BBC NEWS | UK | Princess Margaret dies Saturday, 9 February, 2002, 17:14 GMT Princess Margaret dies The Princess's coffin is taken from King Edward Hospital Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, has died "peacefully in her sleep" at the age of 71. She had suffered a stroke on Friday afternoon and, after developing heart problems, was taken to hospital in London in the early hours of Saturday morning. In a statement Buckingham Palace said: "The Queen, with great sadness, has asked for the following announcement to be made immediately. The princess had been suffering ill-health in recent years "Her beloved sister, Princess Margaret, died peacefully in her sleep this morning at 6.30am in the King Edward VII Hospital." Princess Margaret's funeral will take place on Friday 15 February at 3pm in St George's Chapel, Windsor, the Palace announced. Members of the Royal Family and friends will attend the funeral, which will not be a State occasion, and a memorial service will be held at a later date.

Prince Charles Princess Margaret's coffin was taken to her former home in Kensington Palace on Saturday afternoon and will be moved to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace before the funeral. The Queen has returned from her Sandringham residence in Norfolk to Windsor Castle. Prince Charles has travelled to Sandringham to support the 101-year-old Queen Mother. The Duke of Edinburgh is also there. The Queen Mother has been suffering from a severe cold and it is not yet known whether she will be well enough to attend her daughter's funeral. A St James's Palace spokesman said the Prince of Wales was "deeply saddened" by the news, as were his sons Princes William and Harry. She will be remembered with a lot of affection... she gave a great deal of service to the country Prime Minister Tony Blair Princess Anne, who was in Antarctica on a three-day trip to commemorate Captain Scott's first Antarctic expedition, has been informed of the death and is planning to fly to New Zealand. Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret's former husband, said he and their children Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto - who were at Margaret's bedside when she died - were "all extremely saddened".

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking from Sierra Leone, led many tributes from politicians, saying she would be remembered "with a lot of affection" as she had given "a great deal of service" to the country. Foreign tributes The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said: "She was a much-loved member of our Royal Family and a great support to Her Majesty throughout the Queen's reign." Several foreign leaders, including Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, have sent their condolences to the Queen, as has the Pope in a telegram and Don McKinnon, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. Margaret (r) was last seen in public in December at Princess Alice's 100th birthday A minute's silence has been observed at many sporting fixtures. Members of the public have left some floral tributes outside Buckingham and Kensington Palaces, Sandringham House and King Edward VII hospital. Some television and radio schedules have been changed to make room for special programmes. BBC Radio 4's The Archers, on whom Princess Margaret appeared as herself in 1984, will pay tribute in a special storyline on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said it was too early to decide whether the death will change any of the plans for this year's Golden Jubilee celebrations. On 18 February, the Queen is due to start a visit to Jamaica, New Zealand and Australia. 'Vivacious and fun' Princess Margaret will be remembered by many for her glamorous lifestyle and turbulent love life. In the 1950s she fell in love with the divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend - who has since died - but renounced him after coming under political, family and church pressure. Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 She later married the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones (who became Lord Snowdon). They had two children but the marriage ended in divorce in 1978. She had an affair for several years in the 1970s with Roddy Llewellyn, 17 years her younger. His wife Tania told reporters he was "devastated" by the loss of a "darling friend". A heavy smoker for many years, Margaret's health had been failing in recent decades and she had suffered at least two strokes.

She was last seen in public before Christmas at Princess Alice, the Dowager Duchess of Gloucester's 100th birthday party. Lady Glenconner, the princess's former lady-in-waiting and close friend, said the princess had obviously been suffering when she saw her last week. "One could not have really wanted her to have gone on. Her quality of life was not good," she said. However, she added that her abiding memory would be of Margaret as "tremendously vivacious, and fun, and roaring with laughter". WATCH/LISTEN Princess Margaret: How she lost the will to live | Daily Mail Online Princess Margaret: How she lost the will to live By TIM HEALD Last updated at 17:36 04 July 2007 "Usual scene. HRH in plummy red with a gold belt, smoking and drinking whisky, in good form surrounded by a motley crowd." So wrote Sir Roy Strong, the sociable director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, about a party at Princess Margaret's apartment in Kensington Palace in 1977.

What was different about the scene, however, was the open presence there of her 'toyboy' lover, Roddy Llewellyn, who was 17 years her junior. In looks, Strong thought him not unlike a younger version of Tony Snowdon, the Princess's estranged husband. At the party, Roddy was "rather dapper, but very polite and assigned to a kind of "host" role, getting drinks and ferrying them to people. HRH showed no overt interest in him, although he would spring up and actively join in anything that she wanted." When Strong dared to ask what he called "the milliondollar question" - "Does Roddy stay here?" - the Princess said: "Yes." Scroll down for more... Her lover seemed harmless enough, the museum director felt. "He's agreeable, not nearly as bright as Tony, rather silly and giggly, but kind, and she hasn't had much of that." Later on, he would change his mind and confess that he thought the young landscape gardener was "purely selfish" and on the make. He particularly disliked the way Roddy had apparently succumbed to red-carpet fever, behaving "like a royal manque;".

As for Margaret, "she seems to have thrown all discretion to the winds". Certainly, the Princess and her lover made no secret of their holidays on the tiny Caribbean island of Mustique, where she had her home-from-home. Strong felt sorry for the Queen: "It must all be deeply embarrassing for her, surely?" It was. Indeed, there were serious questions being asked at the very highest levels about whether Margaret should retire from public life. But Strong, an old friend of the Princess, also knew that, at a deeper level, Margaret herself was embarrassed. "How little people will understand the agonies she has gone through as a practising Anglican to let the divorce happen. How silly but understandable to fall for Roddy," he wrote. There were those, Roddy's father included, who wondered if her lover's interests were entirely heterosexual. At the outset of the affair, Llewellyn senior had been quoted in the satirical magazine Private Eye as saying: "Well, it makes a change from his usual Italian waiters." Others alleged that Margaret had a voracious sexual appetite - implying that age was not the only difference between the Princess and her lover.

Whatever the case, the relationship continued for a dozen or more years, always with its ups and downs. On one occasion, Llewellyn apparently lost the plot altogether and fled to Turkey. On the plane to Istanbul, he confessed to a complete stranger that he was having an affair with a married woman - and that the question of sex had become a problem. For about three weeks, he appeared to have disappeared completely off the map. And poor Princess Margaret was so distraught that she took an overdose. This was confirmed to me by one of her closest confidants. "Yes, she did take an overdose," he said, "although how much it was done to create a drama, I shall never know. Remember, she was a great actress." It took a long time to bring her round, and a number of close relatives came to her bedside. Nevertheless, she survived, though the relationship with Roddy eventually petered out. In 1980, while holidaying with the Princess on Mustique for the last time, Roddy told her he had met someone else - a girl named Tania - and was going to marry her. Margaret was shocked at first, but not distraught.

