He had even fathered a child with a married woman before marrying Margaret, whose paternity was only revealed a few years back.

He was rumored to be a playboy of the wildest kind and was reported to have slept with many women and men prior to marrying Margaret. Antony himself was yet another controversial companion, but for very different reasons. She met Antony Armstrong Jones, a photographer, at a dinner party in 1958. After her first engagement fell through, she married infamous playboy Tony Armstrong The Queen and the Parliament explored a range of avenues that would make the marriage feasible and valid, yet Margaret and Peter broke it off and went their separate ways. Several factors may have triggered this termination, but ultimately, there was no way that Margaret could marry Peter and still be an accepted member of the royal family or the Church of England. At the time, members of the royal family were not allowed to marry people whose ex-spouses were still alive - an archaic rule maintained by the Church of England.Īs a result, Margaret’s engagement with Peter was delayed and then halted altogether. First of all, he was 15 years her senior and had had two kids from his first marriage. Margaret’s engagement with Peter was talk of the whole town and was encumbered with controversy.

Peter divorced Cecil in 1952 and was engaged to Margaret just a year later. It’s alleged that the two started seeing each other while Peter was still married to his first wife, Cecil Rosemary Pratt. She had first met him when she was just 13 and fell in love with him in 1947 during a tour of South Africa. That is, until she met a member of her father’s staff, Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Whilst giving the full, insider story of the Princess's many love affairs, he also looks at her tireless work for charity, breaking many taboos along the way - Princess Margaret, not Diana, was the first Royal to champion HIV and AIDS awareness.She had allegedly had short-term courtships with as many as 30 men, but none of them stuck out to her as a potential husband. In his biography, Princess Margaret: A Life of Contrasts, Christopher Warwick redresses the balance. One of the most controversial royal figures of the twentieth century, Princess Margaret was admired as well as vilified for most of her adult life.ĭescribed by the designer and hotelier, Anouska Hempel, as 'Witty, wicked and wonderful', this charismatic princess not only brought colour and sex appeal into the Royal Family, but did much to help bring the monarchy and its attitudes into the modern world.Īdored younger daughter of King George VI and only sister of Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret was a pre-war princess whose world was hugely circumscribed by the strictures and protocol of another age, leading to conflict and misunderstanding in both her private and public life.

Princess margaret christopher warwick