Royal drama The Crown has been accused of fabricating a "hurtful" smear against King Charles III, the Mail on Sunday reported.
An episode of the upcoming fifth season has been denounced as "malicious nonsense" by sources close to the monarch, with calls for a boycott of the Netflix TV series.
"All the one-to-one conversations you see on screen are utter fiction and some scenes have been entirely created for dramatic and commercial purposes with little regard for the truth. People should be boycotting it," a source was cited as saying.
Due to be released on November 9, the episode, titled "Queen Victoria Syndrome," is set in 1991. The King, who was Charles, Prince of Wales at the time, is played by Dominic West. He is shown cutting short a holiday with Princess Diana and his sons, William and Harry, to return to London in reaction to a newspaper poll showing support for Queen Elizabeth II's abdication among 47 percent of the monarch's subjects. Summoning then-Prime Minister John Major, played by Jonny Lee Miller, to a private meeting, Charles hints that the monarchy should follow the lead of the Conservative Party. A year earlier, Margaret Thatcher had been ousted in favor of the younger Major.
"What makes the Conservative Party the successful electoral force that it is? Its instinct for renewal and its willingness to make way for someone younger," says the on-screen Prince Charles.
The storyline is supposedly based on a poll from 1990, which, in effect, showed 47 percent saying the Queen - then 65 - should hand over the Throne "at some stage" in the future. According to The Crown’s writers, Prince Charles feared his mother was repeating Queen Victoria’s mistakes by refusing to stand aside for a younger heir.
Королева Великобритании Елизавета II сидит на троне в Палате лордов, 2022 год
© AP Photo / Ben Stansall/Pool
Charles is depicted as saying, in reference to his great-great grandfather Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria:
"It was said that Queen Victoria had no confidence in him, thought him dangerous, free thinking. He longed to be given responsibilities, but his mother refused. Even forbad him from seeing State papers. Yet when his time came, he proved his doubters wrong and his dynamism, his intellect, his popular appeal made his reign a triumph."
At this point in the scene, when Major asks what Charles is implying, the Prince responds:
"I am saying what a pity it was, what a waste that his voice, his presence, his vision, wasn’t incorporated earlier. It would have been so good for everybody."
The on-screen Prince Charles then tells John Major to join the Queen at an upcoming ball at Balmoral to judge for himself "whether this institution that we all care about so deeply is in safe hands."
Friends of King Charles III, who ascended the British throne after the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, have called his portrayal as a disloyal schemer “false, unfair and deeply wounding.”
“All the dialogue is completely made up,” one source stated.
Sir John Major, who was Prime Minister between 1990 and 1997 and was close to the royal family, told the Mail on Sunday through his spokesperson that the episode was a “barrel load of malicious nonsense.”
"...Not one of the scenes you depict are accurate in any way whatsoever. They are fiction, pure and simple. There was never any discussion between Sir John and the then Prince of Wales about any abdication of the late Queen Elizabeth II – nor was such an improbable and improper subject ever raised by the then Prince of Wales (or Sir John)," the ex-prime minister's spokesman said.
It was added that Major did not cooperate in any way with The Crown, and had never been approached by them "to fact check any script material in this or any other series."
"The Crown is full of nonsense, but this is nonsense on stilts," broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, a friend of King Charles III, was cited as saying. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith added:
"The events depicted here are outrageous and totally fictional. This programme is doing significant damage to people’s perception of history and their perception of the Royal Family. It has been packed full of malicious lies from the beginning but this level of abuse is now beyond the pale."
Last year, politicians and royal experts voiced support for a Mail on Sunday campaign to demand that Netflix place a disclaimer on The Crown amid growing criticism over the distortion of facts in the series. However, the streaming giant has so far refused to add any such message.