Indeed, in time, she became a frequent and welcome guest at Roddy and Tania's marital home. If the Princess was prone to illmatched romances, she was also increasingly prone to physical ailments. In 1985, she had a serious lung operation and was photographed looking unusually pale and wan on her next visit to Mustique. She appeared to make a good recovery, but was felled nine years later by a stroke. Again, she bounced back and seemed to be on the mend. Lord Hartington, heir to the Duke of Devonshire, saw her at the Sotheby's summer party and was delighted that she was "fully returned to health, and stickless to boot". Inviting her to Ascot, he promised "a box full of cheery souls and a good lunch". At her own request, her Tipperary property-dealing friend, Ned Ryan, was to be one of the party. She had met Ryan way back in the Seventies, when her marriage to Snowdon was going through one of its many rocky periods.

At a dinner given by Anouska Hempel, the actress-turnedhotelier, she found herself sitting next to the affable and roguish Irishman, who had a stall in London's Portobello Road antiques market. Ryan told Margaret that he scouted for bargains very early on Friday mornings at Bermondsey market in the East End. The Princess "was fascinated", said Ryan later, "and asked if she could come with me. I said it would mean my calling for her at 5.30am - and she still said she'd love to come." But Elizabeth Vyvyan, one of the Princess's ladies-in-waiting, said the Princess was not so easily seduced. She was not an early-morning person - and Ryan, when all was said and done, was an Irish street trader. Still, he was persistent, spending a lot of time trying to persuade Elizabeth to remind her boss of their dawn assignation. For a while, Margaret demurred, but eventually Ryan's charm won the day.

The excursion to Bermondsey was supposed to be a private occasion but, largely because of Ryan's behaviour - he flung his cloak, Walter Raleigh-style, over a puddle so that Margaret didn't have to get her feet wet - the stallholders soon realised who she was. Photographs were taken and the visit was reported in the press. Margaret, however, seemed not to care and Ryan did indeed become a lasting friend and her regular "walker" or man-about-town. So it was perfectly natural for him to be her companion at Ascot, where everyone drank a toast to her recovery. Soon afterwards, Margaret even felt well enough to make another journey to Mustique. But it was there that disaster struck. The scalding of the Princess's feet at her house, Les Jolies Eaux, remains something of a mystery for the simple reason that it was unwitnessed. The only person present was Margaret herself, and she was too shocked and confused to give a coherent account. One morning, in February 1999, Margaret's house party was enjoying a lethargic breakfast when an agitated cook came in to say that there was steam coming from under the locked bathroom door and she was afraid that the Princess was inside.

Margaret's personal detective broke down the door and found her distressed and badly scalded. The problem appears to have been caused by the controls to the water supply, which were old and unnecessarily complicated. The Princess's intention seems to have been to use the shower to wash her hair, so she got into the bath and turned on the controls. Tragically, she got it wrong. Instead of a lukewarm shower, she got jets of boiling water from the bath taps directed straight at her feet. She was too shocked to move until she was rescued. The effects of the scalding water would have been horrific anyway, but they were exacerbated because she had suffered for years from a blood circulation disorder, probably brought on by heavy smoking. This made her feet slow to heal. The Princess's own stubbornness and famous hauteur now contributed to the severity of her illness. No one present had the strength or authority to override her stated view that there was nothing seriously wrong with her. The fact is that she should have gone back to London for treatment immediately.

But it wasn't until weeks later that her lady-in-waiting, Anne Glenconner, phoned the Queen at Balmoral - and, as a result, the Princess was flown home on Concorde via Barbados. She was told that she needed skin grafts, but absolutely refused to have them. Not for the first time in her troubled life, she turned her face to the wall. Margaret then spent a long time convalescing at Balmoral, recovering gradually and up to a point. She even accepted a few official engagements, but only if they were on the ground floor and involved no more than one or two steps. But the painful burns were not healing properly, and she never regained full mobility. The Queen's younger sister had become a permanent invalid, a shadow of the vibrant, sparky woman she had once been. By 2000, it was widely reported that she had lost the will to live. Yet, once again, she seemed to improve - this time, after seeing a specialist from the Priory, the fashionable London clinic, at the suggestion of her daughter Sarah. Prince Charles recommended an Indianborn holistic healer and nutritionist, whom she also consulted.

Whether it was as the result of these ministrations or just a return of her former joie de vivre,she managed dinner at the fashionable Caprice restaurant in Mayfair with Ned Ryan and her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anson. Anson said later that the Princess was in 'fantastic form' that night and looked radiant in a red and gold jacket. But shortly afterwards, Margaret suffered two strokes in a row. The sight in one eye went and she lost virtually all movement on her left side. She was only able to move around in a wheelchair and, for a time, could neither read nor write Some of her friends privately thought it a pity that she didn't die earlier - before her quality of life was so diminished and her capacity for enjoyment so impaired. "It wasn't always easy to feel sympathy," confessed her old and dear friend Prue Penn. "She'd sit in the bedroom, looking utterly miserable. The things she asked me to read . . . there was a Trollope - a frightfully dull book. No men came at all. She couldn't bear to be seen by men. "When she went to sleep, I stopped reading. "I'll go, nurse," I'd say.

"She's asleep." '"I'm not," Margaret would say.' She eventually died in her sleep on February 9, 2002, with her son and daughter at her bedside. She was 71 years old. The funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, where her father lay buried (and where her 101-year-old mother would join them both in a matter of weeks). Lord Snowdon arrived, limping heavily and grumbling because the Lord Chamberlain had mistakenly told him there would be no steps to climb. At one point, he came face to face with Llewellyn. Roddy seemed eager to talk. Snowdon cut him dead. The Princess's ashes were lodged in a little side chapel behind bars - a paradox of accessibility and distance. She had always liked to be noticed and appreciated but did not, on the whole, like ordinary people to get too close. As in life, so in death. She who had once stood centrestage - as the Royal Family's superstar - had died in the wings.

When surveying her life as a whole, even one of her closest friends and admirers was moved to comment: "So what?" Margaret's problem was that, from an early age, she was made to feel that she mattered a great deal. But by the 1980s, attitudes to the monarchy had changed fundamentally. Even a selfconfessed 'devoted monarchist' and acolyte such as Roy Strong could not ignore this development. "In the days of deference, you automatically deferred, but that world went," he noted. "The new line was that they had to earn my respect." This was a change that the Princess never recognised, let alone accepted. She was sui generis, of her own time and place; and by the time she died, her world had vanished. There will never be another princess like her. She was the last of the breed. • ABRIDGED extract from Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled, by Tim Heald, published by Weidenfeld tomorrow at £20. Tim Heald 2007. To order a copy at £18 (p&p free), call 0870 161 0870.

Princess Margaret dies - Telegraph Princess Margaret dies By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter 12:00AM GMT 10 Feb 2002 PRINCESS MARGARET, the Queen's younger sister, died peacefully in her sleep early yesterday aged 71. Her death was being mourned by the Royal Family and the nation last night with the Union flag at half mast over Buckingham Palace. The Princess, who had been in poor health for the past four years , suffered a stroke on Friday afternoon and died at 6.30am yesterday at the King Edward VII Hospital in London with her children, Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, at her side. The announcement of her death was made by Buckingham Palace within two hours. The Telegraph has learnt that there had been a delay to enable the Queen, who was at Buckingham Palace, to telephone the Queen Mother at Sandringham, to break the news. The Queen Mother, who is 101 , was said by Palace officials to be "deeply distraught" at her younger daughter's death. She was comforted by Prince Philip, who had been staying at the Queen's Norfolk estate.

