The Queen's "rebel sister": 13 facts about Princess Margaret

It is arguably these elements of Margaret’s personality and lifestyle that make her such a fan-favourite on the award-winning Netflix drama The Crown (in which she is played by actresses Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter). But how much do you know about the Queen’s sister? We bring you the facts…

Princess Margaret was the first member of the British royal 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 mother’s side. At the time of her birth, she was fourth in line to the throne through her father, Bertie (later King George VI). Although her parents hoped to call her Ann, the name was vetoed by her grandfather King George V, so they instead opted for the name Margaret Rose – which was later 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 “avoid her being number 13 in the parish register”.

Margaret has a number of other ‘royal firsts’ linked to her name: her wedding to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 was the first British royal wedding to be broadcast on national television, while her divorce, 18 years later in 1978, was the first for a senior royal since Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Victoria Melita ended her marriage to Ernest of Hesse in 1901.

Margaret had a close relationship with her sister, Queen Elizabeth II – 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 bit of sibling rivalry. Marion Crawford, who worked for 17 years as a governess for the family, wrote in an unauthorised biography titled The Little Princesses that they were “two entirely normal and healthy” little girls. “Neither was above taking a whack at her adversary if roused,” she disclosed. “Lilibet [Elizabeth] was quick with her left hook. 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 marriage 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 direct line to Buckingham Palace from her desk at Kensington Palace, thereby allowing the two sisters to frequently call one another.

Margaret had nightmares of disappointing the Queen

Although their relationship was extremely close, 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 about disappointing Elizabeth. When a novelist asked Margaret if she ever dreamt about the Queen, Margaret replied that she had nightmares of being “disapproved of”.

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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 Brown, an average morning for the princess in her mid-20s began with breakfast in bed and finished with a “vodka pick-me-up” and four-course lunch:

Luxurious though it might have been, Margaret’s lifestyle was anything but dull.

“Even by the standards of the British royal family in the 20th century, Margaret’s life had a soap-opera quality,” writes Dominic Sandbrook in an article for BBC History Magazine. He adds: “It was not a comparison she would have enjoyed, since almost everybody who met her commented on her herculean, world-class snobbery.”

Margaret was known for being 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 popular story often cited about the royal involves a dinner party in which Margaret was sat next to the supermodel Twiggy. The princess is said to have ignored her for several hours before turning to the model and asking, “And who are you?”

“I’m Lesley Hornby, ma’am, but people call me Twiggy,” Twiggy replied.

“How unfortunate,” Margaret is said to have responded.

Margaret’s reputation for brutal honesty follows her even to this 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 actress had discussed her part in the historical drama with none other than the deceased royal herself, via a psychic.

“Apparently, she [Margaret] was glad it was me,” Bonham Carter revealed at Cheltenham Literature Festival. “My main thing when you play someone who is real, you kind of want their blessing because you have a responsibility.

“I asked her: ‘Are you OK with me playing you?’ and she said: ‘You’re better than the other actress’… that they were thinking of. They will not admit who it was. It was me and somebody else. That made me think maybe she is here, because that is a classic Margaret thing to say.”

Margaret fell in love with an older man who may or may not have been married at the start of their relationship

Unlike her sister Elizabeth, Margaret was under no immediate pressure to marry. In her early twenties, she began a relationship with her father’s equerry, Group Captain Peter Townsend – a man 16 years her senior. Townsend had two children with his wife, Rosemary Pawle, and was considered – at least by royal standards – a commoner on a modest income. For the young princess, their relationship was her first experience of romantic love.

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Although Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend is frequently referred to as an ‘affair’, it is not clear when they started their romance. Townsend divorced in 1952, and some sources suggest that he didn’t become close to Margaret until after the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February 1952.

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’s jacket during the Queen’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1953.

Later that year, in April 1953, Townsend proposed to the 22-year-old princess. Because Margaret was under the age of 25 at the time – and because she was so closely linked to the line of succession – the Queen’s consent to the marriage 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 wait for a few years.

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The princess and Townsend agreed to the request, planning to marry when Margaret turned 25. But just two years later, on 31 October 1955, Margaret released the following statement:

“I would like it to be known that I have 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 civil marriage.

