{"id":332796,"date":"2026-08-29T19:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332796\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T19:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:06:23","slug":"why-princess-margaret-was-barely-on-speaking-terms-with-the-queen-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332796\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Princess Margaret Was “Barely on Speaking Terms” With the Queen Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Princess Margaret<\/a>\u2019s doomed relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend<\/a> has been documented\u2014and dramatized\u2014extensively through the decades. Queen Elizabeth\u2019s younger sister<\/a> wasn\u2019t permitted to marry a divorced man and still retain her royal status, and after two years in limbo, made a public statement that she was choosing the Crown over love. But according to royal biographer Sarah Bradford, the drama surrounding the “Townsend affair” caused a rift between Margaret and the Queen Mother<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Margaret had fallen in love with her father\u2019s much-older equerry, Townsend, who was a married man, but even after his divorce, it was made clear that the royal aide was an unsuitable match for the third-in-line to the throne. Townsend became comptroller of the Queen Mother\u2019s household after King George VI\u2019s death in 1952, and author Gyles Brandreth wrote that the relationship was swiftly denounced by courtiers when Margaret and Townsend approached Queen Elizabeth ahead of her coronation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin Charteris, then the Queen\u2019s assistant private secretary, said to me, \u2018I don\u2019t think he was mad or bad, but he was na\u00efve,\u201d Brandreth wrote in Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait<\/a>. \u201cHe was a commoner and a divorcee.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth and Group Captain Peter Townsend are pictured at Royal Ascot in 1952.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n


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Elizabeth: the No.1 Sunday Times Bestselling Biography of Britain\u2019s Longest-Reigning Queen<\/p>\n

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Noting that divorced people couldn\u2019t be \u201cpresented at court\u201d or even \u201cformally introduced to royalty,\u201d Charteris told Brandreth that he didn\u2019t believe there \u201cwas ever a serious prospect of a marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Princess Margaret<\/a> and Townsend held on to hope. Queen Elizabeth asked them to wait a year, given the coronation and her new role, but the Queen Mother \u201cseemingly put the matter out of her mind,\u201d Brandreth wrote, noting that Charteris called it \u201cthe old ostrich approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sarah Bradford went further in her biography of Queen Elizabeth. Recounting the night that Princess Margaret released a statement saying she\u2019d \u201cdecided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend,\u201d Bradford wrote that the stress had left the Queen Mother <\/a>in deep distress.<\/p>\n

Noting that the Queen Mother \u201ckept an official engagement at London University\u201d that evening, Bradford wrote, \u201cThe Queen Mother did not say goodnight to her daughter on her return. For some time they had barely been on speaking terms; the Townsend affair had been as traumatic as the Abdication had for Queen Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret are pictured in 1960.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n


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Elizabeth: a Biography of Her Majesty The Queen<\/p>\n

The author added that between King George VI\u2019s death, Queen Elizabeth\u2019s marriage to Prince Philip<\/a> and Princess Margaret\u2019s love affair, there was a feeling that the strong \u201cfamily bonds\u201d between Elizabeth, Margaret and their mother had been \u201cweakened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandreth questions Bradford\u2019s account of the story, noting that although the dynamic between the three royals had certainly charged due to huge changes in their lives, the Queen Mother\u2019s behavior on the night of Margaret\u2019s renunciation wasn\u2019t peculiar.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, the Queen Mother fulfilled a long-standing official engagement. Duty always comes first,\u201d he wrote. Brandreth also pointed out that the Queen Mother once wrote in a letter to Princess Margaret that October, \u201cIt is so difficult talking of anything personal on the telephone, because one feels that so many people are listening most eagerly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Princess Margaret went on to marry (and later divorce) Anthony Armstrong-Jones<\/a> and never remarried, while Townsend started a new life in Belgium with a bride who, as Brandreth noted, “looked uncannily like the teenage Princess Margaret.”<\/p>\n

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\nPrincess Margaret
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