The Queen asked the Prince of Wales to visit the Queen Mother yesterday and he immediately left a weekend with friends to be at his grandmother's side. The Queen, who has spent Friday night at Buckingham Palace where she was working on state papers, had been kept informed of her sister's failing health throughout the night. Related Articles Princess's latest stroke has affected her left side 31 Mar 2001 It is understood that the Queen was told of her sister's death by Viscount Linley: she was said by Palace officials to be "genuinely saddened" last night. The Queen travelled yesterday afternoon to Windsor Castle, where she will oversee the funeral arrangements. Lord Snowdon, whom Princess Margaret married in 1960 and divorced in 1978, was also grieving yesterday. He was told of her death in a telephone call from the hospital from their two children. The private funeral for Princess Margaret will take place on Friday at St George's Chapel, Windsor, at 3pm and will be attended by family and friends. It will not be a state occasion and there will be a memorial service at a later date.

"Princess Margaret had made it clear that she did not want a massive state funeral and did not want wholesale disruption to the lives of the Royal Family," said a Buckingham Palace official. "As such, the Queen's engagements over the next few days will be curbed rather than cancelled." Members of the Royal Family will carry out official engagements, including hosting a visit by President Sampaio of Portugal on Tuesday. However, a reception for Queen's Awards for Enterprise winners tomorrow night has been postponed. Princess Margaret, who was a heavy smoker and drinker, had suffered at least three strokes since 1998 and in recent months had been wheelchair bound and virtually blind. The Princess had developed cardiac problems during the night and was taken from her home at Kensington Palace to the hospital at 2.30am yesterday. Four days before her death, however, she had attended her three-year-old grandson's birthday party and found herself surrounded by playing children. She had returned from the party of Arthur, Lady Sarah Chatto's second son, with a helium balloon tied to her wheelchair. The timing of her death is unfortunate for the Royal Family.

It came three days after the 50th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne and eight days before she is due to begin her Golden Jubilee Commonwealth tour in Jamaica with Prince Philip. Buckingham Palace officials said that the Queen, despite her grief, will put duty first and ensure that there are minimal, if any, disruptions to the celebrations. She is expected to fulfil her plan to fly next Sunday to begin a three-day visit to Jamaica, before going to New Zealand and Australia. Tributes to Princess Margaret came throughout yesterday. Tony Blair was told of the Princess's death by Downing Street shortly before he boarded his aircraft to fly to Sierra Leone from Ghana yesterday morning. On arrival, Mr Blair, wearing a black tie after changing on the plane, said: "I know the whole country will be deeply saddened by Princess Margaret's death. She will be remembered with a lot of affection.

Before she was ill in the last few years, she gave a great deal of service to the country and our thoughts are with the Queen, the Queen Mother and all the Royal Family at this difficult time." The Queen urged Mr Blair to complete his West African tour after hasty consultations between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace confirmed that there were no reasons of protocol for him to return to London. The Prince of Wales, who was told of his aunt's death while staying with friends at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, left for Sandringham to be with his grandmother, who is recovering from a persistent cold. The Prince paid a warm tribute to his late aunt last night and described her as "wonderfully vibrant", although he added that her death, because of her failing health, must have been a "merciful release". Speaking at Sandringham House, the Prince, wearing a black tie, was in sombre mood as he spoke of his "darling aunt" and said it had been "a terribly sad day" for the Royal Family. "The last few years with her awful illness were hard for her to deal with, particularly as she was such a wonderfully vibrant woman with such a free spirit." He recalled many happy times with his aunt.

"She sang like an angel and she had this wonderfully sharp mind," he said. "One of the fondest memories I shall have of her was with her sitting at the piano playing away with a large, very elegant cigarette holder in her mouth. We shall all miss her dreadfully." There was a minute's silent before big sporting events yesterday, including Britain's Davis Cup tennis tie against Sweden in Birmingham, and soccer and rugby matches throughout the country. The British peacekeeping forces in Kabul lowered all their flags to half-mast as did the re-opened British Embassy. Buckingham Palace announced the news of Princess Margaret's death at 8.30am yesterday. "The Queen, with great sadness, has asked for the following announcement to be made immediately. Her beloved sister, Princess Margaret, died peacefully in her sleep this morning at 6.30 in the King Edward VII Hospital. "Her children, Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, were at her side. Princess Margaret suffered a further stroke yesterday afternoon. She developed cardiac problems during the night and was taken from Kensington Palace to the King Edward VII Hospital at 2.30am. Lord Linley and Lady Sarah were with her and the Queen was kept fully informed throughout the night.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and other members of the Royal Family are being informed." Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret's former husband, said: "Both Lord Linley and Lady Sarah are in close touch and informed me about the Princess's death early this morning. We are all extremely saddened." Princess Margaret had a troubled love life: some say she never fully got over the decision not to marry Group Capt Peter Townsend in 1955 because he was a divorcee and such a marriage would have split the Cabinet and the nation. Small, sombre crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace yesterday and many people left flowers and hand-written messages. One tribute left at Kensington Palace read: "Remembered with affection for your beauty and glamour and for your loyalty and service." At 4pm, the Princess's coffin, draped with a Royal Standard, was taken by hearse from the King Edward VII Hospital to Kensington Palace where it will rest in the Princess's apartment. "This is to enable the Princess's family and close friends to pay their respects privately," said a Buckingham Palace spokesman.

"Early next week the Princess's coffin will be moved to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace where it will remain until the day before the funeral." A book of condolence will open tomorrow at the Princess's birthplace, Glamis Castle, Angus, the Queen Mother's family home. Princess Margaret Dies at 71; Sister of Queen Elizabeth Had a Troubled Life - The New York Times The New York Times World |Princess Margaret Dies at 71; Sister of Queen Elizabeth Had a Troubled Life Search Princess Margaret Dies at 71; Sister of Queen Elizabeth Had a Troubled Life By JOSEPH R. GREGORY Continue reading the main story Correction Appended Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, whose troubled private life aroused both worldwide sympathy and widespread reprobation, died yesterday morning in London. She was 71. She suffered a stroke on Friday afternoon, the latest in a series that had left her partly paralyzed in recent months, and developed heart problems overnight, Buckingham Palace said. The queen announced the death ''with great sadness,'' according to a statement from the palace.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is touring West Africa, said he was ''deeply saddened.'' Attractive and fun-loving, Princess Margaret earned a reputation in her youth as a free spirit. But her 20's were clouded by an unlucky romance with Group Capt. Peter Townsend of the Royal Air Force, a Battle of Britain hero with whom she fell in love when he served as an equerry to her father, King George VI. Continue reading the main story A Daunting Hurdle: Divorce In many ways, the group captain might have made an ideal husband. But the fact that he was divorced raised strong objections from the very establishment the royal family represented. As queen, Margaret's sister, Elizabeth, was the supreme governor of the Church of England, which forbade divorce. Moreover, in the early 1950's, the political storm surrounding Edward VIII's abdication in December 1936 to marry a twice-divorced American, Wallis Warfield Simpson, was a not-so-distant memory. Advertisement Continue reading the main story News media scrutiny was relentless and the pressure intense on Princess Margaret, then third in line to the throne, to break off the relationship.

