LONDON - During a gala dinner with actors and directors, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, confessed that he had never seen the television series The Crown.
But he certainly knew that Queen Elizabeth loved watching her with her son Charles, especially the episodes of the first season.
What is certain is that the successful fiction produced by Netflix since 2016 has glued millions of viewers to the small screen, all following the political rivalries, historical events, changes in English society and the love between Queen Elizabeth II and the consort, Sir Philip Mountbatten.
Waiting for the fifth season of the TV series, here is a short tribute to the tall, self-deprecating and spontaneous man who in 1947 married Elizabeth II, giving up his military career and the title of Prince of Greece and Denmark, accepting to always live one step behind the Queen.
True or presumed to be the prince's betrayals, the one between Philip Mountbatten and the queen is unquestionably one of the longest and most intense love stories, which lasted until April 9, the day of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
In the TV series the spectacular Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire is used to represent Westminster Abbey on the wedding day of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
The building, dated 1083 d.
C., was often used for film shoots and always to represent Westminster.
In the second season, and then also in the fourth, Prince Philip, increasingly intolerant of his secondary role in the royal wedding, is on board the Britannia, a boat with which for 5 months he travels the world in the Commonwealth countries representing the royal family.
Many scenes were actually shot on the royal yacht, docked in Leith, near Edinburgh;
in fact, the Britannia was the royal ship for more than 40 years.
Woodchester Mansion, a gothic mansion located in Gloucestershire in the hills of the Cotswolds, in the TV series becomes the Welsh college of the young Philip and then of his son Charles.
The building was designed by a young local architect, Benjamin Bucknall of Rodborough, in a neo-Gothic style using local limestone.
But the masterpiece is unfinished: inside, in fact, there are no floors and ceilings that have been reconstructed in the TV series.
The interiors of Buckingham Palace, where most of the fiction is set, were filmed in Lancaster House, a perfect alternative to the sumptuous furnishings and stately boardrooms.
Formerly a noble residence, today the house is open to events and especially to locations for the cinema.
Many scenes were also filmed at Wilton House, in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside near Salisbury.
The scenes of the journey of Philip and young Elizabeth, not yet queen, to Kenya in 1956 for a safari, were actually filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.
The fishing scenes, Prince Philip's passion together with that for flying, were filmed in the suggestive Scottish Highlands, along the rivers and green valleys of the country.
Also in Scotland, the ruins of Slains Castle on a cliff overlooking the North Sea in Aberdeenshire were also used as a location.
In the castle, steeped in history, and on the picturesque Cruden Bay, a short distance away, many scenes from the TV series were filmed.
Purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852, Balmoral Castle, also in Aberdeenshire, has been the Scottish home of the British royal family ever since.
Although Balmoral appears in The Crown, the scenes were shot in the Ardverikie Estate, a 19th-century Scottish baronial estate located in Kinloch Laggan, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
Here and in the royal estates of Sandringham House, Prince Philip often showcases his passion for hunting pheasants and red deer.
