*Please note spoilers for the first episode of season 5 of The Crown, now on Netflix*

Now, we need to know something: In a poll published in The Sunday Times in the early 1990s, it was reported that Britain wanted Prince Charles to become king. Was there really one that showed support for Prince Charles becoming King and a desire for the Queen to abdicate? The answer is yes, if you believe Season 5, Episode 1, "The Queen Victoria Syndrome. The Truth is" let's unravel it.

In this episode, the Queen's housekeeper desperately tries to hide the Sunday Times newspaper. In the program, the front page of the August 11, 1991 newspaper reads, "The Queen Should Abdicate in Favour of the Princes of Wales," followed by "Half of British Public Agrees ( The Queen, who turned 65 in 1991, was described as irrelevant, old, expensive, and out of touch; by contrast, Prince Charles, who was 43 for most of 1991 (his birthday was in mid-November), was described as young, energetic, modern, and sympathetic. He was described as young, energetic, modern, and sympathetic.

Reality According to insiders, the poll was not, first of all, conducted by the Sunday Times (rather, it was conducted by MORI, which stands for Market and Opinion Research International) and showed that the public was largely pro-monarchy The results showed. Despite "tabloid attacks and a decade of close scrutiny, the royal family entered the 1990s as part of British life. At the time, the most popular royal family in Britain was the Queen Mother, followed by the Queen and then the Prince of Wales. The article includes the statistic of 47% mentioned in The Crown, which shows that nearly half of the British public supports the Queen stepping aside for Prince Charles. The poll was also published on January 21, 1990, when Margaret Thatcher (not John Major, whom Charles portrayed in the program as the person who lobbied for his mother's early abdication) was prime minister.

The only mention of the Queen in the Sunday Times of August 11, 1991, was "The Unmistakable Queen" in an advertisement for the Royal Cruise Liner.

As for the episode's title, "Queen Victoria Syndrome" - the queen who ignored calls to abdicate in favor of a younger successor (before Elizabeth II, she was the longest reigning monarch in British history) - "The writers of 'The Crown' have used the term to describe the British public's There is little evidence that the term existed as a common phrase before the writers of The Crown chose to use it as a way to explain the British public's dissatisfaction with their aging monarch," reported "The Insider."

According to Town & Country, other polls in the early 1990s showed that 82% of respondents thought Prince Charles would be a good king in the future and only 5% thought he would be a bad one, according to a June 1991 survey by Ipsos Mori. However, according to the same polling firm, the end of the 1990s and the drama of that decade dramatically changed these numbers, and by then most people thought he would be as bad a king as he would be a good one.

There is a shred of truth in "The Crown," but it is also evidence of a complete dramatization.