Bowing to the demands of a moral code that a decade later would seem quaint to many people, she chose not to marry him. In May 1960 she married Anthony Armstrong-Jones, a photographer who was himself the child of divorced parents. Their tempestuous marriage produced two children, but ended in divorce in 1978. The princess did not remarry, but her friendships with men, from prominent people like the actor Peter Sellers to less exalted ones like Roderic Llewellyn, an upper-class drifter 17 years her junior whose main accomplishment appeared to be a talent for gardening, hurt her reputation. So did the fact that she was often less than gracious when faced with the drudgery of public appearances -- the ribbon-cuttings, diplomatic functions and endless other official occasions by which Britain's royals justify their position and the public money that finances it.

Easily bored and often petulant, the princess was known for indulging her moods, which could swing, as Charles Hussey, a British journalist wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1965, from ''a gaiety that was sometimes febrile'' to ''Hanoverian gloom.'' Her extravagant style also prompted outrage. Her wedding cost the British government £25,000 -- then the equivalent of $65,000 -- and her six-week honeymoon on the royal yacht Britannia cost £40,000, or about $115,000. In later years she was criticized for demanding motorcycle escorts and government helicopters to travel around Britain. Yet admirers spoke warmly of her personal generosity, loyalty to the queen and to her friends, and her irreverent sense of of fun. Louis Armstrong, whose music she loved, once referred to her as ''one hip chick,'' and John Lennon playfully nicknamed her ''Priceless Margarine.'' To many people, Princess Margaret was the black sheep of her generation of royals. But that reputation did not necessarily trouble her.

According to a biographer, Theo Aronson, she once told the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, ''Disobedience is my joy.'' Princess Margaret Rose was born on Aug. 21, 1930, at Glamis, Scotland, the second daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York, six years before her father became King George VI with the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. The Family Braved the Blitz She was educated at home with her sister, the future Queen Elizabeth II. During World War II, when the king and queen tried to present an image of both stoicism and good cheer to a battered nation, they rejected the suggestion that their two daughters be sent to Canada to be safe from the danger of the blitz. Instead, the two girls remained with their parents, very much in the public eye. Advertisement Continue reading the main story But with Elizabeth clearly being groomed as the next queen, Princess Margaret was often relegated to the background. According to some courtiers, her parents tried to make up for it by indulging her.

''When my sister and I were growing up, she was made out to be the goody-goody one,'' Princess Margaret told Andrew Duncan, author of ''The Reality of Monarchy'' (1970). ''That was boring so the press tried to make out that I was wicked as hell.'' But in threadbare postwar Britain, the press often portrayed her as a glamorous, high-spirited young woman who delighted in trips to Paris and dancing through the night in fashionable London clubs. After Elizabeth married Prince Philip of Greece in November 1947, Princess Margaret became one of the most eligible single women in the world, and her name was coupled with various fashionable young men. She first met Group Captain Townsend during the war, when he joined King George's entourage. The group captain's heroism -- he shot down 11 German planes -- was coupled with a low-key style that appealed to the king. Indeed, King George was godfather to one of his two sons by his wife, Rosemary Pawle, whom he married in 1941 and divorced in 1952 on the ground of adultery.

His relationship with the princess grew closer after the king's death in February 1952, but it did not become public until the coronation of Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953, when Margaret, in a gesture of affection that was captured by news photographers, brushed some lint from his uniform. Princess Margaret was then 22 and Group Captain Townsend 38. He later wrote that their love ''took no heed of wealth and rank and all the other worldly, conventional barriers which separated us.'' But under the Royal Marriages Act, passed in the reign of George III, Princess Margaret could not marry without the sovereign's permission. Under intense media scrutiny, the affair became as politicized as the one involving King Edward and Mrs. Simpson 16 years before. Both Winston Churchill and the queen's private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, advised against allowing the marriage. Pressing Group Captain Townsend to end the romance, the British government posted him to the British Embassy in Brussels as air attaché in June 1953. Princess Margaret learned of his posting while she was on a tour of Rhodesia. After her return, the lovers kept in touch by telephone and managed to see each other secretly.

But the government continued to oppose a marriage, and though Princess Margaret turned 25 in 1955 and was thus free to marry without the queen's consent, it was made plain to her that if she chose to marry Group Captain Townsend she would lose her royal rights and income. In October of that year, the couple met in Britain, discussed their situation, and came to a decision. Advertisement Continue reading the main story ''I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Capt. Peter Townsend,'' Princess Margaret announced in a statement. ''Mindful of the church's teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.'' Sympathetic observers later said that if the couple had been permitted to marry, the princess would have settled down to a more conventional life, like her sister. But in his 1978 autobiography, ''Time and Chance,'' Group Captain Townsend wrote, ''I simply hadn't the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would have lost.'' In 1959 the group captain married Marie Luce Jamagne, a 20-year-old Belgian.

The next year, on May 6, 1960, Princess Margaret married Mr. Armstrong-Jones, also a commoner, who was given the title Earl of Snowdon. A photographer who made a successful career out of photographing the rich and famous, Mr. Armstrong-Jones also enjoyed the the Bohemian side of London life. He and the princess helped liven the staid image of the royal family with a touch of the Swinging Sixties. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Garland Was Not Amused But Princess Margaret's love of fun and informality coexisted with a sterner side. She insisted that she be addressed as ''Ma'am,'' except for her closest friends, who were permitted to call her ''Ma'am darling.'' As a houseguest she was notoriously demanding. At parties she often objected if other guests ignored royal protocol and left before her. Even her children were expected to refer to her as ''Princess Margaret'' in front of visitors. So did her husband, though he was said to have called her Ducky in private. The haughty manner alienated many friends.

Mr. Aronson relates in ''Princess Margaret'' (1977) how at a party in Beverly Hills she once told Judy Garland through an intermediary that she would like to hear her sing. Angered by the form of the request, Miss Garland replied, ''Tell her I'll sing if she christens a ship first.'' Although the princess and her husband appeared to have a happy family life, by the late 1960's there were nasty public quarrels. This, coupled with an often ill-concealed irritability at official functions and a love of reveling, brought growing public ridicule. Increasingly resentful of life in the public eye, Lord Snowdon began to spend more time away from the princess, working abroad on photographic projects, sometimes in the company of attractive young women. Princess Margaret also went her own way. She was linked romantically with Anthony Barton, a friend of her husband, and then had a relationship with Robin Douglas-Home, an aristocrat and former army officer who was the nephew of a former prime minister and played the piano in nightclubs.

