The Family: a World History. Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Waltner Review
Hither, we bring y'all everything y'all demand to know about the Queen'due south sister, Princess Margaret…
Long before the rebellious Prince Harry came on to the scene, Princess Margaret – the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth 2 – established herself as the royal family unit'southward 'wild child'. Known in the printing for her vivacious personality and antics, Margaret was an enthusiastic 'party princess' – drinking, smoking and cultivating friendships with a variety of celebrities, actors and musicians.
It is arguably these elements of Margaret's personality and lifestyle that make her such a fan-favourite on the honour-winning Netflix dramaThe Crown (in which she is played past actresses Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter). Merely how much exercise y'all know about the Queen's sis? We bring you the facts…
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon: key facts
Born: 21 August 1930 in Glamis Castle, Scotland
Died: 9 February 2002, at the age of 71
Parents: King George Half-dozen and Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother
Sister: Queen Elizabeth Ii
Married: Antony Armstrong-Jones (1960–1978)
Children: Lord Linley (built-in 1961); Lady Sarah Chatto (built-in 1964)
Margaret in Netflix drama The Crown : In the offset and 2nd flavor of Netflix historical drama The Crown, Margaret is played by Vanessa Kirby. Storylines follow Princess Margaret's doomed human relationship with her father's former equerry, Group Helm Peter Townsend every bit well every bit her relationship with her sis, Elizabeth, and her romance with Antony Armstrong-Jones (who Margaret ended up marrying in 1960). In the third and fourth seasons of The Crown, Princess Margaret is played by Helena Bonham Carter. In the upcoming fifth season, Lesley Manville will take on the office.
Read more most the the real history behind The Crown here
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Princess Margaret was the first member of the British regal family to be born in Scotland for more than 300 years
Princess Margaret was born on 21 August 1930 in Glamis Castle, Scotland, the family seat on her female parent's side. At the time of her birth, she was quaternary in line to the throne through her father, Bertie (subsequently Male monarch George 6). Although her parents hoped to call her Ann, the proper name was vetoed by her grandfather King George Five, so they instead opted for the name Margaret Rose – which was after affectionately shortened to "Margot" by those close to her. According to the Independent, the registration of Margaret's birth was delayed for several days to "avert her beingness number xiii in the parish register".
Margaret has a number of other 'royal firsts' linked to her name: her wedding ceremony to lensman Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 was the first British royal wedding to be broadcast on national television, while her divorce, 18 years afterwards in 1978, was the get-go for a senior royal since Queen Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria Melita concluded her union to Ernest of Hesse in 1901.
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Margaret had a close relationship with her sister, Queen Elizabeth 2 – but fought with her as a child
Margaret and Elizabeth enjoyed a relatively ordinary upbringing for children of their wealth and social position, and like many sisters with a close age gap they weren't averse to a scrap of sibling rivalry. Marion Crawford, who worked for 17 years as a governess for the family, wrote in an unauthorised biography titled The Lilliputian Princesses that they were "2 entirely normal and good for you" picayune girls. "Neither was above taking a whack at her adversary if roused," she disclosed. "Lilibet [Elizabeth] was quick with her left claw. Margaret was more of a close-in fighter, known to bite on occasions."
Biting aside, the pair maintained a close relationship into adulthood. Margaret served as a bridesmaid during Elizabeth's matrimony to Prince Philip in 1947, while Elizabeth gifted Margaret a 20-room apartment at Kensington Palace following the latter's wedding to Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960. According to Vanity Fair, Margaret installed a straight line to Buckingham Palace from her desk at Kensington Palace, thereby assuasive the 2 sisters to ofttimes call one another.
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Margaret had nightmares of disappointing the Queen
Although their human relationship was extremely shut, being the sister of a reigning monarch may have taken its toll on Margaret. According to the journalist Craig Brown, author of Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, the princess had recurring nightmares almost disappointing Elizabeth. When a novelist asked Margaret if she e'er dreamt nigh the Queen, Margaret replied that she had nightmares of being "disapproved of".
- The young Elizabeth 2: life before she was Queen
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Margaret enjoyed a decadent lifestyle
As might be expected for a member of the royal family, Margaret lived a life of luxury. According to Chocolate-brown, an average morning for the princess in her mid-20s began with breakfast in bed and finished with a "vodka pick-me-upwards" and four-grade lunch:
Luxurious though it might accept been, Margaret's lifestyle was annihilation but tiresome.
