Was there really a frosty relationship between the Queen and former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as portrayed in season 4 of "The Crown"?
In an episode where Thatcher and her husband spend a weekend at Balmoral Castle as guests of the Royal Family, Thatcher (played by Gillian Anderson) tells her husband, "I’m struggling to find any redeeming features in these people at all. They aren’t sophisticated or cultured or elegant or anything close to an ideal."
"The Crown" creator and writer Peter Morgan noted, "they are two very similar women, born only months apart. They are very much defined by the Second World War, by a sense of frugality, hard work, commitment, Christianity and so much more.
“It was a commonly held piece of wisdom that the Queen and Thatcher didn’t get on. I think there was probably a lot of respect."
For her part, in her 1993 memoir, The Downing Street Years, Thatcher didn't give much away: “Although the press could not resist the temptation to suggest disputes between the Palace and Downing Street, especially on Commonwealth affairs, I always found the Queen’s attitude towards the government absolutely correct.
“Of course, under the circumstances, stories of clashes between ‘two powerful women’ were just too good not to make up.” | 
