Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener discretion advised. In Prince
Speaker 1: Harry's memoir Spare, he writes, I was twenty the first
Speaker 1: time I heard the story of what Pa allegedly said
Speaker 1: to Mummy the day of my birth. Wonderful. Now you've
Speaker 1: given me an air and a spare. My work is
Speaker 1: done a joke, presumably end quote. The label spare defined
Speaker 1: pretty much all of the now estranged Prince Harry's royal
Speaker 1: life and a good chunk of his self perception. It
Speaker 1: is the title of his memoir, after all. Said memoir
Speaker 1: recount many times when Harry fell more like a spare
Speaker 1: to his brother will than his own person, like how
Speaker 1: Charles and William were not allowed to fly on the
Speaker 1: same plane in case one of them died, but no
Speaker 1: one cared what plane he Harry was on. In Harry's understanding,
Speaker 1: his role was to be a distraction in service to
Speaker 1: his brother and maybe one day provide a kidney or
Speaker 1: other such spare parts. There were two particular groups, however,
Speaker 1: that cared a whole lot about what Prince Harry was
Speaker 1: doing as he got older. A large demographic of heterosexual women,
Speaker 1: and more importantly here the British press. Harry believes the
Speaker 1: tabloids singled him out to elevate the opinion of the
Speaker 1: other royals. By comparison the quote public sacrifice of the spare,
Speaker 1: as Harry refers to it, there is perhaps no one
Speaker 1: who understood those public sacrifices of the spare and the
Speaker 1: nature of the press better than Harry's great aunt, Princess Margaret.
Speaker 1: What could make the press even more vulturous than going
Speaker 1: after the easy pickings of the spare? Going after a
Speaker 1: spare who was also a woman when my sister and
Speaker 1: I were growing up, Margaret would reflect later in life,
Speaker 1: she was made out to be the goody goody one
Speaker 1: that wasn't interesting, so the press tried to say I
Speaker 1: was wicked as hell. It didn't always work end quote.
Speaker 1: That reputation would follow Margaret for her entire life, commenting
Speaker 1: on and eventually also informing the person. She became daughter
Speaker 1: of King George the sixth, younger sister and only sibling
Speaker 1: of the future Queen Elizabeth the IOND. Princess Margaret was
Speaker 1: bound to become a celebrity. Her destiny was further sured
Speaker 1: by her socialite lifestyle and often objectively messy romantic life.
Speaker 1: She remains known as the rebel Princess, the Black Sheep,
Speaker 1: and an icon in her own right. A twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: biography was sold with the description she made John Lennon
Speaker 1: blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold shouldered Princess
Speaker 1: Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gorvidal revered her. John Falls hoped
Speaker 1: to keep her as his sex slave. No matter where
Speaker 1: those anecdotes fall on the scale of truth, it cannot
Speaker 1: be denied that Princess Margaret was a fixture in the
Speaker 1: heart of twentieth century culture. Beyond the press and the glitz. However,
Speaker 1: was a woman coping with the nature of fi her
Speaker 1: own personal struggles, and yes, of course, these strange and
Speaker 1: unnatural pressures of being a royal and being a spare.
Speaker 1: I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. Margaret was
Speaker 1: born on August twenty first, nineteen thirty, at Glamis Castle
Speaker 1: in Scotland, her mother's ancestral home. Margaret's family actually delayed
Speaker 1: to register her birth until October second, though, as Margaret
Speaker 1: would have been number thirteen on the local registry and
Speaker 1: superstition cautioned them to wait for another baby to be
Speaker 1: born in the village. Wonder what happened to that child.
