Just how well does our monarch get on with her prime ministers?
One of the continuing threads of prestige Netflix royal drama The Crown is the relationship between The Queen and her prime ministers.
The first season saw her close and honest relationship with Sir Winston Churchill ( John Lithgow ), while season 2 tackled her working alongside Sir Anthony Eden (Jeremy Northam) and Harold Macmillan (Anton Lesser).
However, the new series primarily looks at the relationship between the Queen and her first Labour PM, Harold Wilson ( Jason Watkins ).
The pair are shown to get on rather well, with Wilson proving an honest advisor to the Queen who even shields her from his own cabinet, to their annoyance.
But how well did the pair get on in real life for his two terms in office?
True story behind the Queen and Harold Wilson's friendship
The relationships between the Sovereign and her prime ministers are always viewed with a great deal of speculation and debate, but in terms of the Queen's relationship with Labour PM Harold Wilson, it is universally agreed that they got on rather well.
According to The Sunday Post , the meetings between Wilson and the Queen often lasted over two hours, with Queen Elizabeth II seeing Wilson as a "down-to-earth British chap" who had a realistic perspective on life in the United Kingdom.
The Queen was said to be left "delighted and having learned rather a lot from her beloved Mr Wilson."
It seemed that Wilson helped to open the eyes of the Queen to lower social classes and also gave a perspective that wasn't from the traditional ruling classes and aristocracy that she was used to in her Prime Ministers.
According to The Guardian, Wilson couldn't quite believe how far he had come when he won the election in 1964.
He said: “I still can’t believe it. Just think, here I am, the lad from behind those lace curtains in the Huddersfield house you saw – here I am about to go to see the Queen and become prime minister… I still can’t believe it.”
Royal biographer Robert Lacey said that he also "persuaded the Queen to drop a lot of stuffy protocol that had remained since Queen Victoria."
Francis Beckett wrote in BBC History Magazine that "after Churchill, Wilson may have been her favourite PM."
The pair got on so well, that the Queen apparently invited him for picnics with the Royal Family at Balmoral, suggesting a real affinity with the Labour PM.
After he left the role of Prime Minister for the second time in 1976 - shocking the nation as it was three days before a scheduled election - The Queen made Wilson a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
Wilson remained in the House of Commons until 1983, when he made Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, joining the House of Lords.
He died of colon cancer and Alzheimer's diseased in May 1995 at the age of 79.
Wilson's memorial service was attended by Prince Charles the Prince of Wales, former prime ministers Edward Heath, James Callaghan, and Margaret Thatcher, along with then PM John Major and future PM Tony Blair .
The Crown season 3 is available now on Netflix.
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