"Even by the standards of the British majestic family in the 20th century, Margaret'south life had a soap-opera quality," writes Dominic Sandbrook in an article for BBC History Mag. He adds: "It was not a comparison she would have enjoyed, since virtually everybody who met her commented on her herculean, world-class snobbery."
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Margaret was known for beingness rude
Tales of Margaret's rudeness are well-documented in the media; indeed, it has been alleged that some of her staff nicknamed her 'Her Rude Highness'. A pop story often cited about the imperial involves a dinner political party in which Margaret was sat next to the supermodel Twiggy. The princess is said to take ignored her for several hours earlier turning to the model and asking, "And who are yous?"
"I'grand Lesley Hornby, ma'am, but people call me Twiggy," Twiggy replied.
"How unfortunate," Margaret is said to accept responded.
Margaret'southward reputation for brutal honesty follows her even to this solar day. Following the casting of Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret for season three and four of Netflix drama The Crown, reports surfaced that the extra had discussed her part in the historical drama with none other than the deceased purple herself, via a psychic.
"Manifestly, she [Margaret] was glad it was me," Bonham Carter revealed at Cheltenham Literature Festival. "My main thing when yous play someone who is real, you kind of desire their approving considering y'all take a responsibility.
"I asked her: 'Are you OK with me playing you lot?' and she said: 'You lot're better than the other extra'… that they were thinking of. They will non admit who information technology was. It was me and somebody else. That made me think perchance she is here, because that is a classic Margaret thing to say."
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Margaret savage in love with an older man who may or may not have been married at the offset of their relationship
Unlike her sister Elizabeth, Margaret was nether no immediate pressure to ally. In her early on twenties, she began a relationship with her male parent's equerry, Group Helm Peter Townsend – a man 16 years her senior. Townsend had two children with his wife, Rosemary Pawle, and was considered – at least by purple standards – a commoner on a pocket-sized income. For the young princess, their relationship was her first experience of romantic love.
- "Cheap men and expensive bottles": Princess Margaret's love affairs
Although Margaret's human relationship with Peter Townsend is frequently referred to as an 'affair', it is not articulate when they started their romance. Townsend divorced in 1952, and some sources suggest that he didn't become close to Margaret until later the death of her begetter, Rex George Half dozen, on 6 February 1952.
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Margaret chose her "duty to the Commonwealth" over marrying for love
Margaret's relationship with Townsend was revealed to the public when an eagle-eyed journalist spotted the princess affectionately plucking a piece of lint from Townsend'due south jacket during the Queen's coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1953.
Later that year, in April 1953, Townsend proposed to the 22-twelvemonth-old princess. Because Margaret was under the age of 25 at the fourth dimension – and because she was so closely linked to the line of succession – the Queen's consent to the wedlock was required by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. Faced with an impossibly difficult decision – and with varying pressures weighing down on her – Elizabeth asked Margaret to look for a few years.
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The princess and Townsend agreed to the request, planning to ally when Margaret turned 25. But merely two years later, on 31 October 1955, Margaret released the following argument:
"I would like it to exist known that I accept decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a ceremonious marriage.
"Simply mindful of the Church's teaching that Christian spousal relationship is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations earlier any others."
Had the Queen decided to stop Margaret from marrying Townsend? Not necessarily. (Although if the Netflix series The Crown is to exist believed, Elizabeth had told her sister that she would no longer exist a member of the family unit if she went alee with the marriage.)
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Margaret could accept married Townsend – but there were caveats
Papers released at the National Archives in 2004 show that the Queen and then-prime number minister Anthony Eden had drawn up a plan that would have permitted Margaret and Townsend to wed. There was, yet, a 'small' catch: Margaret, and any children produced through the marriage, would be removed from the line of succession. The terminal draft of the proposal was produced on 28 October 1955, but three days before Margaret announced that she would non be marrying Townsend.
As Townsend himself put it, in his 1978 autobiography Time and Chance: "She could have married me simply if she had been prepared to give up everything – her position, her prestige, her privy purse. I simply hadn't the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would accept lost."
- Did Princess Margaret actually try to call off Charles and Diana's wedding?
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Margaret ended upward marrying Antony Armstrong-Jones – and an estimated 300 million people watched…
In Feb 1960, Margaret announced her date to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. The revelation surprised the media, who speculated that Margaret accustomed the proposal shortly later learning that her former flame Peter Townsend intended to ally a 19-yr-old Belgian adult female named Marie-Luce Jamagne.