Speaker 1: Margaret's parents were then known as the Duke and Duchess
Speaker 1: of York, making her Princess Margaret Rose of York. Her mother,
Speaker 1: Lady Elizabeth Bow's Lion, came from a long line of
Speaker 1: Scottish peers of the Realm, while her father, Albert Frederick
Speaker 1: Arthur George, was the second son of King George the Fifth,
Speaker 1: himself the spare after his older brother David, and as
Speaker 1: fate would have it, he was a spare that would
Speaker 1: actually be required in service. But back before all of that,
Speaker 1: the Duke was determined to make sure his two daughters
Speaker 1: looked back fondly on their quote early years as a
Speaker 1: golden age end quote as opposed to his own bleak
Speaker 1: memories of childhood. And while this meant they were raised
Speaker 1: with much love, the princesses did not receive much in
Speaker 1: the way of an education. Margaret and Elizabeth's mother believed
Speaker 1: her daughters needed only to be educated as quote nicely
Speaker 1: behaved young ladies. As the journalist Randolph Churchill once described,
Speaker 1: this meant that the girls would draw, dance, and appreciate music,
Speaker 1: as well as maintain proper manners and feminine grace. When
Speaker 1: their grandmother, Queen Mary, insisted on the importance of a
Speaker 1: broader education, the girl's mother dismissed the idea. I don't
Speaker 1: know what she meant, she apparently said, after all, I
Speaker 1: and my sisters only had governesses, and we all married, well,
Speaker 1: one of us very well. As an adult, Margaret would
Speaker 1: come to resent her mother for this. The princess's governess
Speaker 1: was a twenty four year old scotswoman named Mary Crawford,
Speaker 1: dubbed Crawfee by the young then Princess Elizabeth. Much of
Speaker 1: the information that we have about the young Princess's childhoods
Speaker 1: comes from Crawfee herself, but more on that in a bit.
Speaker 1: We know that Margaret was an imaginative child. She would
Speaker 1: be quick to place the blame for wrongdoings on an
Speaker 1: imaginary friend cousin Halifax. The The imagination wasn't always cute
Speaker 1: to Crawfey, though, who painted a picture of Margaret as
Speaker 1: yes imaginative, talented, and witty but also naughty, untidy, and
Speaker 1: strong willed. An old story goes that when Margaret was
Speaker 1: dressed up as an angel to attend a fancy dress party,
Speaker 1: her mother exclaimed, you don't look very angelic, Margaret. That's
Speaker 1: all right, equipped the princess, I'll be a holy terror.
Speaker 1: Many of these anecdotes come from Crawford's nineteen fifty book
Speaker 1: The Little Princesses, published only a few short years after
Speaker 1: her nineteen forty seven retirement upon the marriage of Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: The book was a commercial success, but as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: it felt like a betrayal to the royal family, who
Speaker 1: did not consent to its publication, nor did they approve
Speaker 1: of their characterizations. By this time, the public had plenty
Speaker 1: of established opinions on Margaret, but her portrayal in the
Speaker 1: book as a child who was spoiled and jealous of
Speaker 1: her quote priggish older sister only sought to confirm the
Speaker 1: public perceptions of the woman they thought they knew. Put
Speaker 1: in perhaps gentler terms, the girl's father once described Elizabeth
Speaker 1: as his pride and Margaret as his joy. Crawfey likely
Speaker 1: didn't have her sights set on a tell all when
Speaker 1: she first took the job because who would care all
Speaker 1: that much about a tell all about the daughters of
Speaker 1: a duke. But as we know, history took a different path.
Speaker 1: For those who haven't seen the Crown or are generally
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with twentieth century English royal history, it can be
Speaker 1: briefly summarized like this. David, the Prince of Wales's future
Speaker 1: King of England, fell madly in love with a twice
Speaker 1: divorced American woman named Wallace Simpson. The royal family was
Speaker 1: incredibly wary of that romance, believing her to be a
Speaker 1: wicked seductress, and as head of the Church of England,
Speaker 1: an institution that did not recognize divorce, she would never
Speaker 1: make a suitable wife for a monarch. King George the
Speaker 1: Fifth died and David ascended to the throne as Edward
Speaker 1: the eighth. Edward did not care much about his new duties.
