The Crown's intimate portrayal of Prince Philip's relationship with Lady Mountbatten raises eyebrows

The new series of The Crown will cause “a hell of a fuss” but not because it depicts the late Duke of Edinburgh pursuing an affair, show insiders have admitted.

The fifth series of the Netflix show, released on November 9, will chart the blossoming friendship between Prince Philip and the Countess Mountbatten of Burma, played by Natascha McElhone.

It portrays the relationship as “intellectual” rather than physical, it is claimed.

Rather than showing the pair engage in an illicit liaison, it is said to delve into potential deficits in the Duke and Queen Elizabeth II’s own marriage.

Yet such an intimate portrayal of the late Queen’s personal life, portrayed so soon after her death, has already been branded “distasteful” by critics.

Sources concede that the penultimate series of the show could not come at a worse time for the Royal family.

Prince Philip and Lady Mountbatten, 69, enjoyed a close friendship and shared a great love of carriage riding.

Lady Mountbatten, who was previously known as Lady Romsey and later Lady Brabourne, was one of the few non-family members who attended the Duke’s funeral last April.

In one episode of the forthcoming series, the pair are said to touch hands as they talk.

The Duke, played by Jonathan Pryce, 75, is seen teaching the Countess carriage driving and reportedly tells her his marriage has its “problems” as they have “grown in separate directions”.

A source connected to the show said a great deal of thought went into the way their friendship was portrayed, the tone of the episode and the nuanced message it was intended to convey.

They acknowledged that it was “not all sweetness and light” but insisted there was no suggestion of an improper or physical relationship.

If there is any critical undertone, it is that Lady Mountbatten is presented as the woman who provided the Duke with the “intellectual dimension” to his life that he did not get from the late Queen.

For her part, the monarch was said to accept that this was the nature of their relationship.

The new series will portray the late Queen at one of her lowest ebbs, chronicling a difficult period in the 1990s that saw the then-Prince Charles’s marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales break down amid various affairs.

The late Princess’s Panorama interview, in which she famously told BBC journalist Martin Bashir “there were three of us in this marriage,” is also expected to be covered.

The late Queen declared 1992 her “annus horribilis” following the Princess Royal’s divorce from Captain Mark Phillips, a fire at Windsor Castle and the separation of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York, while Charles and Diana remained at loggerheads.

One source said it was “unfortunate” that in the long set schedule for The Crown, this particular point in royal history would be covered so soon after the Queen’s death and the accession of the King.

“There will undoubtedly be a hell of a fuss in November,” they said, adding that the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage would not make pleasant viewing.

However, only around a quarter of viewers of The Crown are thought to be UK-based and  Netflix, as an international broadcaster, did not consider it necessary to delay the broadcast.

Prince Philip’s rumoured indiscretions have been explored by the programme in earlier episodes.

In series two, Queen Elizabeth, then played by Claire Foy, was hiding a gift in her husband’s suitcase before he embarked on a five-month tour when she stumbled across a photograph of a Russian ballerina.

Lady Mountbatten was a regular visitor to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, during the Duke of Edinburgh’s final years, keeping him company during retirement.

She is married to Lord Romsey, Norton Knatchbull, who was Prince Philip’s godson and Earl Mountbatten’s grandson.

The couple named their first child Nicholas after Knatchbull’s younger brother, who alongside Lord Mountbatten and his paternal grandmother, was killed by an IRA bomb in ­Mullaghmore, Co Sligo in 1979 when he was 14.

They went on to have two daughters Alexandra and Leonora. Leonora died from kidney cancer in 1991 when she was five.

Lady Mountbatten was pictured sitting alongside Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in May, which proved to be one of the monarch’s last public outings.