Prince Charles’ Investiture 50th Anniversary Is Celebrated As ‘The Crown’ Shoots The Original Event
Queen Elizabeth hosted a party for her son, Prince Charles, on the 50th anniversary of his formal investiture, the day he received his title, the Prince of Wales. But while Prince Charles and his family are celebrating the heir to the throne’s half-century with the Welsh title, the Netflix series The Crown is shooting scenes recreating the investiture ceremony with Oscar winner Olivia Colman in her new role as the queen.
Town & Country says that the title Prince of Wales is given to the oldest son of the reigning monarch, and Prince Charles was officially crowned in 1969 at Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd. Prince Charles has been in waiting to be the monarch longer than any other heir to the throne in the history of the British monarchy.
For Season 3 of The Crown, actors Olivia Colman and Josh O’Connor (from The Durrells of Corfu) portray the queen and Prince Charles, re-enacting the ceremony in which the prince received his title at Caernarfon Castle, down to the accurately replicated costumes, according to Harper’s Bazaar.
While some scenes for the popular series The Crown are filmed in alternate locations, North Wales Live reports that the production team filmed the investiture scenes at Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd, Wales, and in the town, complete with banners and bunting.
— ??? ???? (@HebRoyalUK) February 26, 2019
Hundreds of extras were required to recreate the crowd, and the buildings in town were dressed in a combination of Union Jack flags and the Prince of Wales’ standard. It took the cast and crew of The Crown two days to shoot the involved scene for the third installation of the series.
On the first day of shooting, the castle was used to replicate the investiture with Colman as Queen Elizabeth bestowing the honor upon O’Connor as her son. The next day, the processional scene was filmed with a horse-drawn carriage taking O’Connor as the prince from the train station to the castle. For the second day, extras were hired to line the streets of the town to cheer on the Household Cavalry complete with 13 horses.
But not everyone was thrilled with the Netflix crew filming the event in the area and at Caernarforn, with an independence campaigner blogging to urge “Welsh nationalists to protest at filming of the hit Netflix series,” according to Wales Online.
North Wales Live says that Gethin ap Gruffydd, formerly of the Free Wales Army, helped to organize the protest against the original event and the recent filming of the Netflix series The Crown to recreate the investiture.
In the blog post, ap Gruffydd discouraged locals from participating in the series, suggesting that they picket instead.
“It will be interesting to see how many will make a rush to sell out their homeland and participate in another insult to our historic memory again but more interesting will be how many Caernarfon/Gwynedd patriots will rush to picket protest this filming or just duck and dive out of the way.”
