The Crown characters

Appears from the start

Heir to Illéa and, with her mother gravely ill and her father unwilling to leave her side, acting regent. She is running a country in unrest, a Selection she can no longer treat as theater, and a family missing a brother, all at once. The cold self-sufficiency she began with has been worn down: she now knows she needs people, which she finds harder to manage than governing.

Also known as America Singer

Appears from the start

Queen of Illéa, recovering from a heart attack brought on by her son's elopement. She came to the palace as a Five in her husband's Selection and has spent her reign softening the monarchy; she is now too weak to do much of anything, and the household is arranged around her.

Appears from the start

King of Illéa, who abolished the caste system twenty years ago and has spent his reign managing the consequences. With his wife's life in danger he hands the day-to-day rule of the country to his daughter and refuses to be moved from America's side.

Appears from the start

Eadlyn's twin brother, now living in France with Princess Camille after eloping without warning. His absence is a wound in the family and a political problem, and he and Eadlyn are still repairing what he did.

Appears from the start

Eadlyn's younger brother, thoughtful and steady, and more use to her in a crisis than she had ever assumed a younger sibling could be.

Appears from the start

One of the six remaining Selected, raised inside the palace and a fixture in Eadlyn's life since childhood. He wants to design buildings rather than hold a title, and he is honest with her in a way almost nobody else at court risks being.

Appears from the start

Kile's younger sister, who grew up in the palace and has spent her life behaving as though a crown were owed to her. She is a persistent irritation to Eadlyn and rather less secure than her performance suggests.

Appears from the start

Eadlyn's maid and, though it took Eadlyn a long time to admit it, her friend. She tells the princess uncomfortable truths and keeps her steady while the palace is in crisis.

Appears from the start

One of the remaining Selected, a young man of Finnish descent whose enthusiasm survives everything and who still speaks almost no English. He cooks, he is entirely sincere, and every word between him and Eadlyn passes through his translator.

Appears from the start

Henri's translator, present at every conversation between Henri and the princess and, by virtue of not being a candidate, the one person at the palace with nothing to gain from her. Eadlyn finds his company easier than anyone's, which is an increasingly awkward fact.

Appears from the start

One of the remaining Selected, good-humored and far more interested in design and tailoring than in politics.

Appears from the start

One of the remaining Selected, composed and unsentimental, who treats the competition as a negotiation rather than a courtship and is frank with Eadlyn about what an arrangement between them would and would not be.

Appears from the start

One of the remaining Selected, warm and openly affectionate, and one of the men Eadlyn came to like before she was prepared to like any of them.

First appears in chapter 10

The son of August and Georgia Illéa, who led the Northern rebels a generation ago and helped bring down the caste system. Confident, media-friendly, and popular with exactly the people the palace has failed to reach, he offers Eadlyn his family's goodwill and his public support at a moment when she badly needs both.