Queen Elizabeth II & Margaret (A Tale of Two Sisters)

It has been said that no two sisters were ever less alike. One reserved and proper, the other lively and controversial. One the anchor of a commonwealth of nations, the other a figure searching for purpose in life. They grew up in a very, very different kind of world, a world of aristocracy, of deference, of people knowing their place. I think they were quite different from an early age, and they went on being different. I think they were both very sound people, both very committed in their different ways. I suppose that the Queen had so much more responsibility on her shoulders, and Princess Margaret didn't have those things to think about, so it carved a different path through life. Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret are among the most photographed women in history, their every appearance followed by press and public. They are familiar the world over. But what of the real women behind the show and splendour, beyond the balcony and cheering crowds, beyond the crown itself? Elizabeth is really both an embodiment of the old England that she grew up in, and the new, fast-changing modern world that she increasingly adapted to. The Queen always thought of her sister as an enigma. It's always very difficult to work out with Princess Margaret which half of her you're talking about, the loyal half or the rather dashing half. There's a huge affection between them that survives the ups and downs of their individual life. The contrast between the sisters was there from the beginning. Elizabeth was born in the placid surroundings of London's Mayfair on the 21st of April 1926. Four years later, during a storm in rural Scotland, Margaret came into the world. Their parents were the Duke and Duchess of York, Albert and Elizabeth. Albert, or Bertie as he was known, was the second son of the King, George V. Elizabeth was a mature, rather serious child with a love of dogs and horses shared with her grandfather, the King. Margaret, however, was a very different character. It very quickly became obvious that Margaret was the cheekier, the more humorous, the more mischievous of the two girls. Elizabeth was certainly by no means plain, but lacked her sister's quite extrovert qualities. Princess Elizabeth was quite a serious-minded child. She seems to have been naturally tidy, naturally orderly. But Margaret, from the start, was fun, she was vivacious. She was never corrected by her father, so she was something of a wild child. She was very precocious and got away with an awful lot. The Duke of York used to say, Lilibet is my pride and Margaret is my joy. And as far as Princess Margaret was concerned, he really couldn't take his eyes off this child. I mean, she was so beautiful that he couldn't believe that he'd created this glorious and beautiful child, and then he rather spoiled her. The princess's public life began early, and here we see her during a Scottish holiday, arriving with a family party at a Highland gathering. Neither girl was prepared for the lives they were to lead. As two daughters of a second-born prince, Elizabeth and Margaret had no expectations of being thrust into the international spotlight. With the Duke and Duchess of York, there was never any anticipation that they would succeed to the throne, and certainly never any expectation that Princess Elizabeth would come to the throne. It was, of course, always possible that George and Elizabeth would have further children, and a male heir would, of course, then leapfrog Elizabeth in line for the throne. So it was always a fairly remote possibility that she would become queen at her birth. The Duke and Duchess of York, us four, as the Duke called them, rather anticipated a cosy family life in the way that they were already enjoying, and they were a very natural family and a very loving family. It was the girl's uncle, the charming bachelor Prince David, who would be the next king. He was expected to marry and have children of his own who would one day inherit the crown. Elizabeth and Margaret were set for a life of comfortable semi-obscurity. Until 1936, the year everything changed. Late on the 20th of January, King George V died at Sandringham. He'd been unwell for quite some time, and it went back to the Great War when he was thrown from his horse while reviewing troops in France and suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pleurisy. Now, that's a progressive condition, so it didn't get any better. The only witness to the king's final moments in this regard were his physician, and his physician claims to have administered a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine to ease the king's passing, believing, as he did, in a gentle adoption of euthanasia. It was also thought that it was far better that the king's death should be announced in the morning paper, the Times, rather than the slightly more down-market evening papers. Elizabeth and Margaret's uncle David was proclaimed king and became Edward VIII. But the new monarch had never wanted the crown. Indeed, he was terrified by the idea. There was another complication. The king was in love with American divorcee Wallis Simpson and was set on marrying her. The wider British establishment, however, was far from taken with the idea. Wallis Simpson was loose, irreverent, dashing, very much symbolised that kind of New World glamour which endeared her very greatly to Edward, but did not endear her to the remainder of the family. Wallis had been twice divorced, and that was unheard of in the British monarchy and in those social circles. And so that was a reason for not liking her. He very much actually didn't really want to be king. He may not have even been able to voice that, but unless he was even stupider, than I think he was, he must have realised that nobody was going to accept a woman as queen with two husbands living. That was the problem. The secular head of state is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He