In February 1967, when the British press began reporting that the royal couple were about to break up, Lord Snowdon, who was working overseas, and Princess Margaret arranged to meet in New York and fly on to the Bahamas, trying to give the impression that nothing was amiss. Shortly afterward, Princess Margaret wrote to Mr. Douglas-Home breaking off the affair. Eighteen months later he committed suicide. Advertisement Although the royal couple had made a show of togetherness and were often photographed with their children -- David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones (Viscount Linley) and Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (Lady Sarah Chatto) -- their relations continued to deteriorate. At Home on a Caribbean Isle Princess Margaret was often seen in the company of famous men, including Mr. Sellers. She also began to spend more time on the Caribbean island of Mustique, where a friend, Colin Tenant, had given her land as a wedding present and where she built a vacation home known as Les Jolies-Eaux. In September 1973, at a luncheon in Edinburgh, she met the 25-year-old Roderic Llewellyn, who soon became a favorite companion.

The son of minor nobility, Mr. Llewellyn had worked briefly at a mine in southern Africa and as an apprentice brewer in England. Five months after meeting Princess Margaret he spent three weeks as her guest in Mustique. Although their relationship was soon an open secret in royal circles. the queen, according to Mr. Aronson, was said to have disapproved of Mr. Llewellyn and what she called ''my sister's guttersnipe life.'' But the liaison remained unknown to the public. Then in February 1976 a news photographer's picture of the couple together on the island caused a scandal. In March the royal family announced that Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret were separating. Meanwhile, the relationship between the princess and Mr. Llewellyn set off a storm in Parliament. When Mr. Llewellyn was hospitalized with stomach problems during a trip to the Caribbean in March 1978, reports that the princess went to his bedside prompted critics to demand that her royal allowance -- then more than $100,000 a year -- be cut. The battle was played out in the newspapers, with some calling for her to end her relationship with Mr.

Llewellyn and take her work more seriously, and others writing in her defense. Although she was patron of more than 80 charities and organizations, colonel in chief of the Highland Fusiliers of Canada and president of the Royal Ballet, there was increasing resentment of her approach to her duties. Critics complained that the number of her public appearances, which had once averaged 150 a year, had dwindled to well below 100. Some Labor members of Parliament called her an embarrassment to the monarchy. Then in May, while she was hospitalized with hepatitis, Kensington Palace, where she lived, issued a statement announcing her divorce, an action that ended a 400-year-old taboo on divorce in the royal family. In the fall, Princess Margaret, on an official visit to Tuvalu in the South Pacific, became ill and had to be flown to Sydney, Australia, for treatment. That December, a month after her return to Britain, Lord Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, who had been married to a film director. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Princess Margaret's traumatic private life had long taken a toll on her health. She smoked heavily and her enthusiasm for Scotch sometimes shocked her companions.

In 1974, according to Mr. Aronson, she suffered a nervous breakdown. The princess herself remained reticent about her private life. ''I have no intention of telling people what I have for breakfast,'' she once said. Sometimes, however, she had a penchant for saying the wrong thing. In October 1979, six weeks after Earl Mountbatten was killed by Irish Republican Army terrorists, she angered many Irish-Americans while on a visit to Chicago, reportedly declaring in the presence of Mayor Jane Byrne that the Irish were ''pigs.'' But she could also be quite gracious. In 1980, when Mr. Llewellyn told her that he was breaking off their relationship to marry Tatiania Soskin, a fashion designer, she assured the younger couple she would be happy to attend their wedding, and she remained friends with both. Lunch With an Old Lover As the 1980's progressed, public interest turned to the romantic travails of the next generation of royals. Two of the queen's three sons -- Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Andrew, the Duke of York -- married and divorced under the glare of relentless publicity.

Anne, the princess royal and the queen's only daughter, was permitted to divorce her husband, Capt. Mark Philips, and in 1992 married a royal equerry. Through the years the princess had corresponded with Peter Townsend and in 1992, while he was on a rare visit to Britain, she invited him to lunch at Kensington Palace attended by several other people. The 77-year-old group captain and the 61-year-old princess sat and ''chatted like the old friends they were.'' Group Captain Townsend died in Paris in 1995. It was often speculated how different her life might have been had the two been allowed to marry. ''In my opinion, this was the turning point to disaster for the royal family,'' said Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage, at the time of Group Captain Townsend's death. ''After Princess Margaret was denied marriage, it backfired and more or less ruined Margaret's life. The queen decided that from then on, anyone someone in her family wanted to marry would be more or less acceptable.

The royal family and the public now feel that they've gone too far in the other direction.'' Princess Margaret is survived by her son, Lord Linley, her daughter, Lady Sarah, and three grandchildren. As she grew older, the princess lived less in the public eye. ''They leave me alone these days,'' Mr. Aronson quoted her as saying. ''Today they have other fish to fry.'' Advertisement Continue reading the main story Correction: February 15, 2002, Friday Because of an editing error, a television review on Feb. 4 about ''Bertie and Elizabeth,'' a ''Masterpiece Theater'' presentation on the life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, misstated the policy of the Church of England on divorce, a factor in the abdication of her brother-in-law King Edward VIII, who became the Duke of Windsor. An obituary of her daughter Princess Margaret on Sunday also included the error. The church does not forbid divorce. It revokes the right to marry in a parish church while a former spouse is living. But even then, depending on circumstances, a priest can allow a church wedding.

H R H The Princess Margaret - Telegraph Obituaries H R H The Princess Margaret Her Royal Highness the Princess Margaret, the Queen's only sister, who has died aged 71, aroused both affection and controversy. Photo: GETTY IMAGES 12:01AM GMT 11 Feb 2002 She had talents and qualities which might, perhaps, have blossomed more fully away from the constant blaze of publicity. She had defects which, precisely because she was completely honest, she neither would nor could conceal: wilfulness, a dislike of being crossed and an inability to reconcile her royal status with her love of the bohemian. A complex figure, Princess Margaret seemed, despite her exalted position, more often than not to have been dealt a peculiarly bad hand for the game of life. She was, in childhood, the heir presumptive to the heir apparent, a role which often appeared to impose many of the obligations but few of the privileges attaching to her elder sister. Most crucially of all, her position meant that it was deemed impossible for her to marry the man of her choice, since he had been divorced.

This cast a blight over much of her life and soured her relationship with the Establishment - and also, to a certain extent, with the public. In later years, as the Queen's own family grew, Princess Margaret moved away from the limelight, but, despite taking on at least the conventional number of royal appointments, she never managed to find a truly absorbing interest - such as that which her niece the Princess Royal achieved with the Save the Children Fund. It was Princess Margaret's misfortune to have narrowly missed being a Queen - a job at which she might have been rather good - while being saddled with the secondary task of being a Princess, for which she was temperamentally unsuited. But if at times she appeared to have lost her purpose, one of her outstanding - and most durable - qualities was her deep sense of loyalty to her sister, the Queen. Related Articles The Earl of Dudley 26 Nov 2013 She was born at Glamis Castle, the historic family seat of her maternal grandfather, the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, on August 21 1930 - four and a half years after her elder sister, Princess Elizabeth of York.

