Princess Margaret: Rebel Without a Crown - British Royal Documentary

[Music] princess margaret a woman caught in the shadow of her sister who became the ultimate royal rebel you just knew if margaret was there it was gonna be fun she wasn't a kind of two-dimensional figure that sort of fit the traditional mold of what a good royal should be margaret could be a total cow but she could also charm people back from the dead always battling to find a role and personal happiness she was denied the love she wanted she was in love with a man who was a divorcee and she had an affair with a man who was 17 years younger than her the queen agreed that the best course of action for her sister was to get divorced she was a princess who chose to live her life exactly how she wanted caught in controversy and scandal along the way the queen was furious she thought her sister was behaving appallingly it was inappropriate on every level she had tarnished the reputation of the royal family she damaged the royal family tonight we hear the true story from those who knew her best princess margaret the rebel without a crown throughout her life she was going to be doing things her way she was a star in february 2002 the world said goodbye to one of the most intriguing and original princesses the royal family had ever known she loved life and lived it to the full so many people remember her for that vitality and attractiveness she had this wonderfully sharp mind one of the fondest memories i shall have of her was ways of sitting at the piano playing away with a large very elegant cigarette holder in her mouth but not all the tributes were quite so complementary when princess margaret died i think the obituaries were stuck to some extent because she was a very complex contradictory kind of character she did a lot of work for charity but she also seemed to be unpleasant on many occasions came across as entitled a bit of a snob in a paradoxical kind of way she was both a very good person but she had this terrible reputation for being promiscuous for getting divorced the first royal for centuries to get divorced biographer christopher warwick was the only author the princess ever cooperated with most people who knew princess margaret would agree with the queen who always regarded her sister as an enigma she had the kind of personality that in many ways wasn't so very easy to define she was a one-off but why was she so controversial margaret was born into a family who had not even been destined to one day wear the crown in 1930 the duke of york the second in line to the throne welcomed margaret into the world she was a younger sister for their four-year-old daughter princess elizabeth there's some lovely archive footage of elizabeth and margaret when they were growing up it really speaks to the close relationship they shared and you can understand why they didn't go to regular schools they were each other's best friend they could go at it marion crawford their governors had said they didn't hesitate to argue and fight and elizabeth apparently had a good left hook whereas margaret wasn't shy to bite her sister in return so there were the ups and downs that you would imagine from siblings as well but really at the end of the day they had each other's backs the youngest is always spoilt and there's no question that margaret wasn't spoiled by her mom and dad interestingly elizabeth was quite happy for margaret to be the center of attention because she said if margaret's there she makes everybody laugh and so it took the pressure off elizabeth who perhaps was slightly more introverted than her mischievous younger sister despite her mischievous ways there was one family member who was very much in her corner she was her father's favorite he once said elizabeth is my pride but margaret is my joy and certainly he was the really the most important man in her life always it was her father who was completely central to her he had a temper that could flare up without any warning they called it his nashes and princess margaret was somebody who could dispel those nashes by saying something doing something you know even throwing a spoon over her shoulder and that would dispel the temper and he would just dissolve into laughter but the cozy family-orientated world of the duke and duchess of york was turned on its head in 1936 when edward viii abdicated leaving his brother to step into his shoes before the abdication margaret was the younger daughter of the duke of york which is quite a long way from the succession but after the abdication margaret's father became king george vi her older sister elizabeth was of course the heir to the throne so margaret was now relegated to that really difficult position which is being the younger sibling of the air to the throne i think they were actually known as b1 and p2 and it was kind of shorthand wasn't it for for the two princesses elizabeth suddenly had been set up for a starring role that perhaps she'd never imagined and margaret from then on had a sense that not that she was second best but that she wasn't going to be queen she had to compensate for not being her sister and the only way she could do that was by trying to get as much attention as she could by being funnier louder slightly more mischievous princess margaret said to me that she never minded being described or being called the younger daughter but she said i always minded being described as the younger sister and i think part of that was that she minded the idea that she was always in her sister's shadow [Music] with fewer responsibilities than elizabeth margaret's approach to royal engagements was at times more playful before i finish i'm going to ask your headmistress the school may have an extra day's holiday it's a mark of my visit [Music] it's perfectly true that throughout her life she was going to be doing things her way but somebody once said to me i tell you what she wants she was a star she was gorgeous i mean she had a wonderful figure a very very pretty face she was petite and uh often charming not always charming but the press adored her she made great copy great headlines great pictures and of course she was out on the town more and more so she was there to be seen it's almost the beginning of the paparazzi era i suppose and she was mobbed mobbed by cameraman increasingly as she grew older and actually more beautiful cameramen of the italian press were so intent on getting pictures of the princess that she often found it difficult to see anything but then everything she did made news and during the 50s the press wanted photographs of only two women one was elizabeth taylor and the other was princess maureen she was beginning to outshine her sister elizabeth suddenly she was the center of people's attention rather than elizabeth who was also very beautiful but it didn't have to make any effort because it was all fixed for