was about to go through a coronation ceremony that is very similar to the kind of consecration that a priest goes through. Anointed with holy oil, with water, it's a dedication. For such a clear hypocritical breach to exist as him marrying a divorcee would, especially in the context of these times, have been wholly unacceptable. I don't think he took at all well to being monarch. I think he didn't have the patience for it. His own grasp of detail, particularly in regards to the empire, particularly in regards to the industrial disputes which were enveloping the country, really left quite a lot to be desired. Indeed, it is said that George V predicted rather darkly that if Edward became king, he'd ruin himself within a year. A constitutional crisis was gripping Britain. The public were unaware, the press was muzzled and the king's affair kept secret. Finally, unable to renounce the woman he loved, the king gave up his crown. On December the 11th, 1936, Edward abdicated. He had been king less than a year. It was a shock. It was seen, I think, popularly as a dereliction of duty. There were those who thought Edward should stay and should be allowed to marry Wallis Simpson, and there were those who just thought, this man is a waste of space and he's got to go. And Wallis Simpson, let's say, saved the monarchy from a man who would have been a pretty awful king. A crowd gathered outside Bertie's house in Piccadilly. The new king's family had moved out of their home into the vast and cold magnificence of Buckingham Palace. The lives of Elizabeth and Margaret were transformed. Elizabeth was now next in line to the throne. The training for her future role began at once. In 1936, following the abdication of Edward VIII, the throne passed to Elizabeth and Margaret's father, Bertie. He became George VI. On the 12th of May, 1937, he was crowned at Westminster Abbey. George was wholly unprepared for being king. He himself said that it was like a lamb being led to the slaughter. There was an established convention of not using first Christian name, but using middle names to rule under. And he chose George simply because within the Hanoverian tradition, there had already been five Georges, and of course, the previous monarch was called George II. And he wanted very much to embody stability after the chaos and confusion of the abdication crisis. The Duke of York realised that he might have to step forward and become king without having had any experience at all of state papers, any of the training that his brother had had. He went in absolutely cold. King George would ensure that his elder daughter, Elizabeth, would be more prepared for the role of monarch. From 1938, she received private tuition from Sir Henry Martin, the vice provost of Eton College. Her father explained the nature of the official dispatch boxes that were the monarch's everyday duty. Margaret was excluded. The sisters' once identical upbringing was diverging. That expectation of being well-educated does not extend to Margaret, who continues to be educated as a well-mannered, accomplished girl who was expected to go on and marry. So, singing, piano lessons, French conversation become important, but not constitutional history, not the hard lessons of theology. They were still loving sisters with the same bond that they always shared. This was a very definitive event which exacerbated early tendencies that the girls may have already had. Elizabeth to duty and Margaret to frivolity and maybe being slightly outside of the really important cockpit of constitutional decision-making. Beyond the girls' classrooms, the world was in crisis. The aggression of Nazi Germany had sparked a new conflict in Europe. It was suggested that Elizabeth and Margaret be evacuated for their own safety. They weren't moved overseas simply because it was thought very important to send the right kind of message, to send the message that the royal family was not running from the threat of Nazi Germany and everyone would very much remain in post. The king needed the queen to be with him. She wasn't going to leave and the daughters weren't going to leave. They were all basically going to stay together. And it was actually a very powerful message. The images that were coming out of Germany were all sort of nasty pictures of people stomping around in black uniforms and raising their arms and shouting. What did you get from England? You got Queen Elizabeth in a pony cart with the two princesses bicycling behind her. I mean, which would you prefer? Because of events and invasions going on in Europe, the queen said that it would be a good idea to take the princesses to the greater security of Windsor Castle for the rest of the week. And as Princess Margaret said, we were supposed to go for five days and we stayed for five years. The castle seemed forbidding at first. Its fineries had been put into storage. A blackout shrouded it in darkness. But though tremors caused by explosions in London could be felt in the castle, the girls were safe. As the war progressed and the sisters grew, Elizabeth took on more and more public responsibilities. After she turned 18 in 1944, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a mechanic and driver. Princess in overalls. Elizabeth is in the ATS, or British Whack, and at the king's request, is being treated just like any other trainee. Now visited by her parents and sister Margaret Rose at a training station in southern England, she shows them she knows a fan belt from a spark plug all right and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and the ATS were much more for ordinary girls. And so I think it was intended to send a message that the royal family was not so different. They were not elitist in an unpleasant way. Elizabeth learned how to drive an ambulance, learned how to be a mechanic, indeed even learned how to fire a revolver. These were, of course, propagandistic tokens, but nonetheless, a pretty young princess, chipping