Speaker 1: In fact, he mostly seemed to care about his wicked
Speaker 1: seductress divorcee girlfriend, who incidentally only became twice divorced after
Speaker 1: she officially left her second husband, which she hadn't earlier.
Speaker 1: The royal family, realizing that the king actually intended to
Speaker 1: marry her, lost their collective minds, so Edward abdicated to
Speaker 1: Mary Simpson and his younger brother ascended as George the
Speaker 1: sixth To Margaret, King, Edward was simply Uncle David in
Speaker 1: the days before Wallace Simpson. His public persona was more
Speaker 1: in line with how people would come to see Margaret
Speaker 1: as a royal socialite, unconcerned with the rigidity and discipline
Speaker 1: his family and the position required. It was always Margaret's father,
Speaker 1: like her sister Elizabeth, who fell more in line with
Speaker 1: what was expected of a monarch. When Margaret's father unexpectedly
Speaker 1: became king, Margaret was suddenly second in line to inherit
Speaker 1: the throne, and the family moved into Buckingham Palace. Unlike
Speaker 1: the rest of her family, Margaret did not undertake public
Speaker 1: or official duties in those early years. Instead, she spent
Speaker 1: much of her time as a child and teen learning
Speaker 1: the piano and practicing show tunes, which she would perform
Speaker 1: for guests. The dowager Queen Mary apparently used to describe
Speaker 1: her granddaughter in French as ispege or mischievous, giving her
Speaker 1: an early reputation among those in the know as an
Speaker 1: enfhand tibe. Margaret's first big moment in the public eye
Speaker 1: was in February nineteen forty seven, at age sixteen, when
Speaker 1: all four members of the royal family embarked on a
Speaker 1: three month tour of South Africa. Margaret's role on the
Speaker 1: trip was, apparently, quote a relatively thankless one. For Beside
Speaker 1: her sister, heir to the throne, she Margaret cut a
Speaker 1: less prominent figure in the eyes of the public. Yet
Speaker 1: throughout the daily round of civic ceremonies, that pretty and
Speaker 1: highly personable young princess held her own. That's a quote
Speaker 1: from Peter Townsend, the King's equery and for the purposes
Speaker 1: of this trip, Margaret its chaperone. It's a fairly accurate
Speaker 1: assessment from a man who will come back to play
Speaker 1: a much bigger role in the story soon. The press's
Speaker 1: focus at the time was Elizabeth, who turned twenty one
Speaker 1: during the trip and who made her first major speech,
Speaker 1: but stories were already beginning to circulate about the enfantibe's
Speaker 1: eye rolls towards officials. Shortly after the family's returned to England,
Speaker 1: the engagement between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip was announced,
Speaker 1: even though the couple had privately gotten engaged before the
Speaker 1: trip even began. At the same time, it was agreed
Speaker 1: upon that Margaret had been a success in South Africa
Speaker 1: and would begin to take on more public duties, including
Speaker 1: some that formerly had belonged to her older sister. She
Speaker 1: would launch ships, attend gala performances, inspect guards, visit charitable institutions,
Speaker 1: tour hospitals, you name it. This was the true beginning
Speaker 1: of Margaret's tabloid life. As she stepped out more and more,
Speaker 1: the press began to recognize something in her that they
Speaker 1: didn't quite see in her dutiful older sister star quality.
Speaker 1: She was pretty, glamorous, charismatic and single. When Christian Dyore
Speaker 1: launched his first collection in late nineteen forty seven and
Speaker 1: established the new look of cinched waists and full skirts
Speaker 1: for women's fashion, Margaret was one of the first public
Speaker 1: figures to adopt it, disregarding government disapproval of the extravagant style.
