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Chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II from the 1940s to modern times. The series begins with an inside look at the early reign of the Queen, who ascended the throne at age twenty-five after the death of her father, King George VI.

As the decades pass, personal intrigues, romances, and political rivalries are revealed that played a big role in events that shaped the later years of the twentieth century.

Is The Crown a true story?

As royal historian Robert Lacey previously wrote in Radio Times:
"What you see is both invented and true."

The Crown is painstakingly researched, and closely based on real historical events; but it is also a work of drama and storytelling, rather than a documentary.

Still, many fans of The Crown will be keen to know more about the real-life events and relationships that we see on screen. With this in mind, we've taken a look at all the key questions about what really happened, with a collection of in-depth features answering all the big (and small) questions from every single season of The Crown so far.

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By November 2014, Claire Foy had entered negotiations to portray Queen Elizabeth II.

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In June 2015 Matt Smith was cast as Prince Philip.

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By May 2015, Vanessa Kirby was in negotiations to portray Princess Margaret.

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In June 2015, John Lithgow was cast as Winston Churchill.

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This historical dramatization of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been watched by 73 million households worldwide since it first aired on Netflix in 2016, according to the BBC.

Its popularity has grown with each season, and a fifth season is planned, although it isn’t expected to air until 2022. As beloved as it is, however, it must be remembered that The Crown is fiction. Historical fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

Historians, including unofficial but highly regarded royal biographers Sally Bedell Smith and Hugo Vickers, have expressed concerns over the show’s not a quite-on-the-mark depiction of various events and circumstances. And while the Queen’s communications secretary told the New York Times that the royal family has no comment on The Crown and didn’t say whether they even watch it, credible reports support that the Queen watched the first season, and though she “really liked it,” she had concerns that some of it had been “too heavily dramatized.”