The Prince of Wales being then unmarried, Princess Margaret's father, the Duke of York, was likely to become heir to the throne. So the Home Secretary, J R Clynes, a former organiser of the Lancashire Gasworkers' Union, had to be present when the child was born. Although the Home Secretary was no longer obliged to be in the room, as Sir James Graham had been (behind a screen) when Queen Victoria's eldest son arrived, the fear that a substitute heir might appear in a warming pan was still officially maintained. The baby was a fortnight late. So the wretched Clynes was lodged in the neighbourhood for weeks on end. This tradition was subsequently abandoned. It was the first important royal birth to take place in Scotland since that of Charles I in 1600. Her parents had not expected a daughter, and so had no names in mind. Prolonged debate ensued, with her father favouring Ann and King George V dissenting. Margaret was a popular choice in Scotland, where it had been a royal name since the 11th-century Queen and Saint Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling, bride of King Malcolm Canmore.

For her second name she was called Rose, after her aunt, the Countess Granville. A sentimental story goes that at first her elder sister, Princess Elizabeth ("Lilibet") called her "Bud" on the ground that she was "not a real Rose yet". For years the press referred to her by both names in conjunction, though the family never called her anything but Margaret. Intelligent and forward for her age, Princess Margaret of York was soon a fluent talker. Yet when the rumour spread throughout the country that she was deaf and dumb, no denials could scotch it. The Duke of York would say to guests held captive by his talkative and amusing little Princess: "This is my deaf and dumb child." Despite the difference in age, the sibling Princesses were close and extremely devoted. These early years were spent in a London house, 145 Piccadilly (later demolished after a highly publicised "siege" when it was occupied by squatters in the 1970s), and at Royal Lodge, in Windsor Great Park. Royal Lodge, a Regency house once occupied by the Prince Regent himself, was much decayed when the Yorks moved in, and they rebuilt it almost entirely.

When Princess Margaret was barely 18 months old a new governess, who had previously been with Lord and Lady Granville's children, was taken on for a trial of a month; Marion Crawford, nicknamed "Crawfie", was to stay for 17 years. With the exception of the Princess's parents, Crawfie was the most significant educational influence in her life. In retirement Crawfie was held to have betrayed her royal trust by publishing her reminiscences, but until the late 1940s she was a much liked and respected figure in the family circle. Until the Abdication of Princess Margaret's "Uncle David", King Edward VIII - a regular visitor who enjoyed playing Happy Families and Racing Demon with his nieces after tea - life with the Yorks was sheltered and well-ordered. At the weekends in Windsor Great Park the girls took riding lessons; there were annual excursions to the Royal Tournament and the pantomime; at King George V's personal request Crawfie taught both girls "a decent hand"; suitable guests like their cousins, the Harewoods, occasionally called for tea; their parents attended bath-time and frequently followed this with pillow fights. It was all very comfortable and cosy.

The Abdication, when Princess Margaret was six years old, changed this life dramatically. The two Princesses, who had always been objects of enormous popular interest, were taken from Piccadilly to Marlborough House to witness with their grandmother, Queen Mary, the formal proclamation of King George VI at St James's Palace. Six months later, wearing lightweight golden coronets especially designed by their father, they saw their parents crowned in Westminster Abbey. Afterwards the Princess, still not yet seven years old, took her place with the rest of the Royal Family to acknowledge the plaudits of the crowd from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Her sister already looked regal and radiant. But Princess Margaret's expression in the official photograph displayed a tentative unease which was to recur throughout her life. For the first time she found herself in the full glare of the limelight. Yet while her sister was clearly on centre stage she was only on the fringe. And as life progressed she was to move ever closer to the wings. "I have only just learned how to spell York," the Princess was reported to have said at the time, "and now I am not to use it any more.

I am to sign myself Margaret all alone." Until then their parents had been scrupulous about treating their two daughters as equally as age allowed. But now it was different. Princess Elizabeth had to be groomed for monarchy. Princess Margaret was already showing signs of an extrovert nature, which one royal writer has contrasted with her sister's as "less solemn, less conscientious and altogether less well-mannered". Her father, already inclined to indulge his younger girl, saw no great reason to curb these tendencies. Her elder sister was not so lenient: even at the 1937 Coronation she had, as Crawfie noted, to "nudge her once or twice when she played with the prayer books too loudly". The sisters always enjoyed a loving relationship, but from almost the earliest times it was fraught with difficulties. The dutiful elder was not always able to conceal her exasperation with the wayward younger. During the Second World War the two Princesses were always together, part of the time at Windsor Castle and partly at Balmoral.

They were rarely seen in public, but in October 1940 they sent a cheering message across the wireless airwaves from Windsor on "Uncle Mac's" programme, Children's Hour. When she had done her bit Princess Elizabeth memorably exhorted her sister ("Come on, Margaret") to add her own "Goodnight and good luck to you all". The two Princesses also put on several pantomimes at Windsor. As well as their education at Crawfie's hands, the Princesses benefited from the tuition of a French governess of a different and more sensitive kind, the Vicomtesse de Bellaigue. By the end of the war Princess Margaret was nearly 15: pretty, excellent company and the apple of her father's eye. She was also found by the Royal Household to be thoughtful for others, though she could equally show signs of being spoilt and demanding. A gifted pianist and singer, a wonderful mimic, she was soon exhibiting what, by royal standards, was almost raffishness. It did not sit altogether easily with the straitlaced style of the post-war palace. Not that this slightly mischievous streak was without value.

When her sister became engaged to Prince Philip, for example, Mahatma Gandhi sent a loin cloth which he had woven on his own loom. Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy, had indicated that this was an appropriate present, but Queen Mary was not amused and demanded it be withdrawn. When she conducted a formal inspection, though, the offending cloth was still there. Luckily Princess Margaret saw it before the old Queen and was able to prevent a nasty scene by spiriting it out of sight. In January 1947 she went with the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth on a long voyage in Vanguard and a Royal Tour of South Africa, for which General Smuts had been pressing. It was an exhausting undertaking for all concerned, but Princess Margaret was the life and soul of the party. The Household in attendance included a gallant and good-looking equerry, Group Captain Peter Townsend. Almost all the women in the party were captivated by his charm. Meanwhile, back in London in the summer of 1947, her elder sister became engaged to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, RN (formerly Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark), who was created Duke of Edinburgh on the eve of the wedding.

Princess Margaret, now 17, was a bridesmaid and then, for the first time, she was separated from her sister. Loving dancing and gaiety, Princess Margaret threw herself into the pleasures of "coming out". She had already begun to perform a few Royal duties - including the launching of the Union Castle liner Edinburgh Castle at Harland & Wolff's yard in Belfast - but was still thought too young to do more than complete her education and enjoy herself. She soon established a group of close friends from the landed aristocracy known by the constantly attentive press as "the Margaret Set". They were entertaining, but they did not in themselves satisfy a yearning for something else in her nature. Her public duties increased, but not her contentment. Gay and laughing, often witty - and sometimes bitingly sharp to those who presumed too far - she was at that time a popular public figure, but far from fulfilled within. The death of her father, whom she had loved deeply, in February 1952, brought her great distress; and so did Crawfie's capitulation to public curiosity. Already some observers were uneasy about the sultry young Princess.