Speaker 1: When Margaret arrived at an event for her parents' anniversary
Speaker 1: in this new style and a pair of very high heels,
Speaker 1: it said that her example was followed by ten million
Speaker 1: British women. The press fixated on her every detail. She
Speaker 1: had a twenty three inch waist and a thirty four
Speaker 1: inch bust and vivid blue eyes. They knew all her
Speaker 1: favorite haunts, the four hundred Club, than the Cafe de
Speaker 1: Perry and Mirabelle, and they knew all the friends that
Speaker 1: she met there, a group they would come to call
Speaker 1: the Margaret Set, mostly composed of the children of politicians
Speaker 1: or peers of the realm. They all had fantastic rich
Speaker 1: people names like Sas Douglas, Lady Caroline Montague, Douglas Scott,
Speaker 1: and Sonny Blandford. Margaret and her friends were portrayed as
Speaker 1: glamorous socialites but also spoiled party animals, in other words,
Speaker 1: the press's two favorite things one can be at nineteen,
Speaker 1: Margaret was seen smoking for the first time out of
Speaker 1: a long ivory cigarette holder after dinner in a West
Speaker 1: End restaurant, which incited backlash and started a trend. At
Speaker 1: the same time, those who saw her in a negative
Speaker 1: light were only reinforced by the nineteen fifties publication of
Speaker 1: Crawfey's book, which characterized Margaret not only as a trouble
Speaker 1: making child, but a spoiled young adult who made a
Speaker 1: joke of everything She is. Britain's number one item for
Speaker 1: public scrutiny, read an American headline from around the same time.
Speaker 1: People are more interested in her than in the House
Speaker 1: of Commons or the dollar crisis. Despite being known as
Speaker 1: young and rebellious, Margaret did take her royal status very seriously.
Speaker 1: To her friends, she was ma'am and her father was
Speaker 1: only to be referred to as His Majesty the King.
Speaker 1: I feel sorry for her. A party guest apparently once said,
Speaker 1: she hasn't the faintest idea of what anyone is like,
Speaker 1: referring to the way that everyone would change when she
Speaker 1: stepped into a room. But it seemed that was the
Speaker 1: way Margaret wanted it. She was a notorious stickler for
Speaker 1: detail in her royal inspections, and the singer Peggy Lee
Speaker 1: remembered that when she performed at the Pagale, freshly ironed
Speaker 1: sheets had to be laid over the kitchen floor of
Speaker 1: the club because they heard Princess Margaret would be arriving
Speaker 1: by a back entrance. In the spring of nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: Margaret made an official visit to Italy, where she was
Speaker 1: mobbed everywhere she went like a film star. Crowds were
Speaker 1: eager to get a glimpse at Labella Margarita, a maid
Speaker 1: was paid by the press to find out what was
Speaker 1: in her hotel room, and a blurry photograph of Margaret
Speaker 1: in a pale bathing suit made its way into newspapers
Speaker 1: and magazines, sparking rumors that she was bathing nude. Rumors
Speaker 1: surrounding this Italian trip would reach new heights with the
Speaker 1: release of a little film called Roman Holiday a few
Speaker 1: years later, in which Audrey Hepburn played a princess touring
Speaker 1: Italy who escapes her royal duties and ends up meeting
Speaker 1: and falling in love with an American journalist played by
Speaker 1: Margaret's favorite actor, Gregory Peck. By that time, there was
Speaker 1: an obvious parallel in the minds of the public Princess
Speaker 1: Margaret and Peter Townsend told You if he'd be back.
Speaker 1: On June fourteenth, nineteen fifty three, the tabloid The People
Speaker 1: became the first to break news of the relationship between
Speaker 1: the princess and her chaperone, with the headline they must
Speaker 1: deny it now, advising that it is high time for
Speaker 1: the British public to be made aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that scandalous rumors about the Princess Margaret are racing around
Speaker 1: the world. Two months later, the film Roman Holiday was released,
Speaker 1: and the public interest surrounding the real couple was so
Speaker 1: intense that Paramount was apparently made to record an extra
Speaker 1: scene to establish that Audrey Hepburn's character was not a
Speaker 1: member of the British royal family. According to the actress,
Speaker 1: the parallel was milked for all it was worth. But
Speaker 1: whether or not screenwriters had heard rumors of the real
Speaker 1: life affair or Paramount just got incredibly lucky, we'll never know. Townsend,
Speaker 1: for his part, was not present for the real life
Speaker 1: Italian trip. Some background on him. Townsend was a captain
Speaker 1: in the Royal Air Force and a decorated World War
Speaker 1: II hero. When the King wanted someone from the Royal
Speaker 1: Air Force to represent at court, Townsend was recommended to
Speaker 1: him to serve as a temporary equerry, which quickly became
Speaker 1: a permanent position as the King became fond of him.