in with the war effort, was definitely designed to boost national morale. I think it was very, very much appreciated by the public and by her. She loved it. She loved learning to drive, how to deal with combustion engines and all those kind of things, just up her street. While the war brought her closer to the public gaze, it also brought her love. And for this sensible, pragmatic girl, her choice was unexpected. In July of 1939, when the queen was just 13 years of age, she inspected a Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, and one of the young officers she was introduced to was this dashing, handsome Prince Philip. I think it is fairly plain that the extremely good-looking, extremely charming, extremely glamorous Prince Philip caught the eye of Elizabeth, and the church all dropped. Three years later, the couple spent Christmas together while Philip was on leave from the navy. They then began exchanging frequent letters, but Elizabeth's parents, the king and queen, did not approve. The king had his doubts about Philip. There was the feeling within the royal family that all of this was too much too soon. The thought of somebody coming and taking away his daughter at the young age of 21 wasn't, I expect, totally appealing, as it wouldn't have been maybe to many a father. We must remember that Elizabeth set her eyes on him for the first time at the age of 13, and there was an acknowledgement, even then when people generally got married a great deal earlier than now, that this might just simply be a girlhood crush that would blow over. The king and queen's resistance had been defeated. On the 20th of November, 1947, Elizabeth and Philip were married at Westminster Abbey. Margaret was among the bridesmaids. Elizabeth and Philip take their places on history's pages. To the stirring strains of Mendelssohn, they march as man and wife toward the west door amidst nearly 3,000 invited spectators. The wedding itself was a very grand affair, a deliberately grand affair against this backdrop of austerity. Rationing was still on, if anything slightly more severe. She may have been heir to the throne, but she couldn't be seen as claiming special privileges. Though you have a lavish dress, it's by no means as lavish as other royal brides. The wedding was the first big royal occasion since the king and queen's coronation 10 years before, and Winston Churchill referred to it as a flash of colour on the road we have to travel. The following year, Elizabeth gave birth to a son. Charles was born on the 14th of November, 1948. Three more children would follow over the next 16 years. This meant Margaret was no longer next in line to the throne. I think that Margaret had already accepted that her sisterly relationship with Elizabeth had changed once Philip was on the scene, and so in many respects the arrival of Charles didn't really change that. I don't think she had ever any expectation of being queen, any desire to be queen, and so, if anything, it was probably a relief. I'm sure that the first reaction that Princess Margaret had was, you know, great joy, but I know that in later life, there was a certain sort of feeling of being a younger sister, and other members of the royal family always just told what to do. You know, you will appear at 10 o'clock, or indeed at 10.03, your car will arrive, and you will do this, you will do that, and you will wear the following. So there was always a little bit of the younger sister feeling about the whole thing. In the post-war years, their father the king's health declined. Both sisters took on more of his public duties. In September 1951, George VI had his left lung removed after a malignant tumour was discovered. The king was not told he had cancer, and the disease was not beaten. On the morning of February 6, 1952, the king died. He was just 56. Elizabeth was in Kenya when her father died, on an early rest stop in a planned tour to Australia. Elizabeth was always thought of by the king as being his protege. Margaret was always thought of as being his pet, his light relief. And so when he passed away, both girls felt sad. Elizabeth felt sadness, then was overwhelmed by duty. For Princess Margaret, it was absolutely awful. She had lost a father that absolutely adored her, and she had no role whatsoever. Elizabeth had left Britain as a princess. She returned as its queen. But what did the future hold for Margaret? The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on the 2nd of June, 1953. It was a lavish affair. Westminster Abbey had been closed for months as preparations took place. And on the day itself, millions thronged the streets of London. Westminster Abbey was transformed practically into a theatre, if you like, with galleries packed with 8,000 people. The coronation was to be an end to austerity. It was to inaugurate as a new Elizabethan age. It was designed really to reaffirm Britain's status in a post-war world which had been turned upside down. A very glamorous young queen was there to optimistically lead the British people into the future. I do remember Coronation Day quite well because my father had tickets for some seats near Admiralty Arch through the army. He was in the army. And I remember sitting there and seeing the guests and their carriages coming towards Admiralty Arch where Churchill came along. And I remember opposite us his furious face sticking out of the window and glaring at the traffic down to the arch. The coronation itself was the same ancient ceremony unchanged for centuries. But there was at least one touch of modernity. It was the first to be televised. Not that many ordinary people owned televisions. Britain was still mired in post-war austerity. Some goods were still rationed eight years after the defeat of Germany. And on the international stage, Britain was declining as an imperial and military power. Nevertheless, the nation celebrated. Yet behind the pomp and glamour of that day lay family grief, disputes and scandals just