her it was margaret who had to make the effort even though margaret struggled to find a clear role she made sure that she was treated as a member of the royal family margaret had that aura of royalty that you really can't teach and she quite liked that she was superior in her view she liked to wear her superiority and so sometimes that came across in sort of snobbish but at the time royal deference was a thing and margaret milked it for all it was worth she enjoyed life she felt that her sister was going to be queen there was no major responsibility on her and therefore she didn't have to toe the line in the same way as her elder sister had to so she did enjoy clubs she did enjoy the company of men she did enjoy parties with fewer responsibilities than her sister margaret took full advantage of london's nightlife she loved going off to various nightclubs very often the sun would be rising through the back window of the car as she drove home and so she'd stay in bed till 11 o'clock the princess was enjoying the post-war years but the health of her father began to cast a shadow over the royal family the king was extremely ill he was a heavy smoker he had cancer and he had an operation and he never really fully recovered from that cancer operation i remember him opening the festival britain in 1951 he certainly did not look a well man the pressure really was on princess elizabeth and princess margaret to kind of stand in for him in 1952 princess elizabeth flew off on a tour of the commonwealth margaret however remained with her father in britain and stayed with him at sandringham seven days later her world would be turned upside down the man that she absolutely adored had gone to bed that night kissed them good night and he'd gone off to bed they've had a wonderful evening that had a lovely day a lot of care in the world and at some time on that morning of the 6th of february 1952 his heart stopped and it was his page of course that went into wake him and found him dead margaret was devastated by the loss of her father she was inconsolable to the point that she was heavily sedated with sleeping tablets because she couldn't sleep she was very weepy i suppose she felt at the time but what future was there for her what was she going to do you know dad was always there papa was always there and now life was changing dramatically one rain has ended a rain begins princess elizabeth now became the new monarch britain had gained a queen but margaret had lost her childhood friend as the queen herself had said for her yes she too was devastated but she suddenly was queen she had a role she had a husband she had two young children but as she acknowledged margaret was on her own she'd suddenly lost the man that she adored what was she going to do she just was so lost elizabeth was now taken up with the business of being queen and had less time for her younger sister and with their father now gone there was no one to reign in margaret's rebellious tendencies [Music] after her father's death margaret's life completely changed she was no longer the king's daughter but the queen's sister margaret had to move out of buckingham palace without her father's guidance what would the rebellious young princess do next she moved into clarence house with her mother and that was not always an easy relationship it wasn't they didn't love each other but her mother was never her number one supporter and was often very critical of what she wore and margaret often was humiliating and rude to her mother as well sometimes she would come in and find the queen mother watching the racing queen mother loved racing and of course had some horses and she didn't like that or thought it was boring she would just simply pick up the remote and change channels so there was a good deal of irritability but she could she did love her deeply but was difficult with her in those days when well brought up young girls didn't have a job for margaret who was cleverer than most and smarter there must have been quite a lot of boredom she didn't really know what to do with herself if everything is done for you you get up after breakfast what do you do to lunchtime that's why she always focused on the evening because that's when her friends stopped working came to see her sometimes she could be very difficult with the household staff in karen's house the stuff i think she thought was her mother's stuff not hers not that that's an excuse a few years ago i wrote a book about a chap called backstairs billy who worked for the royal family in clarence house for more than half a century he knew margaret really well and he told me she could be a total cow but she could also charm people back from the dead that was his phrase margaret was also harboring a secret she was romantically involved with a man 15 years her senior group captain peter townsend he was a divorcee at a time when the church of england did not approve of divorce despite his record as a war hero within royal circles he was not seen as a suitable match peter townsend was an raf pilot and uh after the war he became an aquarium to king george vi which is where he would have come into contact with both princesses elizabeth and margaret and margaret being a sort of teenager had a crush and obviously they got fairly close you don't need to be a genius to see that what she was lacking in her life was a father figure and peter townsend really encapsulated everything he provided the rock that she had lost from her father their romance was only known to a few until the day of the queen's coronation away from the cameras margaret gave herself and peter away with a gesture that some bdi journalists picked up on in her excitement princess margaret went up to townsend and put her hand on his tunic to brush away a piece of thread this gesture this very intimate gesture of you know a very unroyal way to behave brushing a man's coat with your hand is immediately taken up by the world's press it's the beginning of a whole scandal around princess margaret princess margaret was a very calculating and instinctive sense of drama and an instinctive sense of how to get the attention that she'd craved since she was a girl the incident with the brushing the fluff from townsend's jacket she would have known at such a public event that it would be spotted and it's the kind of intimate action that speaks volumes the coronation of all days is a day which belongs to margaret's sister elizabeth i mean as queen this is perhaps the most important ceremony in in her reign and yet here we have margaret her younger sister doing something out of order creating a sensation diverting attention from her sister the affair was now public margaret's romance with townsend caused a sensation particularly as peter was a divorcee with two sons she actually had the public's support i think she was so popular with members of the public and things