Speaker 1: He was twenty nine when he was hired, and accomplished
Speaker 1: in his military career, but failing from a middle class background,
Speaker 1: which made him something of an outsider at court. He
Speaker 1: was also notably married, but fourteen year old Margaret is
Speaker 1: still said to have quickly developed a crush. The story
Speaker 1: goes she told friends she fell in love with him
Speaker 1: when she was sixteen on the South African tour, but
Speaker 1: to the public, both Margaret and Townshend had claimed there
Speaker 1: were no inklings of romance until after he and his
Speaker 1: wife separated in nineteen fifty one, and the couple confessed
Speaker 1: their love to each other only after his divorce was
Speaker 1: granted in nineteen fifty two on the grounds of his
Speaker 1: wife's adultery. The relationship carried on privately for about a year,
Speaker 1: with those in the nose stressing about its possibilities and
Speaker 1: hoping it to be a brief affair. That was until
Speaker 1: their accidental public debut at Elizabeth's coronation in June nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, following the death of their father the year before. There,
Speaker 1: photographers caught a glimpse of Margaret brushing a bit of
Speaker 1: lint off Townsend's uniform, which was perceived as too intimate
Speaker 1: and tender not to be romantic in nature. The secret
Speaker 1: was out the next day in papers across the continent
Speaker 1: and in America, but the British press actually held off
Speaker 1: covering the story as long as they could to remain
Speaker 1: in the Palace's favor, as they had done earlier during
Speaker 1: the time of Edward and Wallace Simpson. When the People
Speaker 1: was finally first to cover the story twelve days later,
Speaker 1: they used an old trick to get around the issue
Speaker 1: of loyalty by expressing mock outrage at these rumors on
Speaker 1: Margaret's behalf. It is quite unthinkable that a royal princess,
Speaker 1: third in line of succession to the throne should even
Speaker 1: content and plate a marriage with a man who has
Speaker 1: been through the divorce courts. Behind the scenes, Margaret and
Speaker 1: Townsend had been thinking about marriage, but Elizabeth had advised
Speaker 1: them to wait a year, most likely secretly hoping the
Speaker 1: relationship would fizzle out, but not wanting to disappoint her
Speaker 1: beloved sister. There was also the matter of the Royal
Speaker 1: Marriages Act of seventeen seventy two, which meant that until
Speaker 1: Margaret was twenty five, she would need Elizabeth's consent to
Speaker 1: marry someone of her choice. Once the relationship got the
Speaker 1: public's attention, it became a matter not just of royal
Speaker 1: gossip but a matter of government, and with both the
Speaker 1: government and the Crown opposed to the match, it was
Speaker 1: recommended that Townsend be sent away for some time. He
Speaker 1: was effectively exiled to Brussels without Margaret's knowledge. But what
Speaker 1: did the public really think of the relationship. At the
Speaker 1: time of Townsend's exile, the Daily Mirror polled its readers
Speaker 1: asking them should they marry? Sixty seven thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 1: and seven Mirror readers voted yes, only two thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five said no. With the floodgates open,
Speaker 1: every paper in the country soon had an opinion on
Speaker 1: the marriage, with some arguing that Margaret was setting a
Speaker 1: poor example in her potential willingness to defy the Church,
Speaker 1: while others considered the church's opinion outdated and supported the
Speaker 1: couple as a romance, defying all odds. Others simply considered
Speaker 1: it a matter of personal choice. Michael Foot, a future
Speaker 1: Labor Party leader, wrote in The Tribune, this intolerable piece
Speaker 1: of interference with a girl's private life is all part
Speaker 1: of the absurd myth about the Royal family which has
Speaker 1: been so sedulously built up by interested parties in recent years.
