An upcoming scene in The Crown season 4 will play out that one time an intruder came face-to-face with Queen Elizabeth in her bedroom Buckingham Palace. However, the actual person who was arrested for the act, Michael Fagan, said that the Netflix show used a lot of artistic licenses and not factual accounts to depict his encounter with Her Majesty.
Fagan achieved notoriety after he broke into a heavily-guarded Buckingham Palace in 1982 and found himself in front of Queen Elizabeth. He told Daily Mail that The Crown creator and showrunner Peter Morgan never approached him for his side of the story in adapting the scene for the TV series.
Tom Brooke will play Fagan in the royal drama and was actually spotted filming in London in October 2019. The actor was dressed in similar denim, pale blue shirt and khaki jacket that Fagan wore when he scaled 14 feet of the walls of the Palace. Brooke was also part of the scene involving protesters against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who is played by Gillian Anderson.
Fagan also told The Telegraph that despite reports that his famous scene will run for 10 minutes, he actually had a brief exchange with Queen Elizabeth. He said that Her Majesty asked him in a normal voice what he was doing in her bedroom.
The intruder said that Queen alerted her footman, Paul Whybrew, who took Fagan down to the pantry for a drink of whiskey. Then, the police arrived and took him away but he was not criminally charged for what he did.
Instead, Fagan was charged in civil court and was sent to six months in a psychiatric hospital. He said that he didn't launch into a tirade against Thatcher, despite what The Crown season 4 might show.
The intruder also revealed that the Queen's bedroom is a lot grander in the TV series than in the actual palace. Her Majesty also didn't sleep in a four-poster bed, as far as he can recall.
Fagan said that he still cannot explain what prompted him to break into Buckingham Palace but admitted that he did it once before. In his first attempt, he apparently stole a bottle of wine and was scared away by one of the royal housemaids. He was also acquitted for this petty crime.
After Fagan, several other break-in attempts happened at Buckingham Palace. One person apparently tried and failed to do this on the 37th anniversary of Fagan's break-in in 2013.
The Crown season 4 will finally air on Nov. 15 with 10 episodes. Meanwhile, the fifth season will begin filming in mid-June 2021.