were changing i don't think the public was too concerned that peter was a divorced father of two children they just saw that she was happy that was members of the public if we cut to the government they were horrified prime minister winston churchill told the queen that the dominion prime ministers would never accept such a marriage the british cabinet parliament said they wouldn't recognize the marriage townsend's divorce status created a huge problem if there was to be a future with princess margaret princess margaret went to the queen and said that she and peter townsend were in love and that they wanted to marry it created problems because here you've got the queen as governor of the church of england and it was a church that did not recognize divorce it also put the queen as sovereign in a difficult position because at that time all members of the royal family had to have the queen's consent in order to marry the queen really couldn't give her consent but by asking them to wait this was pushing margaret towards her 25th birthday now that was significant because at 25 a member of the royal family no longer needed the sovereign's permission to marry as the queen's younger sister margaret was still powerless to make her own decisions peter townsend was sent away from the royal household to become military heir attache in brussels margaret had lost her father and now she was losing her lover she wouldn't see him for the next two years but as margaret approached her 25th birthday she could now decide for herself if she was going to become the next mrs peter townsend she writes a letter to the then prime minister anthony she writes very tellingly and we get very much the sense of doubt they hadn't seen one another for two years and she said it is only by seeing him that i can decide whether i can marry him or not on townsend's return the press speculated whether margaret would accept his proposal margaret's status as a celebrity royal really begins at the time of the town's end romance there's such an incredible narrative here she is this beautiful princess and this is the love of her life and she's been denied this man because of the pressures of the establishment and the result is that she becomes hugely popular margaret sees the press perhaps mistakenly as uh being on her side and she's not yet aware of the danger that they could turn and destroy you just as quickly as they make you despite the government's initial opposition behind closed doors they had agreed that margaret could retain her royal status and her income from the civil list if she decided to marry peter townsend it was now down to margaret if she was going to accept princess margaret's personal message issued from clarence house began with these words i would like it to be known that i have decided not to marry group captain peter townsend the announcement followed many months of speculation in newspapers and among the people of great britain indeed throughout the world what had happened here was that this huge huge romance likened by some romantic journalists to the greatest love affair since romeo and juliet their feelings quite obviously had started to weigh that they were not as much in love as they were she cited her commitment to the christian faith as the reason why she could not accept hansen's proposal that in its own way i think was to save face because back in 1955 after two years gosh you know the press were all over it they could hardly have just said sorry guys it's kind of over the queen's sister had rebelled against what was expected of her and turned town's end down but in doing so margaret's future now looked even more uncertain after margaret broke up with peter tansen um her life really um enters a bit of a vacuum she doesn't really have a sense of direction she has terrible tantrums she gets very cross she shuts herself up in her bedroom she's quite difficult i think the real problem and this is not margaret's fault what what is a princess to do there's no script she was at a crossroads in in terms of her private life she was now in her mid-twenties uh what she's going to get married who was she going to get married to there were all sorts of young men who were considered eligible bachelors and it wasn't until sort of late in 1950 that you met a young photographer called anthony armstrong jones she saw in him something that she would quite like to have been bohemian uh footloose and fancy free margaret's meeting with tony would change the course of british royal history [Music] in june 2006 four years after princess margaret had died the auction house christie sold her possessions for the sum of nearly 14 million pounds the items on sale gave a unique insight into her personality and tastes some of her clothes were extravagant and extraordinary but particularly her jewelry [Music] and many of the objects for sale in the auction also reflected her artistic tastes the items sold were testament to margaret's lifelong love of art and artists since her early 20s more than any other member of the royal family she had been an enthusiastic supporter of the creative arts in britain margaret has an artistic side to her margaret liked actors directors ballet dancers theater people as the 1950s drew to a close britain experienced a revolution in fashion music and art we're greatly looking forward to seeing the fashion show presented by well-known and important designers from britain for margaret always the rebel princess this new world held an irresistible allure this is just something that she thought would she could make her own she liked dancing she liked jazz she liked staying up late and she liked to rebel so she wanted to spend time with creatives bohemians since she split from peter townsend in 1955 there had been great public interest in margaret's love life as she moved farther and farther into britain's new fashionable art scene the nation speculated over her relationship status by this stage she'd been introduced to all sorts of potential suitors and none of them had taken her fancy i think margaret always wanted someone who was a bit edgy a bit dangerous in 1958 at the request of one of her male admirers margaret was photographed by one of the most cutting-edge photographers in london tony armstrong jones tony had a habit of telling his sitters what he wanted them to wear or not where he got the princess to change her dress to alter her jewelry for margaret who was accustomed to total deference no one ever told her what to do this was completely new and i think that's what made him so interesting and challenging and unique that's when they realized they were both incredibly attracted to one another i mean he was immensely sexy and so was she and it was an attraction a physical attraction that they never really lost before long unknown to both the public and the princess's inner circle margaret and tony started