For better or worse, unlike the reluctant royals the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the monarchs and their families in these series are either fighting to keep their royal positions, or striving to get closer to the throne. They’re all available to stream on a screen near you.
Prince Harry, now sixth in line for the throne, has not yet been born in The Crown, with Season 3 ending in the year 1977. In the penultimate episode, Harry’s father Charles has just had an abrupt halt put to his relationship with Camilla Shand, and his mother Diana Spencer has not yet entered the scene.
Charles is portrayed as having admired his uncle, the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne when his own affair with the not-yet-quite-divorced Wallis Simpson was threatened. Is Charles experiencing the same disillusionment with his position and the power plays in his family?
Talk about Brits behaving badly. This royal family, headed first by Queen Helena (Elizabeth Hurley) and then her son Robert, is one scandalous bunch, with all decorum – and most clothes – stripped away.
This fun and utterly camp series imagines what would go on behind palace walls if the twin brother and sister of the future King weren’t afraid of dabbling in all things dangerous and dirty, and the Queen Mother was the one pulling strings behind the scenes.
Likened to Game of Thrones for its bloodiness, behind-the-scenes scheming and abundance of sex, this series about the reign of the Romanovs has been criticised for the liberties taken with historical fact, but that doesn’t make it any less absorbing to watch.
It presents a luscious version of the events leading up to the establishment of modern-day Russian, and the conniving of Rasputin is a particularly juicy plotline.
Based on the Philippa Gregory historical novels about the bitter feud between two British royal houses in the 15th Century, the thrilling adult drama opens in 1464, when love, lust, dreams and ambition tangle in a bloody conflict where everyone is a pawn trying to be the kingmaker.
Who will be crowned King of England?
In this sequel to The White Queen, it’s 1485. England is in tatters and Elizabeth of York reluctantly marries the new king to promote peace.
But she’s not about to fall in line behind the court’s power games, brought to life in this lavish and unabashed series based on Philippa Gregory’s novel of the same name.
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