This article contains spoilers for The Crown Season 6, Part 1, which debuted on Netflix on Nov. 16.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla are depicted in The Crown planning a PR war against Princess Diana with a spin doctor Prince Harry accused of a "putrid strategy."
Season 6 of the award-winning Netflix show depicts the couple, then Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, plotting "the campaign" to legitimize their relationship via a 50th birthday party for Camilla.
In real life, Mark Bolland was Charles' private secretary from 1997 to 2002. In the show, actor Ben Lloyd-Hughes depicts him scheming to boost Camilla above Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, in the public's affections.
"It used to be that Diana had the winning narrative," the fictional Bolland says in Episode 1. "The fairy tale princess that was wronged. But since Panorama that's all changed.
"All her choices at the moment is just making it worse and going on holiday with Mohamed al-Fayed. The more desperate stunts, the more tawdry the spectacle, the more dignified you look by comparison."
In real life, Bolland was a controversial figure and no more so than in the eyes of Prince Harry, who gave him both barrels in his book Spare.
The idea of a campaign to legitimize Camilla is very in tune in Harry's memoir and the prince suggested Camilla used Bolland to leak details of her first ever meeting with Prince William.
"Shortly after our private summits with her," Harry wrote. "She began to play the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the Crown. (With Pa's blessing, we presumed.)
"Stories began to appear everywhere, in all the papers, about her private conversation with Willy, stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of which had come from Willy, of course.
"They could only have been leaked by the one other person present. And the leaking had obviously been abetted by the new spin doctor Camilla had talked Pa into hiring."
Harry does not use Bolland's name in the book but confirmed the identity of the "spin doctor" during a testimony in the lawsuit against U.K. tabloid publisher Mirror Group Newspapers.
Bolland comes up again when Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid the News of the World approached the palace in 2002 with a story about Prince Harry taking drugs.
The duke blamed Bolland for a palace decision to co-operate with the newspaper, confirming Harry had used cannabis but suggesting Charles had made efforts to show his son the harm drugs do by taking him to a rehab clinic as a visitor.
"The guiding force behind this putrid strategy," he wrote. "Was the same spin doctor Pa and Camilla had recently hired, the same spin doctor who'd leaked the details of our private summits with Camilla?
"This spin doctor, Marko said, had decided that the best approach in this case would be to spin me—right under the bus. In one swoop this would appease the editor and also bolster the sagging reputation of Pa.
"Amid all this unpleasantness, all this extortion and gamesmanship, the spin doctor had discovered one silver lining, one shiny consolation prize for Pa.
"No more the unfaithful husband, Pa would now be presented to the world as the harried single dad coping with a drug-addled child."
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jack Royston is Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent based in London, U.K. He reports on the British royal family—including King Charles ... Read more