“But mindful of the Church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.”

Had the Queen decided to stop Margaret from marrying Townsend? Not necessarily. (Although if the Netflix series The Crown is to be believed, Elizabeth had told her sister that she would no longer be a member of the family if she went ahead with the marriage.)

Margaret could have married Townsend – but there were caveats

Papers released at the National Archives in 2004 show that the Queen and then-prime minister Anthony Eden had drawn up a plan that would have permitted Margaret and Townsend to wed. There was, however, a ‘small’ catch: Margaret, and any children produced through the marriage, would be removed from the line of succession. The final draft of the proposal was produced on 28 October 1955, just three days before Margaret announced that she would not be marrying Townsend.

As Townsend himself put it, in his 1978 autobiography Time and Chance: “She could have married me only 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 have lost.”

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Margaret ended up marrying Antony Armstrong-Jones – and an estimated 300 million people watched…

In February 1960, Margaret announced her engagement to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. The revelation surprised the media, who speculated that Margaret accepted the proposal shortly after learning that her former flame Peter Townsend intended to marry a 19-year-old Belgian woman named Marie-Luce Jamagne.

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Three months later, on 6 May 1960, Margaret and Armstrong-Jones exchanged vows in a spectacular ceremony at Westminster Abbey. It was the first British royal wedding to be broadcast on television, and an estimated 300 million people tuned in to watch the occasion. Some 2,000 guests were invited, including the former prime minister Winston Churchill, Queen Ingrid of Denmark, and the king and queen of Sweden.

… and their wedding cost a staggering £86,000

In comparison to the nuptials of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, which took place during the post-war austerity of 1947, Margaret’s wedding was a lavish affair. Featuring 20 wedding cakes, a 60-foot floral arch and a dress made from more than 30-metres of fabric, the event reportedly cost £26,000 in total, with the honeymoon – a six-week jaunt on the royal yacht Britannia – adding an additional £60,000 to the bill. Following the honeymoon, the newlyweds moved into apartments at Apartment 1A, Kensington Palace. They went on to have two children: David, born on 3 November 1961, and Sarah, born on 1 May 1964.

Margaret paved the way for acceptance of royal divorce

Margaret’s 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 most enduring legacy was establishing public acceptance of royal divorce. Her relationship history was a sad one, he wrote, but it did help make the choices of her sister’s 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 have been.

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Although she paved the way for royal divorces to come, the breakdown of Margaret’s marriage was received rather poorly in the British press at the time. Although divorce rates were increasing around the country in the 1970s, the royal family was held to a different standard in the eyes 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 as a happy, united churchgoing family, with the Queen and Prince Philip held up as exemplary parents.” Margaret’s divorce disrupted this ideal, and by April 1978, seven out of 10 people agreed that Margaret’s behaviour had damaged her standing as a member of the royal family.

Princess Margaret was aged 47 when her divorce to Armstrong-Jones was finalised in July 1978.

Margaret is rumoured to have been romantically involved with gangster, John Bindon

Princess Margaret did not remarry following her divorce, but she had a number of well-publicised relationships and affairs. “Some of her subsequent lovers were almost beyond parody,” says historian Dominic Sandbrook – perhaps referring to rumours regarding her friendship with notorious gangster John Bindon.

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Margaret suffered a number of health problems in her later years

She may well be known as a party girl, but Princess Margaret could not afford to be carefree with her lifestyle as she approached old age. In January 1985, doctors removed part of Margaret’s lung – no doubt prompting fears that she was susceptible to the same cancer that her father, George VI, had suffered from. While Margaret’s section proved non-malignant, the health scare did prompt the princess to give up smoking. She was ultimately unsuccessful in this endeavour, but did succeed in cutting back her intake from 60 to 30 a day, according to one BBC report.

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Another 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-old princess, who had suffered a stroke the previous year, was badly burned after climbing into a bathtub filled with extremely hot water. She was transported back 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.

Read everything you need to know about season 4 of The Crown – plus our exclusive episode guides – here.

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Rachel Dinning is digital section editor at HistoryExtra

This article was first published on HistoryExtra in September 2018