a clandestine relationship the two would go to parties they would arrive separately and because everyone was so focused on margaret making a grand marriage uh they were able to fly under the radar tony lived in rotherhive east london far away from the gates and guards of buckingham palace and he used to take margaret there on the back of his motorbike and she absolutely loved it no one recognized her of course who'd expect a princess to be zooming through the streets of london on the back of a bike with a handsome photographer and there you know there they'd make love and they'd smoke a huge amount of cigarettes and drink a huge amount of alcohol and have a lifestyle that she she never dreamt she could be part of i don't think in february 1960 the palace announced margaret's engagement to tony it was a huge huge shock to everybody nobody had even guested even his best friends in keeping with her defiance of convention margaret's choice of husbands seemed unlike any other royal spouse some people were thrilled for them others were horrified how could the late king's daughter marry a photographer how could she marry someone who worked for a living i mean this was unheard of tony was the first person without a title otherwise known as a commoner to marry into the royals for 400 years yet in spite of his outsider status and his rebellious personality tony had in fact come from a well-heeled background his official biographer ander corsi interviewed tony extensively about his life with margaret his father was a qc he went to eaton he had a very good education so i would say social standing was excellent he was around the aristocracy he knew how to mingle with those types but he also loved to be around the dancers and models and actresses as well so he was able to have a foot in both camps yet tony's social confidence hid the traumas of a tough childhood he suffered as a child from polio and i think that was one of the defining factors of his life it enables you to take more risks you might as well live to the fullest he was always prepared to indulge every excitement and every risk [Music] although margaret's rebellious nature inclined her towards tony's artistic set he would go on to introduce her to a social circle quite unlike anything any royal had ever seen tony's world was completely different from the usual royal world bohemian hardly sums it up he was absolutely at the cutting edge of everything that happened in the 60s i remember one of his secretaries telling me that the moment tight jeans came in she had to sit there stitching tony's jeans as tight as she could in fact she had to do them so tight she then had to undo them she couldn't get them on over his heel tony's relationships before margaret in particular defied the norms of conventional society tony was a man with a huge sex drive i mean a libido like no one else's i think he i mean one woman would never have been enough he told me i think the way he used to put it was i love a change tony's colorful love life even drew in best friend jeremy frye and his wife camilla i think you see jeremy fry's wife had been a girlfriend of tony's and he he loved them both and he used to go and stay there a lot and i suppose the best way i can put it was that um it was a bit of a free-for-all i think tony was bisexual somebody once said to me if it's got socks on he'll jump on it [Music] the rebellious princess margaret was marrying sexually liberated tony in the hope he would give up his free living ways it was a gamble no other royal had made in their choice of partner with the wedding day set for may 6 1960 plans took shape but there was soon a scandal over tony's choice of best man his old friend from eaton jeremy frye jeremy fry had had been embroiled in a homosexual act in 1952 and been fined homosexuality was frowned upon it was also against the law and so no longer could he be best man and so they had to find someone else the wedding took place in westminster abbey with 2 000 guests but as the first royal wedding to be televised another 300 million around the world were able to watch the ceremony it seemed quite modern in that we were able to witness it for ourselves it was no longer something going on behind closed doors riots all over britain watched every single bit of it and here she was looking utterly beautiful for many commentators tony status as a commoner embodied the sweeping social changes happening across britain at this time in many ways margaret's marriage was a great leveler it showed people that yes a member of the royal family can marry a regular person just like you or me margaret and tony's guest list also ran against the grain of royal tradition she filled out the pews with politicians with celebrities with the bohemian artistic set that she and tony have become such good friends with there were a huge number of celebrities through her wedding margaret had rebelled against royal traditions and edged the monarchy closer to the progressive outlook of 1960s britain her choice of honeymoon 2 was a new departure for a royal bride margaret and tony embarked on the royal yacht britannia for a six-week tour of the caribbean and one of the islands that she decided to visit was the very barren and basic island of mustique mystique was owned by margaret's friends lord colin glenn connor and his wife lady anne glenn connor colin said to margaret when they were on mustique what shall i give you for a wedding present would you like a jewel in a box or would you like a piece of land and quick as a flash margaret said she'd really rather like a piece of land and then when he gave her a piece of land on mustique she actually asked for it to be a bit bigger having received part of mustique as a wedding gift margaret returned to britain with tony [Music] now known as the ireland countess of snowden they settled into life as a royal couple for the first years of their marriage life was wonderful they were in love they were happy they rode around in a sort of blue roadster which were so luxurious at the time before long the rebel royal had become one half of the most famous couple in the country i think it was the beginning of royalty being celebrity being part of the celebrity circuit they are really in this very very glamorous crowd of actors comedians writers artists you know the the hipsters of the day the bohemians of the day you know it's it's very cool although now one half of a celebrity power couple margaret's own fame had always overshadowed tony's she was extraordinarily beautiful she had a lovely figure uh i don't think it was possible to catch her at a bad angle she was a completely gorgeous glamorous sex symbol margaret was breaking new ground as the first royal celebrity of the modern age but her contrary nature brought her into conflict with others in this exclusive social set sometimes she was so rude it was staggering she