Queen Mary, who described her as "espiegle" or "mischievous", felt - somewhat uncharacteristically - that "she is so outrageously amusing that one can't help encouraging her". The diarist Chips Channon wondered, after meeting her at Ascot, what was to become of her, and suggested with some prescience that "there is already a Marie-Antoinette aroma about her". Under these circumstances, the Townsend friendship was regarded as a beneficial and steadying one. Unfortunately, though, it went wrong. Group Captain Townsend, although divorced with two sons, had long been in demand at Court, where his good manners, good looks and readiness to please won golden opinions. Even before the King died, Townsend and Princess Margaret fell in love. Shortly after the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Townsend and Princess Margaret told the Queen and Queen Mother that they wished to marry. Under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 all members of the Royal Family in line of succession are required to ask the Sovereign's permission to marry. The law compelled the new Queen to seek the advice of her prime minister. Sir Winston Churchill was adamant, and so was Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury.

For the young Queen's sister to have been seen to get away with what the Duke of Windsor and Mrs Simpson had not would have been a disastrous start to the reign. A clandestine, discreet relationship might perhaps have been tolerated, but the Princess was in no mood to pursue a secret love. In the immediate aftermath of the Coronation she was observed brushing her hand along Townsend's impressive set of medals in an all too intimate gesture. The American press took up the story, and inevitably the British followed suit. After representations from the Palace secretariat, Churchill agreed to advise the Queen that Townsend must go, and the equerry was posted to Brussels, as Air Attache to the British Embassy there. It was agreed that the two could correspond, but not meet for at least a year. It was a far from satisfactory arrangement, but in the eyes of the cautious courtiers it averted scandal and controversy.

Some of the couple's friends thought that, even if Townsend had not been divorced, it might not have been a successful marriage; for although he was a gallant Battle of Britain pilot, who had been awarded the DSO, DFC and Bar, he was inward-looking and not, it was felt, forceful enough to cope with the glamorous but exceptionally strong-willed Princess. However that may be, there were other considerations both of Church and State. Perhaps if Princess Margaret had been willing to renounce her right of succession to the throne and her royal title, the difficulties could have been surmounted. But she had no intention of doing so. In Brussels, Townsend was the target of the world's press. For her part, Princess Margaret went disconsolately to Rhodesia, on an official tour with her mother. It turned out to be more than two years before the Group Captain returned to England in October 1955. The two were still very much in love, and a meeting was arranged at the Berkshire house of the Princess's cousin, Mrs John Wills. There was no hope that their reunion could be conducted away from the public gaze, for the press were everywhere.

Everyone - from the Marquess of Salisbury, who threatened to resign from the Cabinet, to The Times, which said that happiness was a "spiritual state" in which "the most precious element may be the sense of duty done" - now felt free to offer an opinion. It was hardly surprising that after a 90-minute meeting at Clarence House the Princess and the Group Captain told first Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and then the Queen that there would be no marriage. They asked only for two concessions: that they should be allowed to continue seeing each other; and that they - or rather the Princess - should be allowed to issue a public statement. The Princess's statement wrung many hearts. "I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend," she said. "I have been aware that subject to my renouncing my rights of succession it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage, but mindful of the Church's teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others. "I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Peter Townsend.

I am deeply grateful for the concern of all those who constantly prayed for my happiness." Many echoed the view of Harold Nicolson, who wrote of his love and admiration for this "great act of self-sacrifice"; but there was a significant body of dissent which believed, in the words of the Manchester Guardian, that "in the long run it will not redound to the credit or influence of those who have been most persistent in denying the Princess the same liberty that is enjoyed by the rest of her fellow citizens". The couple continued to see each other amid sporadic and unwelcome bursts of publicity, but Townsend again went abroad and in 1959 married a 20-year-old Belgian tobacco heiress. Many years later, after personal trials and tribulations, Princess Margaret believed that her life would have been happier if the marriage had taken place, and felt some bitterness towards those who had opposed it - such as the courtier Sir Alan ("Tommy") Lascelles. But the decision was, as she said, hers alone. Various royal substitutes - Prince Christian of Hanover, Prince Bertil of Sweden - were canvassed by the public and the newspapers. But a marriage of convenience held no appeal for Princess Margaret.

She went on a month's tour of the West Indies and in 1958 returned there on the Queen's behalf to inaugurate at Port of Spain the Legislature of the newly created (and short-lived) Federation of the West Indies. At home she undertook more public engagements. She began a series of official journeys to foreign countries and Commonwealth territories; but although she tried to put a brave face on her disappointments she no longer seemed to be the shining Princess the public had known, and her relations with the press deteriorated. She was photographed by Antony Armstrong-Jones, a photographer and a nephew of Oliver Messel, the designer. It had been a meeting on a purely professional basis, but in the autumn of 1959 he was one of the guests at a weekend party given for Princess Margaret by Lord and Lady Rupert Nevill. Acquaintance quickly grew into a close friendship, and in February 1960 the Queen gave her consent to their engagement under the Royal Marriages Act.

Armstrong-Jones himself came from a broken home - his father, a Welsh lawyer, had married three times, while his mother, the former Anne Messel, was now married to the Earl of Rosse - but seemed suitable enough both for the Princess and for the public. An Old Etonian, he had read architecture at Cambridge, where he had coxed the university boat. Like the Princess, he had a taste for the arts, a keen sense of humour and a wide circle of rather raffish friends. They received a great ovation when they appeared together in the royal box at Covent Garden, and on May 6 1960 they were married in Westminster Abbey. Huge crowds greeted them with enthusiasm and they were lent the Royal Yacht Britannia for a six-week honeymoon in the Caribbean. Calypsos were written and sung in their honour at each island they visited, and Princess Margaret's love of the West Indies was still more firmly established. It seemed that the clouds had lifted. Established in Kensington Palace, they entertained actors and artists, playwrights and television stars, and established a glamorous reputation which chimed well with the "swinging" mood of the Sixties.

Despite marrying into the Royal Family, Armstrong-Jones continued his career as a photographer, not only as an accomplished chronicler of royalty but also as a brilliant photographer for the Sunday Times Magazine and later for The Daily Telegraph. It was a world which had not previously received royal recognition. In October 1961, Armstrong-Jones was created Earl of Snowdon, and a month later their son, David, styled Viscount Linley, was born. On May 1 1964, there was a second child, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones. Princess Margaret's success as a mother revealed her strengths: her deep capacity for affection and love of her immediate family; and concern for the children's well-being and pride in their achievements. The Princess herself continued to assemble an impressive portfolio of traditional royal jobs. She became Chancellor of the University of Keele; president of the Girl Guides (an appropriate appointment in view of her childhood involvement with the Buckingham Palace Guides and Brownies); president of the Victoria League and of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She was closely involved with the Dockland Settlement, Dr Barnardo's, the Royal Ballet and the Sadler's Wells Trust.

