The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose Armstrong-Jones; née Windsor; 21 August 1930 –
9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and the
younger sister of the current monarch of each of the Commonwealth Realms, Elizabeth II. She
held the title Countess of Snowdon by marriage.
Princess Margaret was always a controversial member of the British Royal Family.
As a young woman, she was a figure of glamour in post-war Britain and the Commonwealth. However, her private life was plagued by
romantic disappointments, including her politically-thwarted love for a divorced older man in her youth, a subsequent, often
unhappy marriage to a commoner, an acrimonious divorce beset with accusations of adultery, and, in her later years, a public
affair with a much younger man.
Early life
She was born Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret Rose of York on
21 August 1930 at Glamis
Castle in Scotland, her mother's ancestral home. Her father was Prince Albert, The Duke of York, the second son of George V and Queen Mary. Her mother was
The Duchess of York (formerly Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon), a daughter of the 14th
Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. As a grandchild of the Sovereign in the male line, Margaret Rose was styled Her
Royal Highness from birth. She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Buckingham
Palace on 30 October 1930 by Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and her
godparents were her uncle the Prince of Wales (later King Edward
VIII), her father's cousin Princess Ingrid of Sweden, her great-aunt Princess Victoria, her aunt Lady Rose Leveson-Gower, and her uncle The Hon
David Bowes-Lyon.[1]
Princess Margaret Rose of York was educated alongside her sister, Princess Elizabeth, by their governess, Marion Crawford. In 1936, her uncle Edward VIII abdicated the throne, and her father ascended as George VI. Margaret was
then styled HRH The Princess Margaret. She attended her parents' coronation in 1937.
Margaret was from that point second in the line of succession to the
British Throne until the birth of her nephew, Charles, Prince of Wales,
in 1948.
During the Second World War, Margaret stayed at Windsor
Castle, just outside London. In 1952, her father
died, and her older sister became Elizabeth II.
|
British Royalty |
|
House of Windsor |
|
George V |
| Edward VIII |
| George VI |
| Mary, Princess Royal |
| Henry, Duke of Gloucester |
| George, Duke of Kent |
| Prince John |
| Grandchildren |
| Elizabeth II |
| Margaret, Countess of Snowdon |
| Prince William of Gloucester |
| Richard, Duke of Gloucester |
| Edward, Duke of Kent |
| Prince Michael of Kent |
| Princess Alexandra |
|
Edward VIII |
|
George VI |
| Elizabeth II |
| Margaret, Countess of Snowdon |
|
Elizabeth II |
| Charles, Prince of Wales |
| Anne, Princess Royal |
| Andrew, Duke of York |
| Edward, Earl of Wessex |
| Grandchildren |
| Prince William of Wales |
| Prince Henry of Wales |
| Princess Beatrice of York |
| Princess Eugenie of York |
| Lady Louise Windsor |
Romance with Peter Townsend
Two years after her sister's coronation, Margaret became embroiled in a public scandal over her wish to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend, a Royal Air Force
pilot and Battle of Britain hero who had been a trusted member of the Royal Household
as an equerry to her father and sister. Sixteen years the Princess' senior, Townsend was also a
divorcé, which, in the eyes of the government and the Church of England, made him an unsuitable husband for a Royal Princess,
despite the fact that he had been the innocent party in his divorce from Rosemary Pawle, who had committed adultery.
Although Margaret could have married Townsend with Parliamentary approval once she turned 25, she was informed that doing so
would force her to give up her title, her Civil List allowance, and her place in the line of
succession. It was also suggested, entirely incorrectly, that she would be forced to leave the country [citation needed]. Under great pressure, not least
because her role as a royal princess was virtually the only identity she had, and taking advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury and senior politicians, she decided not to marry Townsend. She made a
public announcement, reportedly partly crafted by Townsend himself, in which she stated that her decision had been made out of
loyalty to the Crown and out of consciousness of the Church's teaching on the "indissolubility of Christian marriage."
In reality, however, papers released in 2004 indicate that, had she married Townsend, she could
not have been legally deprived of her title or her Civil List allowance. The only conditions
should she decide to marry Townsend were that she would be removed from the line of succession and that any wedding would have to
be civil rather than religious.[2] Margaret and her sister
had been misled by courtiers and politicians who were either still deeply fearful of potential marital scandal 20 years after the
abdication of Edward VIII or simply determined to maintain the status quo, regardless of the personal and emotional
effects.
Marriage
After some more romantic interests, including future Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, on 6
May 1960, Margaret married the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, son of Ronald Armstrong-Jones and his first wife,
Anne Messel, later Countess of Rosse, at Westminster Abbey. She reportedly accepted
his proposal a day after learning from Peter Townsend that he intended to marry a young Belgian woman.
The ceremony could be considered the first "modern" royal wedding thanks to the wider availability of television in the UK. In
1961, the princess's husband was created Earl of Snowdon, whereupon she became formally
styled HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon.
They had two children:
The marriage widened Princess Margaret's social circle beyond the Court and aristocracy to include show business and
bohemia, and was seen at the time as reflecting the breakdown of class barriers.[3]
Royal duties
Princess Margaret began her royal duties at a very early age. She attended the silver
jubilee of her grandparents, George V and Queen Mary, aged 5 in 1935. She later attended her
parents' coronation in 1937. Her first major royal tour occurred when she joined her parents and sister for a tour of
South Africa in 1947. Her first solo tour was to the British
colonies in the Caribbean in 1955. So great was her popularity at the time that the tour created a sensation throughout the West
Indies, and calypsos were dedicated to her.[4]
As colonies of the British Commonwealth sought nationhood, Princess Margaret went on to repeatedly represent the British Crown
at their independence ceremonies.