would say exactly what she thought and she was sitting once next to twiggy the model twiggy and she ignored her for about two hours um and then turned to her and said who you and um she said my name's leslie mam but most people know me as as twiggy um and she turns it uh how unfortunate well the notice has just gone over 10 minutes to 12. in 1961 tony and margaret's first child david was born followed three years later by daughter sarah externally margaret seemed to be enjoying the perfect life of a royal princess wife and mother but cracks were emerging in her relationship with tony as he struggled to leave behind his colorful past and the royal family would suffer some of the most sensational scandals of the century in the 1960s britain was undergoing a cultural reawakening with new music new fashions and new freedoms the country had a spring in its step and no one embodied this new-found energy more than princess margaret and her husband tony armstrong jones now known as the earl and countess of snowden they were the couple that everyone wanted at their dinner party or their event i mean they they were dazzling both of them for margaret raised in the strict traditions of buckingham palace the world of entertainers offered a chance to rebel against the expectations placed on her since childhood and i think margaret found herself drawn into that world of celebrity and loving every minute of it i think she was quite bewitched by all of that now firmly established in celebrity circles margaret and tony became closely associated with british comedian peter sellers peter salas course was slightly barking and of course was very very very funny peter sellers was an international star through the pink panther films along with his wife brett eckland a future bond girl he was a regular visitor to kensington palace he became quite obsessed with his new friends i think peter sellers couldn't quite believe that he was going around to princess margaret's for dinner i present ladies and gentlemen my impersonation in 11 seconds flat before your very eyes of her royal highness princess margaret in this home video made by peter sellers during a weekend spent with the couple we see margaret taking part in one of the improvised sketches they used to write and perform together privately margaret's life had a glamour and a reverence never before associated with the royal family but beneath the glittering veneer her marriage to tony had lost its sparkle while she was enjoying the excitement of meeting his autistic friends he was finding the traditions of royal life restricting i think tony was getting a bit fed up of being mr princess margaret he'd led a very free existence and he he was being told what to do being told where he had to show up at what time and what he was expected to wear and who he was going to meet ill at ease in his new royal role tony threw himself into his work as one of britain's top photographers he was addicted to work really um and so i think being trapped inside palace walls was just not a life he could sustain before long his commitment was rewarded when he was appointed artistic advisor to the sunday times magazine margaret might have been thrilled by the recognition certainly tony was but the effect of that was that he had to work much harder and it meant that she was often alone he was unworking and she would ring up and first of course he took the calls then he would refuse to take them he felt he felt pinned down and the more he tried to draw away the more she tried to become more possessive margaret and tony had very different expectations from the marriage and their rebellious natures which had once been a point of common ground now became a source of conflict they both realized quite quickly that they had fiery tempers they played hard but they fought hard as well the root of all their problems was that they both wanted to be center stage princess margaret was used to being center stage and she'd never had nose said to her and she had a strong will tony equally strong will he only did what he wanted and he one of the things he wanted very much was attention tony's work was not the only thing that stood between him and margaret in the years before their relationship began tony had been known for indulging in multiple non-exclusive relationships and when he married margaret many of these continued he didn't want sex just with one woman or one princess he wanted sex with a lot of ladies at the same time he was an attractive man and he spent all his life around other attractive people models artists designers actresses actors and there are lots of stories have been having lots of affairs with lots of them during the engagement he conceived a child by the wife of his best friend jeremy fry that child was born while he and margaret were on honeymoon so no he certainly didn't stop seeing other women if there was a competition to find the most promiscuous man in england he would be up there in the first division i'm not sure margaret actually really knew what she was getting into in that sense tony's affairs with other women soon became the worst kept secret in royal circles but even more scandalous for margaret in an age far more conservative than our own were the rumors of his involvement with other men tony armstrong jones was very attractive to both sexes i mean there are endless rumors about the men who were attracted to him both um jeremy thorpe the liberal leader with whom he was at eaton and jeremy frye there was a time when princess margaret was at a function in the united states and uh her host happened to ask princess margaret how is the queen and margaret said which one my sister my mother or my husband not one to be slighted easily it wasn't long before margaret took a lead from tony's behavior and began affairs of her own very often they were what i would describe as revenge affairs rather you may not find me attractive but look here is somebody else who does she retaliated famously with the nephew of the prime minister alex douglas hume the most extraordinary thing about their numerous affairs with other people was that they threw these affairs in each other's faces and on one occasion princess margaret said to her husband well i slept with and she mentioned a male friend of of her husband's and he shot back immediately well i slept with him as well as with tony's affairs rumors of margaret's liaisons were whispered throughout royal circles some of the most famous names in the world became attached to her romantically all sorts of people have been being named there was speculation that she had a relationship with the british actor david niven mick jagger's even come into the frame picasso um allegedly uh offered to marry her but she was married at the time so he was always extravagant margaret liked men she'd like to be naughty i'd be very surprised if she didn't occasionally