Speaker 1: He argued that the laws of England allowed for divorce
Speaker 1: and the royal family was just as subject to those
Speaker 1: laws as anyone else behind the scenes. Despite Townsend's forced exit,
Speaker 1: those close to the couple would say in the following
Speaker 1: years that they were still very much in love and
Speaker 1: spoke constantly. This discourse continued for another two years and
Speaker 1: reached a climax around Margaret's twenty fifth birthday, which was
Speaker 1: the year she would no longer need the monarch's consent
Speaker 1: to marry. Come on, Margaret, read the Daily Mail's front
Speaker 1: page two days before her birthday. She could end the hubbub.
Speaker 1: Will she please make up her mind? In October nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, only a few months after her birthday, Margaret's
Speaker 1: and Townsend officially reunited. But it wasn't a private affair.
Speaker 1: Quote The restraint which had until now characterized the British
Speaker 1: press in its coverage of the royal persons disappeared forever,
Speaker 1: writes biographer THEO. Aronson. The final crisis of the world's
Speaker 1: greatest royal romance was played out in the most merciless
Speaker 1: of spotlights. En The estate where the two stayed together
Speaker 1: was surrounded day and night, complete with airplanes circling above,
Speaker 1: and the press would not relent, even in spite of
Speaker 1: the Queen's Secretary's please for privacy. Despite the public fervor
Speaker 1: in favor of the romance, the government did not relent
Speaker 1: its stance against the marriage. They declared that if the
Speaker 1: princess insisted on marrying Townshend, then a bill would be
Speaker 1: placed in front of Parliament stripping her of all of
Speaker 1: her rights, privileges, and income. She would also have to
Speaker 1: be married in a civil ceremony and be forced to
Speaker 1: live out of the country for the first few years. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: despite her, by all accounts, genuine love for Townsend, it
Speaker 1: was not the life she wanted. In his memoirs, Townsend wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: it was too much to ask of her, too much
Speaker 1: for her to give. We would have been left with
Speaker 1: nothing but our devotion to face the world. Finally making
Speaker 1: a decision, he said, liberated them after several tumultuous years. Quote,
Speaker 1: at last we could talk without that crushing weight of
Speaker 1: world opinion, the sympathy, the criticism, the pity, and the anger,
Speaker 1: all the mass of emotion which had weighed so heavily
Speaker 1: on our minds end. Quote. Of those many opinions, Margaret
Speaker 1: allegedly later told friends, they were so against us it
Speaker 1: almost made me change my mind and marry him after all.
Speaker 1: Years later, friends and Townsend came to similar conclusions. Margaret
Speaker 1: was simply not ready to be a housewife and a
Speaker 1: stepmother to two sons at age twenty five. In the
Speaker 1: wake of the Townshend affair, you can imagine the press
Speaker 1: only wanted more and more of Margaret. One daily Mirror
Speaker 1: headline simply asked, is she sad? Yes? Probably. Margaret coped
Speaker 1: with the aftermath by leading a more active social life
Speaker 1: than ever, reviving the pre engagement socialite days of the
Speaker 1: Margaret set with an even greater emphasis on her love
Speaker 1: of live theater and entertainment, though it never quieted down.
Speaker 1: The next major frenzy of press to reach Townshend Heights
Speaker 1: would come not with her marriage to but her divorce
Speaker 1: from Anthony Armstrong Jones. The couple first met in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight at a dinner party, and Margaret was drawn
Speaker 1: to the man with footholds in both the aristocratic and
Speaker 1: artistic worlds. His father was a barrister, his mother a socialite.
Speaker 1: In his youth, he found he was not particularly skilled
Speaker 1: at school or sports, but he had a unique passion
Speaker 1: for photography and had by the point of their meeting
Speaker 1: built a career as a celebrated theatrical and portrait photographer.
