The romance between Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend has been described as ‘the most tragic royal love story ever’. Almost 30 years after its end in 1955, the Battle of Britain hero eventually wrote a book telling his side of the affair that rocked the Royal Family and the British Establishment. Now it is being republished…
One warm summer afternoon at Balmoral, after a picnic lunch with the guns, I stretched out in the heather to doze. Vaguely, I was aware that someone was covering me with a coat. I opened one eye — to see Princess Margaret’s lovely face, very close, looking into mine.
I opened the other eye, and saw, behind her, the King, leaning on his stick, with a look, typical of him: kind, half-amused. I whispered: ‘You know your father is watching us?’ At which she laughed, straightened up and went to his side. Then she took his arm and walked him away, leaving me to my dreams.
That summer of 1951, Princess Margaret was about to celebrate her 21st birthday. There was already speculation about the man she might fall in love with. Her beauty and charm had attracted scores of admiring, faithful friends, yet among none of them had she found the man of her choice.
That, incredibly, was the lot that destiny had reserved for me.
Princess Margaret and I found solace in one another’s company. One afternoon we talked, in the red drawing room at Windsor Castle, for hours — about ourselves. She listened, without uttering a word, as I told her, very quietly, of my feelings. Then she simply said: ‘That is exactly how I feel, too’
But by falling in love, we were to go up against the Establishment and face an international furore.
Unmitigated joy turned — for both of us — into a trial by ordeal.
I first set eyes on the Princess on February 16, 1944, when I found myself in the green-carpeted Regency Room at Buckingham Palace.
A few days earlier, I had been summoned by the RAF’s Chief of Staff and told I was to be redeployed, as an equerry to the King.
I was amazed. I was born in Burma, where my father was a Commissioner, and educated at Haileybury, before joining the RAF. I had no connection with the Royal Family.
George VI had apparently decided he wanted staff chosen for their fighting record rather than family or regimental connections.
After my introduction, down the corridor came two adorable-looking girls; Princess Elizabeth, then 17, and her sister Margaret, 14.
Princess Elizabeth — our future Queen — was the King’s pride. Princess Margaret was his joy.
She was a girl of unusual, intense beauty, centred about large purple-blue eyes, generous lips and a complexion as smooth as a peach.
She could change in an instant from saintly composure to hilarious, uncontrollable joy. She was a comedienne at heart, playing the piano and singing in her rich voice the latest hits, imitating the stars.
But what ultimately made Princess Margaret so attractive was that behind the dazzling facade, you could find, if you looked for it, a rare softness and sincerity.
Seven years later, during that fateful summer at Balmoral, the Princess’s joie de vivre gave me what I most lacked — joy.
My unhappy, ten-year marriage was drawing to an end. I had met my wife Rosemary in June 1941 after leading No. 85 Squadron into the Battle of Britain, for which I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) with Bar. My plane had eventually been shot down by a Messerschmitt and I had taken a bullet in the foot.
She could change in an instant from saintly composure to hilarious, uncontrollable joy. She was a comedienne at heart, playing the piano and singing in her rich voice the latest hits, imitating the stars. But what ultimately made Princess Margaret so attractive was that behind the dazzling facade, you could find, if you looked for it, a rare softness and sincerity
I was exhausted. Life seemed a brief, precarious thing. I stepped out of the cockpit and married the first pretty girl I met.
We were already growing apart when I told her I was to serve the King. Rosemary threw her arms around me. It was natural, I suppose, for her to be glad — but how tragically mistaken she was. From now on, as couple, we were destined to be unmade.
At Buckingham Palace, I guided prime minister Winston Churchill, then his successor Clement Atlee, along the long corridors to see the King. My initial three-month posting became permanent and I was promoted to Master of the Household.
Though we were given a grace-and-favour cottage in Windsor, I was rarely there. Rosemary became a ‘court widow’. By the summer of 1951, I was 36 years old and the father of two young sons. When we divorced shortly afterwards, Rosemary remarried within two months.
At the end of the summer the weather turned wet and cold at Balmoral. The King caught a chill. It was the Queen who suspected he was suffering from something worse. Doctors identified a malign growth in his left lung.
In early February, he died.
Princess Margaret and I found solace in one another’s company.
One afternoon we talked, in the red drawing room at Windsor Castle, for hours — about ourselves. She listened, without uttering a word, as I told her, very quietly, of my feelings. Then she simply said: ‘That is exactly how I feel, too.’
Her understanding touched me. With her wit she, more than anyone else, knew how to make me laugh — and laughter, between boy and girl, often lands them in each other’s arms.
Princess Margaret confided in her sister. A few days later, Her Majesty invited us to spend the evening with her and Prince Philip. This stands out in my memory: the Queen’s sympathetic acceptance of the disturbing fact of her sister’s love for me.
Princess Margaret also told her mother. I imagine Queen Elizabeth’s reaction was ‘this simply cannot be’, but she did not hurt us by saying so.
The family greeted the news with charity: the same cannot be said of the Establishment.
