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William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

I am prepared to forgive Margaret anything short of mass murder, just for the countless anecdotes she generated. I recommend Kitty Kelly’s “The Royals” for having a splendid collection in one volume. Fergie fares even less well in the same book. OK, the Royals cost us a fortune. But, on a per capita basis, they are far better value than a ticket for a woke comedian.

The ban on her marrying Townsend looks bizarre beyond belief, looking back from 2022 and the marital disaster zone of the Windsor clan and the Church of England being pushed to the edge of celebrating gay marriage. As one cruel colleague observed decades ago, the C of E exists only because Henry VIII wanted to get his end away.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  William Murphy

I have used that example of Henry VIII often – I called it the whims of a syphilitic king.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago

Henry needed a legitimate male heir, and Catherine of Aragon appeared to be “firing on blanks”.
Syphilis or no syphilis she had to be replaced.

Stephen Beresford
Stephen Beresford
2 years ago

I know I’m straying from the topic of the article, but this view of Henry VIII is so lazy and unhistorical that I have to do a bit of corrective nagging. Forgive me. Henry was a fervent (if rather complicated) Roman Catholic who had been talked into marrying his dead brother’s wife for the purpose of political expediency. As a 16th century man with a world view entirely concomitant with the moral framework of the time, he would have believed he was committing a mortal sin (as laid out in Leviticus 20:21) by marrying her. He would have been told that it was all okay because she’d never actually had sex with his brother, and anyway the treaty with Spain was more important – so shut up. Then – apart from one dynastically useless girl – every child they conceive dies. (Just as the Bible predicts for that sin.) The C of E doesn’t ‘exist because he wants to get his end away.’ It exists because the moral authority of Rome crumbled when its realpolitik bumped up against unfortunate real events. Henry ‘got his end away’ all over town. Including with Anne Boleyn’s sister. His decision to leave Rome, and his decision to marry Anne Boleyn, are only seen in the context of what happened after. But that doesn’t mean his motives were completely cynical. Or whims. And the Syphilis (if it existed) came long after. (Wouldn’t Princess Margaret be furious that we’ve stopped talking about her?)

Giles Chance
Giles Chance
2 years ago

I once sat next to Princess Margaret at a lunch party. After having been very short with her neighbour on the other side (a self-made entrepreneur with a chauffeured Rolls whom she thought was too big for his boots), she turned to me and interrogated me about my background. She suddenly stopped talking and looked into the far distance. Then I realised her fundamental sadness: her sister married the man she loved, but Princess Margaret was not allowed to marry the one she wanted – Group-Captain Townsend. That was her tragedy, and her life ceased to have meaning after that.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
2 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

Lots of people don’t get to marry the person they would like to without it being a tragedy. Did her mother really want to marry her father? Did her grandmother really want to marry her grandfather? I always thought that Margaret inherited the worst traits of her parents – her father’s bad temper and her mother’s sense of entitlement (especially entitlement to a good time). The Queen might have had them too but she, as future Queen, was trained to suppress that under a massive sense of duty – she had to behave better! (Imagine having to meet Queen Mary’s standards!). Margaret was allowed to express herself more freely, but the sense of entitlement that could pass in her parent’s day was just too much out of fashion in Margaret’s day. Fortunately, Roddy seemed to amuse her for awhile.

Last edited 2 years ago by Russell Hamilton
Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago

I think it is far more complex than that.

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

Margaret did have a choice. She preferred privilege over love.

Giles Chance
Giles Chance
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

The Palace courtiers stopped her getting engaged to Townsend, because he was divorced. At that time, divorce was not respectable.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

It still isn’t, just expedient, nothing more.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
2 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

Probably because I did most of my growing up after she died, but that reputation completely passed me by. She sounds quite admirable.

Ferrusian Gambit
Ferrusian Gambit
2 years ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Like you I was in my teenage years when she died, so my only real cultural reference to her is how she is presented in Spitting Image reruns.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
2 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

Margaret could have married Townsend as long as she gave up her position as a Royal. This she wouldn’t do. The money and status mattered more to her than her ‘love’ for Townsend.

Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago

The trouble is as Edward VIII and Prince Harry found out, there is no halfway house, if you are out it’s exile rather than being non royal and there is the nastiness that goes with it. There were many lies told about the Duke of Windsor Princess Margaret’s uncle just to make him look bad.

Denis Slattery
Denis Slattery
2 years ago

Margaret Armstrong-Jones was an ignorant and stupid drunkard. Her “All Irish are pigs” remark was made to the Mayor of Boston Jane Byrne an Irish American.

Mark Gourley
Mark Gourley
2 years ago

Princess Margaret was at once an intensely tragic and a deeply comic character – as reflected in Craig Brown’s entertaining book ( not quite a biography). It is worth recalling, though, that in her latter years she regularly attended Anglican worship in the company of Sir John Betjeman and his partner (see A N Wilson’s biography of JB). “Mindful of the Church’s teaching” !? Her words which could easily be a line from a hymn.