waiting to explode. In the middle of preparations for the coronation, Margaret stunned Elizabeth by informing her that she wished to marry. Her desired husband was a man named Peter Townsend. He had been a wartime flying ace and had flown more than 500 missions and been shot down twice in the process. During the war, George VI decided that he would honour servicemen who distinguished themselves and would have them as a query for periods of three months. Recommended was the much-decorated RAF fighter pilot, Group Captain Peter Townsend. Townsend and the King got on so well together, it is said the King referred to him as the son I never had, that the idea of a three-month period in waiting as a query just went straight out of the window. After the King's death in 1952, Townsend's job disappeared, but the family did not wish to lose him. He was invited to join the Queen Mother's household as controller, a role he accepted. All the girls at Buckingham Palace and all the girls that were around the court rather took a fancy, took a shine to this guy. But the one who really fell in love with him was Princess Margaret. You can understand perhaps at that moment, having lost her father, she turned more to him than was perhaps advisable. He was there when her father died, part of the inner circle of royal aides and servants who helped to comfort Margaret. After all, Margaret was devastated by her father's loss, this was a man who'd been close to, who'd been liked by her father. He was also like her brother-in-law, a hero, and people liked heroes. It was still an age when we built heroes up. Townsend was 16 years older than Margaret and recently divorced. While these facts did not trouble Margaret, others were less happy. Well, there was opposition to the relationship for one simple reason, that he was already married and he had a wife and he had two boys. Divorced people not really allowed to have a social life and I think that sadly, that was what happened. He was quite a bit older than her, but I don't think that would have mattered. Under a law of 1772, all members of the royal family had to have the sovereign's permission to marry. Elizabeth was sympathetic, she could see the love between the couple, but she asked Margaret to wait until the coronation was out of the way and everything had settled down. Margaret left the meeting with her sister feeling hopeful, but when Elizabeth spoke to her private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, he was horrified and urged Elizabeth to send Townsend abroad. Elizabeth was caught between love for her sister and her responsibilities to the legal and religious bodies she headed. She loved Margaret and she wanted her to be happy. I think it was incredibly difficult for her. All the politicians, with some exceptions, including Winston Churchill, were advising her that this marriage should not go ahead and as such a new monarch, she didn't want to risk the potential friction for really putting up strong opposition against what the political classes were telling her. In other words, she put duty before her own private feelings. The Queen is temporal governor of the Church of England and the Church of England did not, would not recognise divorce. She agreed to send Townsend abroad. He was appointed heir attaché in Brussels. Townsend was stunned by this exile. He did not even get a chance to say goodbye to Margaret, who was on a royal tour in Africa at the time. Margaret was left bitter. Her own sister was Queen but could not help her. In Brussels, Townsend was hounded by the press. They maintained a constant correspondence. The couple believed they had only to wait. It was also obviously part of the plan that if Margaret and Townsend had to wait two years, it was pushing the princess closer to her 25th birthday and the importance of that was that at 25, a member of the royal family could petition Parliament for permission to marry and if both houses didn't oppose it, then they could have a civil marriage and that was, I think, what was happening here. Margaret was going to be 25 in August of 1955. As the press counted down to the date, speculation grew that an engagement announcement was imminent but her birthday came and went with no announcement. Finally, on the 31st of October 1955, Margaret released a statement to the press. Her relationship with Townsend was over, it said. There would be no marriage. The decision not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend is reached by Britain's Princess Margaret, here arriving with her mother for a formal family appearance at London's Royal Opera House. In putting duty and religion ahead of her heart, Margaret had the example of her sister, the Queen, who dutifully entertained the President of Portugal while the family crisis neared a climax. Queen Mother Elizabeth approved her daughter's decision. Strongly opposing the marriage was the Archbishop of Canterbury. The traditional interpretation has always been that the Prime Minister and ecclesiastical figures really threatened Margaret with the withdrawal of her royal allowances and her HRH if her marriage with Peter Townsend went ahead. The government of the day, under the premiership of Antony Eden, had actually done something of a U-turn, far from opposing the marriage. They had paved the way for Margaret and Peter Townsend to marry if they still wished to do so. A formula was found which would have meant that she could have retained her status as Princess. We now know that Princess Margaret, had she wanted to marry him, would have lost nothing but her place in the line of succession. They really didn't want to create a martyr of Princess Margaret where her own personal desires were paired off against the establishment. It was not government pressure that had ended the relationship between Margaret and Group Captain Townsend. The truth was far simpler. Contained in the files released by the National Archives is a letter that Princess Margaret wrote in private