you know let go of the reins and just do what physically she wanted to do the rumors of margaret's affairs soon reached tony and his reaction could be very public and very vicious tony was much cleverer at being cruel than margaret was and one instance of this was that perhaps in a book that she was reading or in the draw where she kept her gloves she'd find notes one she found was 10 reasons why i hate you or he would tell her dinner to shut up shut up you don't know what you're talking about let x speak i want to hear something sensible so it was he was very snubbing and it was really awful for her for the queen if details of margaret's life became known by the british public the damage caused to the royal family could be irreparable they were supposed to set an example of how to live with victorian values of where you put your family first and everyone behaves appropriately um and so i think the queen was very disappointed in terms of how both margaret and tony were behaving um but i think you know she was at the same time hoping that none of this would be made public the one solace margaret had was her royal duties with her reputation as the rebel princess firmly established by the mid-60s it's an aspect of her life that is often overlooked it must have been a great thrill for the girls meeting the princess especially so soon after her engagement in 1962 she took on a public role that remained dear to her throughout her life the chancellorship of keele university it's characteristic of her to choose a university that was new and that didn't have anything sort of fussy and old-fashioned about it with many of her other interests she was quite fickle with with keel university she was incredibly consistent i've seen a testimony of graduates going back decades saying how charming how lovely she was to them margaret's sense of royal duty was put to the test when she and tony visited america in 1965. initially a private visit for the couple it was soon decided at the request of the queen that margaret should also fulfill some royal duties at a time when british-american relations were strained prime minister wilson disagreed with president lyndon johnson over the vietnam war but britain was in need of help from america to approve a vital loan of 800 million pounds to pay off a trade deficit it was crucial that britain worked on the special relationship with its most powerful ally i think really the the british government saw margaret and tony's trip to the us as an opportunity for members of the royal family to go in and and really do the charm offensive for which they're so well known margaret and tony's tour arrived on the 4th of november 1965 with a 12-person entourage and 75 pieces of luggage the first thing they do is take over two floors of a hotel they did conduct upwards of 60 engagements during their three weeks in the us but there were a lot of problems along the way sometimes a plane when they were traveling around america had to double back on itself to pick up the rest of the luggage it was absurdly extravagant after san francisco the party moved to l.a where margaret encountered the cream of hollywood there were quite a lot of really really late night parties and none more exciting than when she would meet some of the hollywood stars but being margaret the meet and greets in hollywood didn't pass without incident she criticized elizabeth taylor for the size of her ring which she said was very vulgar and she upset grace kelly by telling her she really didn't look like a movie star and of course grace kelly replied i wasn't born as a movie star but even if margaret rubbed american celebrities the wrong way the american public fell in love with this rebellious and glamorous royal the americans always loved our royal family so she was she was the belle of the ball over there america just schools absolutely nuts for them they're practically bigger than the beatles or the rolling stones you know everywhere they go they're completely mobbed after four days resting on a friend's ranch in arizona the official duties ended in washington where margaret was due to meet president lyndon johnson at a dinner in the white house both she and the president raised their glasses to each other and the dancing as you might expect at an event attended by princess margaret went on into the wee small hours and margaret and the president uh conducted a foxtrot lively foxtrot he is absolutely swept away by her beauty and her charm and of course you know she can be such great company she can be vivacious she's the life and soul of the party she's gregarious she's got stories left right and center she's got dirty jokes having partied with the president and wowed the american public the trip was deemed a success by margaret tony and their staff but their reception in britain told them a different story the public soon discovered that the trip had cost nearly 600 000 pounds in today's money which was an outrageous sum of money and the stories had also come out about the people that had been offended it just didn't sit well with members of parliament and indeed with the british public who just viewed margaret and tony as having a really rather fabulous holiday at their expense it was quickly decided that she would never do you never do another trip like that because she'd upset so many people she stayed up late and got drunk at parties she just was too much of a loose cannon [Music] although the british public had been critical of margaret's american tour they still knew nothing of her deteriorating marriage to tony and neither did the queen i was told very reliably that so bad were the rattles between princess margaret and tony that close friends thought the queen should have some indication of the level the volume of the acronym and so the queen was invited to kensington palace and margot and tony were at each other's throats like it was going out of fashion the marriage of margaret and tony was in in real trouble uh he was spending an awful lot of time away having affairs on the side the problem was that broadly amongst the public still the royal family presented harmonious family life so that was a problem that i think the queen saw coming down the road those still married by 1973 margaret and tony were now leading increasingly separate lives and before long a scandal like no other would lift the lid on the truth about the rebel princess [Music] in 1973 the public were unaware that princess margaret's marriage was failing amid rumors of her husband tony's affairs margaret spent more time with friends and a new man would enter her life she met roddy llewellyn who was a aristocratic landscape gardener very well respected he was only 25 at the time she was uh 17 years older she met him at the cafe royal in edinburgh and they went on to this house party and had a wonderful time and she was immediately drawn to roddy