Speaker 1: The couple were able to keep their courtship a secret
Speaker 1: from the press, and the announcement of their engagement in
Speaker 1: February nineteen sixty came as a surprise. It was framed
Speaker 1: as a second chance at happiness after being denied her
Speaker 1: marriage to Townsend, and the public finally got their reverse
Speaker 1: Cinderella story of a commoner marrying a princess. Not everyone
Speaker 1: was thrilled with Antony's relatively humble background. As The Times
Speaker 1: put it, there was quote no recent press for the
Speaker 1: marriage of one so near the throne, outside the ranks
Speaker 1: of international royalty and the British peerage end quote. Their
Speaker 1: wedding was the first royal wedding to be televised, as
Speaker 1: was fitting for the modern princess and her quote simple
Speaker 1: wedding dress was designed by Norman Hartnell, and it was
Speaker 1: considered a statement of Margaret's individuality. As a wedding present,
Speaker 1: a friend gifted Margaret a plot of land on his
Speaker 1: private Caribbean island Moustique, which would become infamously associated with
Speaker 1: Margaret years later. To the public. The couple, now known
Speaker 1: as the Snowdens after Antony's appointment as the Earl of Snowden,
Speaker 1: were favorites, seen as living a sheikh bohemian lifestyle while
Speaker 1: the rest of the royal family was stuck in the
Speaker 1: Victorian era. They were both interested in fashion and adopted
Speaker 1: the maud look, which only led to the couple being
Speaker 1: more photographed. They ran in celebrity circles. Margaret befriended Drag
Speaker 1: Queen's playwrights. Musicians John Lennon knew the couple as priceless.
Speaker 1: Margarine and Bonnie armstrove behind the scenes and two children later.
Speaker 1: The marriage was rocky, with Armstrong Jones realizing a bit
Speaker 1: too late that he was not fit for a life
Speaker 1: of royal engagements, and he yearned to reignite the career
Speaker 1: he had been forced to leave behind. Both husband and
Speaker 1: wife began to engage in extramarital affairs. By the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty six, Margaret was smoking and drinking excessively
Speaker 1: to cope with the fracturing relationship. As early as nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, the press began to share whispers that there
Speaker 1: was trouble in Paradise. A well known royal gossip writer
Speaker 1: once admitted to the author, Aim Andrew Duncan, that he
Speaker 1: was making up stories about the Snowdens to sell to
Speaker 1: foreign magazines. Of course I exaggerate, he claimed, What are
Speaker 1: they going to do? Sue me? The instability for the
Speaker 1: couple continued four years, but came to a head in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six when Margaret was photographed swimming on her
Speaker 1: private island with a man seventeen years her junior. He
Speaker 1: was Roddy Llewellyn, a young landscape gardener and aristocrat. They
Speaker 1: had met three years earlier, when she was forty three
Speaker 1: and he was twenty five, and he was invited to
Speaker 1: lunch with the princess and mutual friends. The two apparently
Speaker 1: got on well immediately, and Margaret, having been through so
Speaker 1: much emotional turmoil in recent years, was excited at the
Speaker 1: prospect of starting something new with the younger man. However,
Speaker 1: soon after it began, the affair proved to be too
Speaker 1: much for Luella, who had his own history of mental
Speaker 1: health struggles. He fled abroad seeking an escape from it,
Speaker 1: but eventually came back to check into the care of
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist. Margaret, for her part, was devastated by his
Speaker 1: departure and took too many sleeping pills. I was so
Speaker 1: exhausted because of everything. She later reflected that all I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was sleep. Margaret and Roddy were able
Speaker 1: to reconcile after both of their healths had improved, and
Speaker 1: they resumed what Margaret called their loving friendship. They visited
Speaker 1: Margaret's house on Mustique together, where they were photographed by
Speaker 1: a photographer who had snuck onto the island posing as
Speaker 1: a tourist. Margaret, Roddy, and a couple staying with them
Speaker 1: all had gone swimming together, but when the photos were published,