Tommy Lascelles (the Queen’s private secretary) regarded me darkly while I stood before him and told him that Princess Margaret and I were in love. Visibly shaken, all he could say was: ‘You must be either mad or bad.’
I told him I was ready to face the consequences.
Lascelles consulted the Queen, doubtless reminding her that under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, Princess Margaret would have to obtain Her Majesty’s consent to her marriage — at least before her 25th birthday. Thereafter she would be exempt from the Queen’s veto, but would still need the consent of Parliament, and of the Dominions’ parliaments as well.
The crucial problem was that I was divorced. The Queen, as titular head of the Church of England, could not, constitutionally, give her consent, unless her prime minister saw fit to advise her otherwise.
Sir Winston Churchill felt it would be disastrous for the Queen to consent to the marriage of her sister with a divorced man.
That, then, was that.
Princess Margaret would have to wait another two years, until she was 25.
Lascelles wanted to banish me, abroad. The Queen insisted I be allowed to stay on at Clarence House serving the Queen Mother.
I was not admitted to the consultations between Lascelles and the palace press secretary, Commander Richard Colville.
We had innocently confided our secret to the Royal Family and to the Queen’s private secretary, press secretary and prime minister. We did not know reports were already circulating in the U.S. and the continental press. Nobody told us our secret was out.
Whether Colville or Lascelles, his immediate chief, knew anything about the rumours in the foreign press, I do not know. It seems incredible that they did not; in which case, they might have whispered a word in my ear. We were, after all, colleagues.
Had they only taken me into their confidence and alerted me to the danger, I would have got out of the way fast, on my own initiative — dutifully, for the sake of the Royal Family, and selfishly, for my own.
I should have got well clear of the target area, Clarence House and Buckingham Palace — withdrawn, resigned, done anything reasonable to avoid the attention of the Press, which at this moment was concentrated on the Queen’s approaching coronation. Now was the time.
But the Queen and the Queen Mother, apparently, were not fully aware, while the Princess and I were not aware at all, of a situation which was bound, very shortly, to explode.
Explode it did, on Coronation Day.
After the splendid service in Westminster Abbey, a great crowd of crowned heads and nobles — and newspapermen, British and foreign — were gathered in the Great Hall. Princess Margaret came up to me; she looked sparkling, ravishing. As we chatted she brushed a bit of fluff off my uniform.
We laughed and thought no more of it. Next day, that charming little gesture made the headlines in the New York press.
A fortnight later the Sunday newspaper, The People, spoke out. ‘It is high time’ it said, under a banner headline, ‘for the British public to be made aware of the fact that newspapers in Europe and America are openly asserting that the Princess is in love with a divorced man and that she wishes to marry him . . . Every newspaper names the man as Group Captain Townsend.’
Mr Churchill told the Air Minister to find me a job abroad. I was appointed air attache to the British Embassy in Brussels.
Princess Margaret was about to tour Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]. She was reassured by a promise that my departure would be held until her return, in three weeks’ time.
I was informed that my date for departure was to be July 15, 1953 — two days before Princess Margaret’s return. Instead of our expected farewell, we were to be torn apart. We were next to meet, not in three weeks, but in more than a year.
The Princess and I wrote almost every day while I was in Brussels. The following July I flew to England and went straight to Harrods bookshop, where, as arranged with Princess Margaret (who had of course told the Queen), I met Brigadier Norman Gwatkin of the Lord Chamberlain’s office. His rubicund face shone like a friendly beacon among all those books. Norman led me to a waiting car and we drove to Clarence House, straight in through the main gates. The Press had no idea I was in England.
After a year apart, our joy at being together again was indescribable.
Another year’s wait remained, until the Princess’s 25th birthday, when she would be free of the Queen’s official veto on her marriage. Until then, there was nothing for it but to wait.
Some months later, in early March 1955, Princess Margaret returned from a Caribbean tour — and I was pitched back into world headlines.
A New York paper, hearing the chapel at St James’s Palace was to be restored, deduced that the Princess and I were to be married. Some London newspapers were loudly proclaiming that now the ‘Dolly Princess’ was back from the West Indies, she must make up her mind — about me.
I should have welcomed a word from Richard Colville, the palace press secretary, but not once, during the whole affair, did he contact me or attempt to evolve a joint front towards the Press.
Over the next six months the clamour increased to deafening.
I was shaken and disgusted. I was an object of curiosity and comment. I asked myself and the Princess (we wrote, as usual, almost every day), was it wise to go on? Our feelings were as sure and as strong as ever. Emotively, I was ready to go through anything for her. But logically, where would it lead us?
What we needed to know — urgently — was whether marriage was feasible, and this, only the Princess could ascertain.
In five months’ time, she would be free of the Queen’s veto under the Royal Marriages Act, but not of her formal disapproval, as Head of the Church.
Even the Act did not leave her then free to marry: it required her to give notice of her intentions to the Privy Council, whose 300-odd members were the hardcore of the Establishment.