by 1970 which was i think probably the grimmest period of her life she was smoking too much she was drinking too much and what this young man does for this middle-aged lady is to give her back her sense of worth but as a married princess the palace were keen that margaret keep the affair away from the public eye think the royal family took a pretty broad and sympathetic understanding what they dreaded was anything becoming public knowledge so as far as they were concerned if it made margaret happy and she could keep it quiet that was all right but once things become public property then it can't be allowed to be fodder for the newspapers one place princess margaret felt she could keep the affair under wraps was at her private caribbean home in mustique mystique was her hideaway one of her old friends colin tennant had given her the land on which her house was built she could have the people she wanted there in a relaxed environment with plenty of alcohol sunny weather and away from prying eyes what better place to see the new man in her life and and it not getting to the press but she was naive it was always going to get depressed so in 1976 on sunday morning uh the queen opens her newspaper and she's splashed all over the front page a photograph of her sister margaret with roddy llewellyn and here suddenly uh is her bohemian uh difficult little sister um exploding a bomb in front of her because instantly it's clear to the whole world that princess margaret is um involved in an unsuitable and adulterous love affair the press revelations of margaret's affair would have a damaging impact not only on the princess's own image but on that of the royal family as a whole this was not just a regular person that had been caught out having an affair this was princess margaret she was the queen's sister she had a responsibility to the institution of monarchy and people expected members of the royal family to act to a different level it was extraordinary it was just all over the place margaret causing trouble again i mean the peter townsend stuff have been all over the papers and there'd been a lot of sympathy for margaret now there wasn't sympathy for margaret she had tarnished the reputation of the royal family the public were enraged because ministers are saying look at princess margaret she's swarming around the caribbean with a boy 17 years her junior she's doing it on on government funds uh she's just on a perpetual holiday and so suddenly the public are crying what about your duties margaret what about your civil income list margaret the queen absolutely would have been horrified the public storm around the rebel princess's affair now made the marriage to tony untenable the problem for the queen is that it's clearly impossible to go on pretending that margaret and tony uh are happily married they absolutely aren't um and this photograph clearly puts margaret in the blame for the failure of the marriage and there's a great deal of public sympathy for poor tony who is allegedly being portrayed in this way by his wife which i have never discussed could you confirm him or deny the report yeah that yes i could uh certainly deny the reports the very idea that princess margaret should be the person who is causing a divorce um is really hard uh for the royal family to take into accept so clearly something needs to happen with the snowden's marriage and in march it was an announcement was made by buckingham palace that tony and margaret had formally decided to separate now this announcement came out unbeknownst to tony he was in australia at the time and he issued his own statements i'm naturally desperately sad in every way but this had to happen poor old tony he's being cheated on by his wife princess margaret who's swanning around the caribbean lord snowden is there any hope of a reconciliation thank you the narrative really was incredibly damaging and very difficult for the queen to deal with two years later in 1978 princess margaret and lord snowden's divorce was finally announced [Music] the split left margaret as the first senior royal divorcee in centuries setting an unwanted precedent for future generations of royals so there we have the d word entering the royal family for well for the first time in 400 years since henry viii a senior member of the royal family cutting the ties of marriage and getting divorced i think it was shocking within the royal family that this should be allowed to happen it was just unthinkable there was no precedent for it and it was seen as a failure of an ideal family however what it said to people was was there always been this image this idea that royal marriages were always stable happy brilliant this goes to prove that royal lives are just the same as ours this was our first and this probably was the divorce that set the trend for future decades of princess royal getting divorced from mark phillips of charles and diner getting divorced and andrew and fergie getting divorced in 1996. margaret's relationship with roddy would soon fizzle out leaving the divorced and single princess at yet another crossroads in her life in 1980 roddy had met a lady called tanya soskin and this was the lady that he the following year married but the princess was always very good at putting on a brave face i think she was hurt i think that was a really hard time for i think it was very very lonely you know she experienced intense heartbreak with peter townsend she'd had heartbreak with anthony armstrong jones she'd had heartache with roddy llewellyn you know her her life was quite tear-stained in terms of her her love life and then to have this huge public battering it was a very very difficult time for her [Music] the challenge now for princess margaret was to rebuild her shattered public image she was known as a rebel princess and the words charity work don't fit with that image although she did do a good deal but trouble with younger royals was just around the corner for the rebel princess after diana's panorama interview the princess was utterly appalled it was a cold war between these two royal [Music] neighbors [Music] [Applause] after the affairs tabloid scandal and an unprecedented royal divorce in the 70s 1981 saw princess margaret begin the next decade with another royal first albeit a more positive one she accepted the request to do desert island discs which was unprecedented at the time no royal figure had ever done it i think maybe that was an attempt to sort of recast herself in terms of her public image i have a list here your presidencies and patronages of various welfare organizations and children societies have very long list scores on them and they must all be visited of course fears they must all be taken an interest in i'm president of quite a few rather important national ones of course like the nsbcc my sister was um president before me and i'm very sorry to be able to