, though. It’s the reason why the public was so vocal in expressing their displeasure with the royal family for looking callous after the very shocking death of the beloved Princess Diana.
Before you go, click here to see all of our favorite photos of Princess Diana.
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