A secret relationship, a secret child, multiple infidelities,
and a separation that shook the royal family to its core. Princess Margaret
and Antony Armstrong-Jones had an unconventional love story.
Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones met in 1958 when they both attended the
same dinner party, but Antony had actually already been introduced
to the royals when he was hired to take photographs of Queen Elizabeth in 1956.
The queen hired Antony to take photos of Prince Charles for his 8th birthday,
and she was reportedly so happy with the work that she invited the
photographer to come back a year later to take photos of the entire family.
Margaret and Antony kept their relationship a secret at first. Margaret was still bruised
after her ill-fated relationship with Captain Peter Townshend, who she had hoped to marry.
According to Anne de Courcy's Snowdon: A Biography,
the initial attraction for Antony was that Margaret was a member of the royal family,
and the idea of dating her presented "a unique and intoxicating challenge" that he couldn't resist.
"He is everything that sort of goes against royal protocol.
He is extremely fun-loving. He is a bohemian."
The author also detailed what the early weeks of their courtship was like,
and noted that they often met in secret at the photographer's studio.
Antony would also attend the same parties Margaret attended, but the two didn't make
it clear that they were attracted to one another. In the biography, de Courcy wrote,
"The press focused more on the ones who were seen
to be eligible. They didn't think of Tony, who was often in the background."
The story goes like this: Princess Margaret had an affair with Captain Peter Townshend,
a married father of two. She was told to end the relationship but didn't. Townshend ultimately
divorced his wife, but Queen Elizabeth would not allow her sister to marry a divorced man.
Fast-forward five years and Margaret confessed to Conservative MP Jonathan
Aitken that she had accepted a proposal from Antony Armstrong-Jones the same night she was
informed Townshend was planning to marry someone else, according to the BBC. Margaret explained,
"I received a letter from Peter in the morning and that evening I decided to
marry Tony. I didn't really want to marry at all. Why did I? Because he asked me! Really, though,
he was such a nice person in those days. In a way he introduced me to a new world."
Margaret and Antony delayed announcing their engagement until after the queen gave birth to
her third child, Prince Andrew. There have always been rumors that the pair were told
they had to delay the announcement by the queen herself, according to the Express.
"I do hope there won't be any objections or obstacles this time."
When they did get married, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones made history with
the first-ever televised royal wedding. More than 20 million people in the United Kingdom
tuned in to watch on May 6, 1960. And royal family followers in the U.K. weren't the
only ones — another 300 million people watched from around the world, according to the BBC.
Margaret and Antony held their wedding at Westminster Abbey,
where so many royal events of consequence have been held since. According to the Guardian,
playwright Noel Coward, a mutual friend of the couple, reportedly wrote in his own journal,
"He looks quite pretty but whether or not the marriage is entirely suitable remains to be seen."
Unfortunately, things between Margaret and Antony weren't off to the best start
after their wedding. The pair were on their honeymoon when the photographer's friends
Jeremy and Camilla Fry welcomed a baby girl they named Polly. As shown on "The Crown,"
the rumor stood that Armstrong-Jones had a three-way relationship with both Frys
and was the biological father of Polly, though he denied this claim at the time.
"Tony, I'm pregnant."
Ultimately, a DNA test proved that Antony did, in fact, father Polly Fry. Polly later opened up in
an essay for the Daily Mail about finding out who her biological father. She wrote,
"Finding out at the age of 45 that the man I had idolized and put on a pedestal higher
than Nelson's Column since I was a small child was not in fact my father was a hard burden to bear."
Margaret and Antony had two children of their own, David and Sarah.
The 20-year marriage of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones was filled with
a series of affairs carried out by both parties. Royal author Craig Brown told People that Antony
wasn't faithful to Margaret from the beginning of their relationship, even going so far as to
lament marrying her in case it meant he would have to give up his many girlfriends. As Brown put it,
"There was so much he would have to give up, not least his other girlfriends, one of whom confided
to a friend that Tony had wept on her bare breasts at the prospect of getting married to royalty."
Margaret also had affairs of her own. She met Roddy Llewellyn, who was 17 years her junior,
toward the end of her marriage and began a relationship that would last eight years.
Helena Bonham Carter, who played Princess Margaret on "The Crown," told the Sunday Times
that Llewellyn was happy to discuss what his relationship with Margaret was like. She said,
"He said they found each other just at the right time. They were both very lost,
both felt somewhat outsiders, just not quite accepted by the family—or not quite good enough."
Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones
announced their separation in March 1976 after 16 years of marriage.
"If we time it right,
the announcement of your separation might get lost in the Prime Minister's resignation."
The separation was novel for the monarchy at the time,
and the official statement delivered via Kensington Palace read, in part,
"The Princess will carry out her public duties and functions
unaccompanied by Lord Snowdon. There are no plans for divorce proceedings."
Kensington Palace confirmed that Margaret and Antony intended to divorce in a second
statement that was issued in 1978. Margaret's spokesperson explained,
"The marriage has broken down and the couple have
lived apart for two years. These are obviously the grounds for divorce."
The divorce was finalized in July 1978. Theirs was the first royal marriage in Queen Elizabeth
II's immediate family that had ended in divorce since the reign of King Henry VIII in 1540.
Despite their divorce, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones
remained exceptionally close friends for the rest of Margaret's life. In fact,
Antony stayed close to the entire royal family after his divorce,
and was still asked to take photos of several members of the family through the years.
Antony, who had polio as a child and walked with a limp for the rest of his life,
was also able to use his royal connections to advocate for the physically disabled.
He established the Earl of Snowdon Award Scheme, a fund that took the money he made
from the royal family as a photographer to support disabled students, according to Town & Country.
While Margaret never remarried, Antony married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg in 1978. They were married until
2000, when it came out that Armstrong-Jones had conceived a child with another woman.