Speaker 1: they were cropped to make it look like Margaret and
Speaker 1: the young man were alone. They appeared on the front
Speaker 1: page of News of the World, and the royal family
Speaker 1: was rocked with the scandal they hadn't seen since the
Speaker 1: days of Townsend. The press hounded her toy boy, while
Speaker 1: politicians took to calling Margaret a royal parasite and a
Speaker 1: fluozy who wasted taxpayer money vacationing with younger men. It
Speaker 1: was also apparently the final nail in the coffin of
Speaker 1: the Snowden marriage, an excuse to finally seek divorce. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's now seen as an ironic twist that Margaret's first
Speaker 1: major scandal began with a divorce and her second major
Speaker 1: scandal ended with one more quote unquote. Serious newspapers took
Speaker 1: to blaming the divorce on the gossip rags. Almost since
Speaker 1: the day of their marriage, the press, fed by bitchy
Speaker 1: society gossip, took a prairie and intrusive interest in their
Speaker 1: private life. Noted The Times as Philip Howard, upon the
Speaker 1: royal split the princess, he said, was fair game quote
Speaker 1: for our national hypocrisy masquerading as morality. The earlier assertion
Speaker 1: that the British press forever changed with the Townshend affair
Speaker 1: was accurate and representative of the kind of invasiveness royal
Speaker 1: women like Princess Diana, Sarah Ferguson and Megan Markle would
Speaker 1: one day face. In nineteen seventy eight, shortly after the
Speaker 1: divorce was finalized, Margaret fell ill. While she continued to
Speaker 1: be involved in the arts and charity works, she struggled
Speaker 1: greatly with her health for the remainder of her life
Speaker 1: due to her chronic smoking and drinking. Her last public
Speaker 1: appearances were at the one hundred and first birthday celebration
Speaker 1: of her mother and the one hundredth birthday celebration of
Speaker 1: her aunt Alice. Margaret died at age seventy one from
Speaker 1: complications after a stroke. Later in life, Margaret herself reflected
Speaker 1: on what she felt her role in the public I
Speaker 1: was quote in my own humble way. I've always tried
Speaker 1: to take some of the burden off of my sister.
Speaker 1: She can't do it all, you know, and I leap
Speaker 1: at the opportunity to help. Sometimes it can be very
Speaker 1: formal and boring. But I've got a reflex against that now.
Speaker 1: It's very much up to one not to be bored.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Princess Margaret's public life. But keep
Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about one
Speaker 1: particularly juicy alleged dalliance. Throughout her lifetime, Margaret was linked
Speaker 1: to far more men than I had time to mention today,
Speaker 1: but some were so iconic that they deserve special mention.
Speaker 1: The rumor mill has long alleged that Llewellyn wasn't the
Speaker 1: only man Margaret courted in Mustique. Mick Jagger visited the
Speaker 1: island on Margaret's invitation and evidently enjoyed it. So much
Speaker 1: that he eventually built a home there. The two met
Speaker 1: at a birthday party in the early nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: while the wording may be different, all sources note that
Speaker 1: Margaret's dress was low cut when she made her first
Speaker 1: introduction to the singer. They spent the night chatting, and
Speaker 1: a source from a Jagger biography alleges that after that
Speaker 1: they spoke on the phone constantly, and Margaret invited him
Speaker 1: to social events any other women. She found him sexy
Speaker 1: and exciting. If you saw them together dancing the way
Speaker 1: she'd put her hand on his knee and giggle at
Speaker 1: his stories like a schoolgirl, you'd have thought there was
Speaker 1: something going on. Neither Margaret nor Mick Jagger have ever
Speaker 1: spoken about a relationship, but it said they remained friends
Speaker 1: until Margaret's death. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankee. Noble Blood is
Speaker 1: created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing
Speaker 1: and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender,
Speaker 1: and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by
Speaker 1: Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali with supervising producer Josh
Speaker 1: Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.