INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

The Queen And Princess Kate Love ‘Downton Abbey’

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 10:13 PST, Sep 20, 2015

Commoners aren’t the only ones who make Downton Abbey “must-see TV,” Queen Elizabeth and Princess Kate are super fans, and this spring, Princess Kate went on-set for a visit, charming the cast of the PBS success, now in its final season.

The Inquisitr reported that filming just wrapped on the last season of Downton Abbey, and it was a tear-filled occasion as the actors who played beloved characters upstairs and downstairs said goodbye to each other and the set they have called home for years. Highclere Castle has now gone quiet, at least until there is a decision about whether or not to do a Downton Abbey movie or future series.

E! Online covered Kate Middleton’s visit to the set when she was “very pregnant” with Princess Charlotte. The cast was eager for her visit, and they were pleasantly surprised that she was also very happy to be there, and spent the day asking questions and interacting with the cast.

“We weren’t sure what to expect really,” Laura Carmichael, who plays Lady Edith, told me yesterday at BAFTA-LA’s pre-Emmys Tea Party at the SLS Hotel. “We all got quite shy and she was sort of leading the conversation.”

Carmichael said the Princess was lovely, and “so normal.”

“We all lost our minds,” Carmichael admitted. “We started talking to her about the catering—I’m sure things she found really boring but we all sort of lost it because we were panicked and star struck. It was one of those weird ones.”

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes called the Princess Kate visit the ultimate “seal of approval.”

Vanity Fair wrote a very funny piece on Queen Elizabeth’s deep interest of Downton Abbey. In fact, it is one of her favorite hobbies to fact-check details on the series, and pick out the mistakes.

“She loves to pick out the mistakes,” reveals At Home with the Queen author Brian Hoey to People. Although the series does have a historical consultant to ensure that on-screen protocol matches that of actual 1920s aristocracy—no hugging allowed, for example—the eagle-eyed monarch enjoys combing through the episodes for bloopers. (She must have had a field day with that water bottle then).”

“They do tend to get it right,” Hoey says of the drama’s producers. “However, the Queen did notice on one episode that there was a young so-called British officer wearing medals which had not been awarded when he was supposed to be alive. He was fighting in the First World War and the medals on his chest did not come in until the Second World War.”

The last season of Downton Abbey starts tonight in the U.K., and will air in the states beginning in January.

Are you a fan of Downton Abbey? Will you watch the last season?

[Photo courtesy of WPA Pool/Getty Images]

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