The Tragic Life Of Princess Margaret, Queen Elisabeth's Young Sister (Svibanj 2024)
Princeza Margaret, u cijelosti princeza Margaret Rose Windsor, grofica Snowdon (rođena 21. kolovoza 1930., dvorac Glamis, Škotska - umro 9. veljače 2002., London, Engleska), britanska kraljica, druga kći kralja Georgea VI i kraljice Elizabete (od 1952. kraljica Elizabeta, kraljica majka) i mlađa sestra kraljice Elizabete II. Cijelog se života borila da uravnoteži neovisni duh i umjetnički temperament sa svojim dužnostima kao član britanske kraljevske obitelji.
Princ William i Catherine Middleton: Kraljevsko vjenčanje 2011. godine: princeze Margaret i Antony Armstrong-Jones
Godine 1961. u Knjizi godine objavljena je biografija princeze Margaret Rose, sestre kraljice Elizabete
Margaret je bila prva članica kraljevske obitelji u nekih 300 godina rođena u Škotskoj, u sjedištu svoje majke u dvorcu Glamis. Njeno je obrazovanje nadzirala majka, a ona i njezina sestra povjerene su guvernanti. Margaret se vrlo rano pokazala za glazbu i pohađala je časove klavira od četvrte godine. Imala je šest godina kad je njezin stric, kralj Edward VIII., Abdicirao, a njezin otac postao kralj. Nakon toga princeza Elizabeta kao nasljednica prijestolja dobila je odvojeno obrazovanje, dok je Margaret nastavila pod majčinim nadzorom. Pored toga, od nje se tražilo da sudjeluje u javnim angažmanima.
Margaret, who became known for her glamour and beauty, displayed an early love for nightlife and the arts. When she was in her early 20s, she fell in love with Group Capt. Peter Townsend, a war hero who had served as an equerry to her father. Their romance became public knowledge when Margaret was seen brushing lint off Townsend’s jacket at her sister’s coronation in 1953. Although Townsend and Margaret wished to marry, the fact that he was divorced made the marriage unsuitable, and Margaret gained worldwide sympathy in 1955 when she publicly renounced their plans to wed.
Margaret was already a fixture on London’s social and arts scene when she began secretly seeing photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1958. The announcement of their engagement in February 1960 caught many by surprise. They were married on May 6, 1960, in the first royal wedding to be televised. (Armstrong-Jones was created earl of Snowdon in 1961.) The marriage was at first successful, and they had two children: David, Viscount Linley, born in 1961, and Lady Sarah, born in 1964. By the 1970s, however, the couple had grown apart. Both of the Snowdons engaged in public love affairs, and the princess scandalized conservative monarchists, cultivating friendships and romances among actors, writers, ballet dancers, and artists. She spent much of her time on the Caribbean island of Mustique, in the Grenadines. When her long-standing affair with Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior, was exposed in 1976, she lost public sympathy, and her volatile marriage finally ended in 1978, the first divorce in the British royal family in 400 years.
Eventually her extensive charitable work, combined with a new, more modern sympathy for the restricted options she faced, gained her a measure of public respect. Princess Margaret, who smoked and drank heavily throughout her adult life, was often in ill health. She had surgery for possible lung cancer in 1985 (the tissue proved to be benign) and later suffered a series of strokes.