tell you that it's got very much worse cruelty to children [Music] i don't think the princess was known for making an awful lot of speeches but when she cared about a subject particularly she really did care about children and the nspcc particularly um she could make a most eloquent and impassioned speech we know that some children can die of neglect thousands more can be stunted physically and emotionally throughout their lives through lack of love or want to proper care and nurturing these are the forgotten children whom we must never let the world forget she was always known as a sort of rebel princess and the words charity work don't fit with that image and so i think her charity work tended rather to be overlooked although she did do a good deal she may have had the image of a royal rebel but the princess was patron of over 80 charities and it was her work with one cause in particular in which she set yet another lesser-known president everyone associates diana with aids but actually margaret was there first but probably didn't get the publicity for it in 1987 she became involved with london lighthouse and the aids victims before diana became very involved she was never a touchy feely person but she was there making the people there laugh being supportive and sympathetic and 1988 she opened their new place [Music] by the 1990s diana was the most famous princess in the world a position once occupied by margaret herself but as the elder princess began to fade from the public eye she would take issue with the new princesses on the royal scene i think when diana came on the scene and fergie with the focus of all the press attention around the uk she was playing jealous i know she had been the belle of the ball she had been the one that people wanted to follow so i think she was jealous and she was unsympathetic towards their behavior i know that after diana's panorama interview when she divulged everything about her marriage to martin bashir margaret was utterly appalled there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded as far as margaret was concerned that was the ultimate act of betrayal um yes margaret had had her own infidelities but you don't talk about them on a public forum you don't air your dirty laundry and more than that you don't throw the entire royal family and with it the institution of monarchy under the bus she was furious margaret's fury also extended to sarah ferguson after details of the duchess's affair would leak to the press these are the pictures that the queen and her son the duke of york will have seen at the breakfast table at balmoral this morning an intimate series of photos showing her daughter-in-law and his wife topless at the poolside in the south of france kissing a texan millionaire the mail on sunday reported a letter margaret wrote to her saying clearly you have never considered the damage you are causing us all how dare you discredit us like this there is a great irony with how princess margaret reacts to diana and sarah ferguson they of course go through quite a torrid time in their relationships they have a huge amount of press intrusion and you would think that margaret having gone through all of this might have been you know slightly kindly and a wee bit benevolent to these women but she's quite harsh towards them margaret's rebellion toward diana and fergie would not fail to escape the attention of her sister the queen did try to intervene i've been told but i think experience would have told queen elizabeth just not much can be done this is my sister she's always been an issue she's always been difficult we're just going to have to accept that from now on the headlines margaret made were increasingly due to her ill health princess margaret arrived at the exclusive london hospital just after eight this morning she walked unaided from the car although she looked a little tired and unsteady she had her first stroke in 1998 a year later she had a dreadful accident where she scolded her feet she was in a terrible way after that in 2000 and 2001 she had strokes again and she wasn't really able to conduct official engagements in the way that she used to the stroke started to affect her speech left her very depressed i remember sitting next to her on a number of occasions at lunch at windsor castle and she did cut a very sad figure because looking back on on the sort of 1950s and the 1960s this very beautiful woman frequently photographed very happy-go-lucky and now seeing her confined to a wheelchair with wrap-around glasses finding it very difficult to hold a conversation you couldn't help but feel sorry for her and i did [Music] after suffering a final stroke princess margaret died on february the 9th 2002 aged 71 draped in her own blue and crimson standard princess margaret's coffin leaves the king edward the seventh hospital late this afternoon her death was a devastating blow to the queen in the year of her golden jubilee i was there in windsor for princess margaret's funeral and the queen she doesn't often show um emotion but in that moment she couldn't hold back the tears and i'm sure the queen in that moment felt very alone because it had been the two of them through their childhood and she'd always been so protective of her troubled little sister troubled scandalous but complex princess margaret began life as the spare to the air only to discard that ill-defined role and instead become the rebel without a crown she wasn't going to be this dutiful younger sister to the queen she decided very early on that she didn't want to do that she broke the rules she lived quite a reckless life for a royal i mean she was fantastically grand fantastically snobbish and she did tarnish the reputation of the royal family by her lifestyle by her broken marriages by bringing divorce into the fold but that too has another side to it because she cleared the way um for younger members of the royal family to get out of unhappy marriages she led a an extraordinary life for a royal in a way that you know the queen has led a very even paced life where very little has changed she's done her duty that's been her watch work margaret on the other hand kicked over the traces was extravagant she was a bit naughty and she was a bit of the rebel but you know you want to ask yourself who would you like to be sat next to at dinner princess margaret or a bit of a ball i know which i prefer [Music] so [Music] marijuana [Music] [Music] no matter the moment they get better is [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] fuse

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 763,234

Rating: 4.8112054 out of 5

Keywords: Princess Margaret, British Royal Documentary, Royal Family, British Royal Family, Crown, Princess, British Monarchy, crown, queen, queen elizabeth

Id: FV23Wo6KJTA

Length: 68min 45sec (4125 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021