- Princess Margaret: from glamorous majestic to a slide into tragedy
Three months later on, on 6 May 1960, Margaret and Armstrong-Jones exchanged vows in a spectacular anniversary at Westminster Abbey. It was the showtime British purple hymeneals to be circulate on boob tube, and an estimated 300 million people tuned in to scout the occasion. Some 2,000 guests were invited, including the quondam prime minister Winston Churchill, Queen Ingrid of Denmark, and the male monarch and queen of Sweden.
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… and their nuptials cost a staggering £86,000
In comparison to the nuptials of Elizabeth 2 and Prince Philip, which took identify during the post-war austerity of 1947, Margaret'south nuptials was a lavish affair. Featuring xx hymeneals cakes, a 60-foot floral curvation and a wearing apparel made from more than 30-metres of material, the upshot reportedly price £26,000 in total, with the honeymoon – a half-dozen-week jaunt on the royal yacht Britannia – adding an additional £60,000 to the pecker. Following the honeymoon, the newlyweds moved into apartments at Apartment 1A, Kensington Palace. They went on to accept two children: David, born on 3 Nov 1961, and Sarah, born on one May 1964.
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Margaret paved the way for acceptance of royal divorce
Margaret'due south and Antony Armstrong-Jones separated in 1976, around the same time that her affair with another man, Roddy Llewellyn, was made public (and Armstrong-Jones was engaging in affairs of his own). Biographer Christopher Warwick has since suggested that Margaret's nearly indelible legacy was establishing public acceptance of royal divorce. Her relationship history was a distressing one, he wrote, only it did help make the choices of her sister'southward children – three of whom divorced (Prince Charles, who married Lady Diana Frances Spencer in 1981 and divorced her in 1996; Princess Anne, who married Captain Mark Phillips in 1973 and divorced him in 1992; and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 and divorced her in 1996) – easier than they otherwise might accept been.
- Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret: why did their marriage break down?
Although she paved the manner for royal divorces to come, the breakdown of Margaret'south union was received rather poorly in the British printing at the fourth dimension. Although divorce rates were increasing around the country in the 1970s, the purple family was held to a different standard in the optics of the people. This is according to Dominic Sandbook, who writes that "much of the monarchy's popularity during Margaret's lifetime had been based on its image equally a happy, united churchgoing family, with the Queen and Prince Philip held upwardly as exemplary parents." Margaret's divorce disrupted this platonic, and past Apr 1978, seven out of 10 people agreed that Margaret'southward behaviour had damaged her standing as a member of the purple family.
Princess Margaret was aged 47 when her divorce to Armstrong-Jones was finalised in July 1978.
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Margaret is rumoured to have been romantically involved with gangster, John Bindon
Princess Margaret did not remarry post-obit her divorce, but she had a number of well-publicised relationships and diplomacy. "Some of her subsequent lovers were virtually beyond parody," says historian Dominic Sandbrook – perhaps referring to rumours regarding her friendship with notorious gangster John Bindon.
- How many affairs did Princess Margaret have?
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Margaret suffered a number of wellness bug in her later years
She may well be known as a political party girl, but Princess Margaret could not afford to be carefree with her lifestyle every bit she approached old age. In January 1985, doctors removed office of Margaret's lung – no incertitude prompting fears that she was susceptible to the same cancer that her male parent, George VI, had suffered from. While Margaret's department proved not-cancerous, the health scare did prompt the princess to give up smoking. She was ultimately unsuccessful in this endeavor, merely did succeed in cutting back her intake from sixty to 30 a day, according to one BBC report.
- How did Princess Margaret's health decline?
Some other notable health incident took place in 1999 when Margaret was holidaying at her villa the Caribbean Island of Mustique, a venue known for her famously boozy parties. The now 68-year-quondam princess, who had suffered a stroke the previous yr, was badly burned afterwards climbing into a bathtub filled with extremely hot water. She was transported dorsum to the UK and spent some time recuperating at Windsor. A palace spokesman later explained what happened: "Princess Margaret scalded her feet a few weeks ago […] She was seen by a local doctor in Mustique, and came back to London a week after the accident."
Princess Margaret died on 9 February 2002 at the age of 71 at The King Edward VII Hospital after suffering a stroke and developing heart problems.
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Rachel Dinning is digital section editor at HistoryExtra
This commodity was first published on HistoryExtra in September 2018
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Source: https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/princess-margaret-facts-queen-elizabeth-royal-family-rebel-affair-crown-helena-bonham-carter/
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