While the Queen and Prince Philip gave an impression of robust and typically British suspicion of intellectuals and dangerous creative talent, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon acted as the Royal Family's flag-bearers in the world of the arts. Towards the end of the 1960s Princess Margaret told one interviewer: "In my own sort of humble way I have always tried to take some part of the burden off my sister. She can't do it all, you know. I leap at the opportunity of doing lots of different things to help." This was true, but unfortunately she continued to be dogged by unluckiness in love. Towards the end of the 1960s rumours of a rift in her marriage grew apace. Lord Snowdon was often away on professional photographic assignments and continued to maintain his own cottage in Sussex. She herself took regular and separate holidays on the Caribbean island of Mustique, where her old friend Colin Tennant had made her a wedding present of a holiday home designed by Oliver Messel. The salacious European press began to run rumours of divorce. By the early 1970s the British popular press had joined in the game and the couple's separate lives became common knowledge.

Princess Margaret began a romantic friendship with 27-year-old Roddy Llewellyn, son of Colonel Harry Llewellyn who had won Britain's gold medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics riding a horse called Foxhunter. Young Llewellyn, however, had not followed in his father's conventional footsteps but was seen as a Sixties "drop-out" with no visible means of support other than forays into pop singing and landscape gardening. While Llewellyn was clearly kind and thoughtful towards Princess Margaret, he was also unpredictable, naive and, in terms of attracting adverse attention from press and public, accident-prone. As a result, the years of their friendship, although at times providing considerable happiness for the Princess, were punctuated by a series of incidents tailor-made for ridicule. Their evident infatuation gave rise to much unfavourable comment in the House of Commons as well as in the press. Princess Margaret's popularity sank to a low level - Willie Hamilton, the republican Labour MP, called her "a wayward woman" - and her sense of unfulfilment grew more profound.

In February 1976 the News of the World ran an illustrated front page story about the Princess's holiday on Mustique. Llewellyn featured prominently in this. There followed an unseemly brouhaha, with the Snowdons' marriage making daily headlines until on March 19 a formal separation was announced. This was followed by divorce two years later. Snowdon remarried, Llewellyn married, and the Princess was once more alone. Anxiety about her health added to her woes. In 1985 there was a scare about lung cancer when part of her lung was removed, though this did not stop her continuing to smoke heavily. In 1998 the Princess suffered a stroke while on holiday on Mustique. After being examined by a local doctor she was flown by air ambulance to Barbados. When she arrived back in Britain the next day, she was taken to the King Edward VII Hospital in London, where a few weeks earlier she had visited her mother, the Queen Mother, who had undergone a second hip replacement. The next year, again in Mustique, the Princess suffered bad burns to her feet after stepping into a scalding bath or shower.

Indeed, when The Earl and Countess of Wessex were married in June 1999, it was Princess Margaret who arrived in a wheelchair while the Queen Mother walked with the aid of a stick to her seat in St George's Chapel, Windsor. In March 2001 she suffered another stroke, which affected her mobility in the left side and also impaired her vision. In the last months of her life, when she appeared in public it was always in a wheelchair; she also wore heavy dark glasses. However, three months after the wedding of the Earl and Countess of Wessex she had taken up public duties again, her first engagement being to open a counselling project in Aberdeen for abused children. Throughout her travails, the Princess continued to undertake for as long as she was well a full round of public duties, though the emergence of a new generation of newsworthy royals meant that she was not much noticed by the media. She was particularly proud of her colonelcies of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars, the Highland Fusiliers of Canada, the Women's Royal Australian Army Corps, the Princess Louise Fusiliers and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.

In 1947, when King George VI ceased to be Emperor of India, he made a final bestowal of the Order of the Crown of India on his two daughters so that Princess Margaret was the last to be given the privilege of putting CI after her name. She was also a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, and had numerous foreign orders, including the Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands' Lion presented to her when she represented King George VI at the Coronation of Queen Juliana in 1948. Princess Margaret took a keen interest in the arts, especially ballet - she was president of the Royal Ballet and of the Sadler's Wells Trust and patron of the London Festival Ballet. She was also patron of the Edinburgh Hospital named in her honour and of the Royal College of Nursing, the National Council of Nurses and the Institute of Cancer Research. The interest in nursing and medicine was capped by her title of Grand President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.

Altogether, she was president or patron of more than 50 organisations, including the West Indies Olympic Association, Dr Barnardo's, the Sunshine Homes and Schools for Blind Children, the Invalid Children's Aid Association, Chorleywood College for Girls with Little or No Sight and the League of Pity. They all received the same conscientious, intelligent and well-informed support. She took a particular interest in the NSPCC. Addressing the society's annual conference in 1986, the Princess pointed out that there had "recently been some appalling acts of physical violence, but let us not forget that there are thousands of children who suffer from neglect. Thousands more can be stunted physically and emotionally through lack of love and want of proper care. These are the 'forgotten children' who we must never let the world forget." For all her misfortunes, Princess Margaret always retained her sense of fun. She took much pleasure in the success of her children, both of whom inherited their parents' artistic gifts, and who were allowed to pursue independent careers in the arts. This was in marked contrast to the constraints placed on herself.

Despite some press comments to the contrary, she always enjoyed a close relationship with both her mother and elder sister, and she had a wide and loyal circle of sometimes rather unlikely friends. The greatest pleasures and strengths of Princess Margaret's life were her children, her family and close friends, and her Christianity. She also drew constant reward from involvement in those organisations which filled the calendar of her official life, and from her own more personal interests - such as art and architecture. It is a particular shame that such a warm, witty, sophisticated and gifted personality should be remembered chiefly in terms of her flawed romantic life. She deserved much better than that, but the harsh fact is that it was this which attracted the world's attention and not the many dutiful workaday activities in which she was engaged. That this should be so says much more about the world and its peculiar attitude towards the House of Windsor than it does about Princess Margaret. Whatever may have been foolishly and maliciously said at various times, the Princess was a remarkably beautiful and stylish woman who put duty first.

Published February 11 2002 Tributes to Queen Mother and Princess Margaret at Windsor memorial - BBC News BBC News Tributes to Queen Mother and Princess Margaret at Windsor memorial 30 March 2012 Close share panel Image caption Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother died within weeks of each other in 2002 The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret "significantly enriched" the lives of family and friends, a memorial service has heard. The service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle was held for the royal women, who both died 10 years ago. The Dean of Windsor, the Right Reverend David Conner, also praised their "faithfulness to the nation". Members of the Royal Family, led by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, attended the private service. The Queen Mother died in her sleep on March 30 2002, aged 101, while her daughter died the previous month aged 71, after suffering a third stroke.

In his introduction, the dean said: "Each of us here this morning will cherish some special personal memories, memories that awaken once again sentiments of affection and respect." Image caption The Queen led members of the Royal Family at the memorial service At the end of the service, senior members of the Royal Family were led to the King George VI memorial chapel where the remains of the King, his wife and their daughter are interred. A prayer written by Princess Margaret was read. Also in the congregation were the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry, the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence. The Duke of York was joined by his daughters, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and the Countess of Wessex. Princess Margaret's children, Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, were also in the congregation. The Queen Mother's official biographer William Shawcross and horse trainer Nicky Henderson also attended, as did playwright Sir Tom Stoppard and actress Felicity Kendal, who were both friends of Princess Margaret.

Question: In which year did Princess Margaret die?
Answer: 2002