The Princess's main interests were welfare charities, music and ballet. She was President of the National Society and of the
Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Invalid Children's Aid Nationwide (also called 'I CAN').
Formerly Commandant-in-Chief of the Ambulance and Nursing Cadets of the St. John
Ambulance Brigade, she later became Grand President of the St John Ambulance Brigade and Colonel-in-Chief of Queen
Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. She was also the president or patron of numerous sports and wildlife conservation
organisations, such as British Olympic Association, Royal Yachting Association or Durrell
Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Private life
Princess Margaret's private life was for many years the subject of intense speculation by media and Royal-watchers. She owned
a house on the Caribbean island of Mustique, a private resort that was her favourite holiday
destination and where many of its houses were designed by her husband's uncle, the stage designer Oliver Messel. Allegations of wild parties and drug taking were made in a documentary broadcast after the
Princess’s death.
Reportedly, her first extramarital affair took place in 1966, with her daughter's godfather, Bordeaux wine producer
Anthony Barton, and a year later she had a one-month liaison with Robin Douglas-Home, a nephew of a former British Prime Minister. Douglas-Home committed suicide 18
months after the split with Margaret.[5] Unproven
allegations have also claimed she had been romantically involved with musician Mick Jagger,
actor Peter Sellers, and the Australian cricketer, Keith
Miller.[6] According to Margaret: The Secret
Princess, an ITV program broadcast in Britain in February 2003, Princess Margaret also
reportedly had a two-year affair with Sharman Douglas, the daughter of an American
ambassador to the Court of St. James.
In the 1970s, revelations of an affair with Roddy Llewellyn, an aspiring young garden
designer, led to her divorce, on 11 May 1978,[7] from Lord Snowdon, although the marriage was generally regarded as over
long before the affair was made public. This was the first divorce of a senior Royal since Princess Victoria of Edinburgh in 1901.
As her friend Gore Vidal once wrote, "She was far too intelligent for her station in
life." Vidal, in his memoirs Point to Point Navigation, recalled a conversation with
Princess Margaret, in which she discussed her public notoriety, saying, "It was inevitable: when there are two sisters and one is
the Queen, who must be the source of honor and all that is good, while the other must be the focus of the most creative malice,
the evil sister."[8]
Later life
The Princess's later life was marred by illness and disability. She experienced a mild stroke in 1998 at her holiday home in
Mustique. Later in the same year, the Princess severely scalded her feet in a bathroom accident, which affected her mobility to
the extent she required support when walking and was sometimes restricted to a wheelchair. In 2000 and 2001, further strokes were
diagnosed. Margaret’s last public appearance was at the 100th birthday celebration of her aunt, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester in December 2001.
Death and remembrance
Princess Margaret died in hospital on 9 February 2002 at the
age of 71, after suffering a massive stroke. Her funeral was held on the 50th anniversary of her father's funeral and occurred
during the Golden Jubilee year of the Queen. The ceremony was a private family event—it
also was the last time the Queen Mother was seen in public before her death—though
a full state memorial service was held for her several weeks later. Unlike most other Royal family members following their
deaths, Princess Margaret was cremated. Her ashes have been placed in the tomb of her parents,
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother in the King George VI Memorial Chapel in St. George's Chapel at Windsor
Castle.
Princess Margaret had been twelfth in the line of succession to the British Throne at the time of her death.
Princess Margaret's nephew, Charles, Prince of Wales, talked about her after
her death:
"My Aunt was one of those remarkable people who apart from being incredibly vital and attractive, and of course when she
was young so many people remember her for that vitality and attractiveness and indeed her incredible beauty, but she also, and I
think many people do not realise this, but she had such incredible talent."
In popular culture
In Episode 30 of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a pantomime Princess Margaret appears in a nature film sequence harpooning a breakfast tray.
Princess Margaret was portrayed by Lucy Cohu in the BBC TV drama The Queen's Sister (2005), by Trulie MacLeod in the TV drama The Women of Windsor (1992),
and by Hannah Wiltshire in the TV drama Bertie and Elizabeth
In April 2007, an exhibition entitled Princess Line - The Fashion Legacy of Princess Margaret opened at
Kensington Palace, showcasing contemporary fashion from British designers such as
Burberry and Vivienne Westwood inspired by Princess
Margaret's 'legacy' of style. Vivienne Westwood's clothing in her Harris Tweed collection
of 1987 was inspired by the clothes worn by the Queen and Princess Margaret as children, while Christopher Bailey's Spring 2006
collection for Burberry was inspired by 'archive images of HRH Princess Margaret'. Alongside the contemporary fashion pieces, the
exhibition displayed a number of Princess Margaret's original accessories, all inside her former wardrobe room at Kensington
Palace. Other contemporary designers showcased included Hardy Amies, Topshop, Marks & Spencer and Central Saint Martins graudate Gemma
Ainsworth, while Margaret's accessories include turbans, classic hats worn to Ascot and a
replica of the Poltimore Tiara worn for her wedding to Lord Snowdon in 1960.
The exhibition is the result of a unique collaboration between Historic Royal
Palaces and Central Saint Martins College of Art and
Design.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles
Honours
Honorary military appointments
British
Commonwealth Realms
Ancestry
Legacy
See also
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
External links
References
- ^ Vickers, Hugo, Elizabeth: The Queen Mother (Arrow Books/Random
House, 2006) p.114-5
- ^ BBC News "Margaret was offered marriage deal"
- ^ Haden-Guest, Anthony: "The New Class", The Queen (magazine),
1965
- ^ Payne, David John: My Life With Princess Margaret (1962) p17
- ^ [1]
<
