The Crown season 6 cast: who plays Princes William and Harry, and Kate Middleton in Netflix series finale?

Netflix smash hit historical drama series The Crown will be back for a final season this year, and several new cast members have been revealed.

William West (son of Prince Charles actor Dominic West) and Will Powell will be replaced as Prince William and Prince Harry respectively, as the characters will have aged by several years.

The upcoming season will also see the introduction of a young Kate Middleton as she falls in love with Prince William at university.

The royal drama, which has been watched by more than 70 million households globally since it first landed on Netflix in 2016, has followed the lives and loves of the royal family from the death of George VI to the divorce of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.

The final season, which is expected to arrive this autumn, will explore a difficult time for the family, covering the death of Diana in 1997 and the ramifications of the tragedy for those around her. 

Who is in the cast of The Crown season 6?

Meg Bellamy as Kate Middleton

The hugely popular Netflix series is only her second screen role - she previously appeared in the short drama film The Prince of Savile Row. The actress shared teaser images of her role on The Crown to Instagram in April. 

This will be the first appearance of Kate in The Crown - the sixth series will follow her and Prince Harry as they meet and begin dating whilst studying at the University of St Andrews. 

Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey as Prince William 

Rufus Kampa will play the 15 year old Prince William at the time of Diana’s death. It is Kampa’s first screen role. Ed McVey has one previous screen credit to his name - the short thriller film Where Loyalty Lies. He will play the young adult Prince William in the series.

William’s time at university began four years after the death of his mother, and the impact of the traumatic event will also be a major force in the series.

Will Powell and Luther Ford as Prince Harry

Powell is expected to return in early episodes of season six where he will play the 12 year old Prince Harry.

Ford will star as Prince Harry aged around 17 at the time that the prince was still at school in the years before he joined the army. Whilst there is a huge rift between the two princes now, when they were younger they were very close, and this will likely be shown in the series.

Powell directed and starred in the pandemic drama short Dream Between, and also worked as an editor on the short drama While the Going Is Good. 

Returning cast members include:

When did Kate Middleton and Prince William meet?

Kate Middleton and Prince William met when they were both studying History of Art at St Andrews, though William later switched to Geography. The pair began dating in 2001 and graduated together in 2005.

In 2007 they split briefly but reconnected and William proposed in 2010. They got married the following year in an extravagant ceremony that was watched by around 300 million people around the world.

The pair have now been married for more than a decade, and since the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of Charles III, William is now the Prince of Wales and first in line to the throne.

Will Meghan Markle be in The Crown?

No, the sixth and final series is set in the late 1990s and early 2000s - William and Kate began dating in 2001, but Prince Harry did not meet Meghan until 2016. His first official girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, began a relationship with the prince in 2004, but the series will not cover that period.