The Privy Council could strongly influence Parliament, to whom the veto now passed. The Princess would have to wait up to 12 months more before the British Parliament and those of the seven dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] — gave their consent.
If they did not, her last chance was to contract a marriage abroad. It would be illegal, and any offspring considered illegitimate.
Finally, in October, when the Queen and Princess Margaret were at Balmoral, Sir Anthony Eden, the prime minister, arrived.
Eden sympathised but had to warn the Princess that my second marriage — to her — would bring her the most grievous penalties: she would have to renounce her royal rights, functions and income.
The Princess now had confirmation, for the first time, of the consequences of a marriage with me.
If only she had known before, the approaching drama might have been avoided. But now it was too late.
We had arranged to meet in London on October 13. Everything was set for the grand finale.
I knew nothing. I braced myself for the ordeal, as I had done when, as a small boy, I had to face a beating. I should once more have to enter the arena; I knew that I was going like a sheep to the slaughter. But I went willingly, for her.
That evening, Princess Margaret left Balmoral by train for London. Everyone remarked how lovely and happy she looked, which was not surprising. We were to meet again the next day, for the first time in a year.
Time had not staled our accustomed, sweet familiarity but as the hubbub intensified — pursued by the Press every minute of the day and night — I was being demolished by the physical and mental strain.
Over the following week, each time we saw one another or dined with friends, the speculation mounted.
Mr Eden had only recently brought home fully to the Princess the consequences of marrying me. She had a huge load on her mind.
On Tuesday, October 18, there was a Cabinet meeting after which the prime minister had an audience with the Queen. It lasted 90 minutes instead of the usual 30.
At Clarence House, the Princess and I were weighing the pros and cons. Two days later, the Cabinet met again. The Attorney General was sent for.
I have not the faintest idea what those eminent gentlemen discussed, but it is likely they came to terms on a Bill of Renunciation, to be placed before Parliament, freeing the Princess of her responsibilities under the Royal Marriages Act, and thus — at crushing cost to herself — enabling her to marry me.
She would be stripped of her royal rights and prerogatives, which included accession to the throne and a £15,000 government stipend due on marriage — conditions which, frankly, would have ruined her.
There would be nothing left — except me.
It was too much to ask of her, too much for her to give. We should be left with nothing but our devotion to face the world.
In a lengthy leader article, The Times said the heart of the matter did not lie in legal or theological argument. The real crux was that the Queen was a symbol for her subjects throughout the Commonwealth.
These millions of people saw their better selves reflected in the Queen and, since part of their ideal was family life, Princess Margaret’s marriage with me could not be regarded as a marriage at all by vast numbers of her sister’s people.
She could change in an instant from saintly composure to hilarious, uncontrollable joy. She was a comedienne at heart, playing the piano and singing in her rich voice the latest hits, imitating the stars
The painful facts of the situation were only too clear: the country, the Commonwealth, the entire world, was in an uproar over us.
On Saturday evening, October 22, we met at Clarence House. We were both exhausted, mentally and emotionally. Later, the Princess left to spend the weekend with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle.
Next day, on the telephone, she was in great distress. She did not say what had passed between herself and her sister and brother-in-law, but, doubtless, the stern truth was dawning on her.
That night I had hardly slept. My mind turned incessantly on the sadness of the Princess.
In just over a week the smile had vanished, her happiness had evaporated. It was time to put an end to an unendurable situation.
I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. I began to write. ‘I have decided not to marry Group Captain Townsend . . . It may have been possible to contract a civil marriage. But mindful of the Church’s teaching . . . conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth . . .’
Less than an hour later I was at Clarence House. Princess Margaret looked very tired, but was as affectionate as ever. I gave her the rough piece of paper and she read.
Then she looked at me and said: ‘That’s exactly how I feel.’ Our love story had started with those words. Now, with the same sweet phrase, we wrote finis to it.
There was a wonderful tenderness in her eyes which reflected, I suppose, the look in mine. Our feelings were unchanged, but they had incurred a burden so great that we decided, together, to lay it down.
We spent a goodbye weekend with friends in Uckfield, Sussex.
At last we could talk without that crushing weight of world opinion — the sympathy, the criticism, the pity and the anger.
On Monday, October 31, we returned separately to London. The Princess’s statement was to be issued that evening at 7pm. About an hour earlier, I called to say a last farewell at Clarence House. We had held out for more than two years. We felt as if we needed a stiff drink.
We did not feel unhappy. Without dishonour, we had played out our destiny. There remained only the glow of tenderness, constancy and singleness of heart.
Then we, who had been so close, parted.
Postscript
Four years later, in December 1959, Peter Townsend married Marie-Luce Jamagne, with whom he had three children. They remained happily married until his death, aged 80, in 1995. Princess Margaret married a photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones, in 1960. They had two children and divorced in 1978. Princess Margaret died in 2002, aged 71.
n Extracted from Time And Chance by Peter Townsend, to be published by Silvertail on March 3 at £12.99. Available from amazon.co.uk or silvertail.com. © The Heirs of Peter Townsend, 2022.
