Reader\'s Digest Australia & New Zealand - June 2018

30 | June• 2018

FOOLING WITH THE FACTS

THE CORONATION

T

he actual crown is a focus

of the series, but it is often

wrongly depicted. For her

coronation on June 2, 1953, the young

Queen wore the St Edward’s Crown.

Yet viewers see the St Edward’s

Crown trotted out for a photo session

later in the irst season. hat would

never have occurred. St Edward’s

Crown has been locked away in the

Tower of London since 1953 until a

2018 BBC documentary he Corona-

tion, where the Queen discussed the

day. The Queen wore the Imperial

State Crown to the state opening of

Parliament each year up until 2017,

when she wore a hat instead.

The events leading up to the cor-

onation are fudged. The long delay

was always planned as Britain still

had rationing after the war. Elizabeth

In 1949, Alice founded her own

religious order that gave aid to

Greece’s poor. She returned to Eng-

land after the revolution of 1967.

While she did wear a habit to the

coronation, she is clearly shown

wearing a fetching gown and f loral

hat in photos of the 1947 wedding.

Alice was born in Windsor Castle and

was Queen Victoria’s great-grand-

daughter. George V – Queen Mary’s

husband – honoured her for her nurs-

ing and sent the cruiser that rescued

her family from Greece during the

revolution. Mary and her daughter-

in-law treating Alice as a deranged

stranger is unfair and unlikely.

PHILIP’S INFIDELITY 

I

t’s entirely possible the Duke of

Edinburgh has not always been

a faithful husband. Biographer

Sarah Bradford asserts he has had

liaisons with women who were young,

beautiful and “highly aristocratic”. But,

The Crown’s contention he had an

affair with ballerina Galína Ulánova

is unlikely. A famed dancer for the

Bolshoi Ballet (not the Royal Ballet, as

in the script), visiting London for the

irst time, Galína was 46 in 1956 and

there is no record of her meeting the

much younger Duke. Her schedule

allowed little time for socialising. De-

spite having several husbands during

her career, in retirement she settled

down happily with a ‘female compan-

ion’, so he was probably not her type.

Duty comes irst: Claire Foy plays

the young Elizabeth II