and in secret to Antony Eden. The crucial point of her letter was that she said, it is only by seeing him that I can properly decide whether I want to marry him or not. The crunch is obviously that she had decided, and he also no doubt had decided, that their love was no longer strong enough for them to marry. If Elizabeth hoped her sister would find someone more suitable, she was to be disappointed. In the 1950s, Britain was struggling to adapt to a new era. Its reign as a global power had passed. Foreign policy humiliation in the Suez Crisis had toppled Prime Minister Antony Eden, and the country's diminished role on the world stage had been exposed. As sovereign, Elizabeth was a beacon of stability in such uncertain times. But, as ever, Margaret's role was less defined. She was an important adjunct in the 50s and early 60s to her sister. Where she took on royal associated duties that freed Elizabeth up to do other things. Margaret became a very glamorous figure. She also started smoking in public, bringing out the characteristic elegant long cigarette holder, and was charged with doing things like opening hospitals, smashing bottles of champagne against ships in a very glamorous manner. Princess Margaret does have the reputation of having been a party girl, which, of course, she was. But we also have to accept that she was also a very hard-working member of the royal family. In 1957, Margaret became president of the new Royal Ballet, a reflection of her lifelong passion for theatre and the arts. Nevertheless, she was nearing 30 and still unmarried. In 1959, Peter Townsend wed a young Belgian woman with a striking resemblance to Margaret. Just months later, the princess surprised many by announcing an engagement of her own. Anthony Armstrong Jones was not the usual royal match. He was from a wealthy background, Eton, then Cambridge, but he had no fine title or lands. He was a photographer. Margaret was really enjoying the fruits of some of the major social changes starting to appear in this era. She was starting to keep very non-aristocratic company, quite bohemian company. Lady Elizabeth Cavendish gave a dinner party in February 1958, which Tony Armstrong Jones was one of the guests. And Princess Margaret had never met him before. I think the influence of Anthony Armstrong Jones was really to introduce her to normality. She was smuggled on the back of a motorcycle, disguised in a headscarf and dark glasses, to Armstrong Jones' rented flat in Robberhithe Street. The princess said that it was the most romantic setting, and this was their boathole. It had a bay window overlooking the Thames. You look to the right and there were the docks, and you look to the left and there was a bend in the river, and you saw Tower Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral beyond it. And at high tide, she said, swans would look in. Their relationship was kept secret, so the country was stunned in February 1960 when Princess Margaret's engagement to the photographer was announced. Their wedding was in Westminster Abbey on the 6th of May 1960. It was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television. Millions tuned in around the world. I think as a sister, Elizabeth was very happy that Margaret had been able to find a man she loved. I think as Queen, even though Armstrong Jones was not ideal, was not a society man at all, he was, given Margaret's status as a rebel, really about the best that they could hope for. Princess Margaret at that time was hugely popular. Everything she did made news. Everything she wore made news. So when she married, this was an occasion of great celebration. Everybody was frightfully pleased with the sort of glamour of the wedding. Princess Margaret looked wonderful, and he was a talented photographer, and it all seemed very modern and just how it should be. The whole thing really was a very, very beautiful occasion. I mean, I can remember being a young schoolboy, totally enthralled watching this on the television. Despite the excitement of that day and the two children born in the years that followed, the marriage soon became troubled. Mutual infidelity, drugs and alcohol strained the relationship to breaking point. I think that two worlds very much collided. Armstrong Jones's bohemian, free lifestyle and Margaret's unwillingness to dispense with, shall we say, all of the accoutrements of wealth and prestige and fundamentally royalty. It was a very close relationship, and although she was a princess and he wasn't a royal, I think that he had the upper hand. And as things got worse, he was better at being nasty than she was. Within three years of them having married, the cracks were already appearing. The British press, with the emerging tabloids and the red tops, were becoming much, much more hungry for scandal, and also, crucially, much more prepared to print scandal. Margaret was always the sort of go-to person for a royal scandal. He had much loyaler friends, it seems, than she did, because he always seemed to come out of it, as far as the public was concerned, rather well where she didn't. Press deference to royalty was a thing of the past. Newspapers covered the breakdown of Margaret's marriage in gleeful detail. It was far from the only change in Britain during Elizabeth's reign. By the time of her silver jubilee in 1977, old class divisions and social taboos were fading. The British Empire had transformed into a commonwealth of independent nations. The crown, Elizabeth, was the thread tying them together. As she guided the monarchy and nation through crisis and triumph, her sister Margaret was left without a role. She may have been an icon of the 1950s and 60s, but as the decades passed, her star waned. Like her father, Margaret was a heavy smoker for much of her life. Like him, she would suffer the consequences. From the late 1980s, her health began to decline. After several severe strokes, she died on 9 February 2002. She was 71. For the relation between Elizabeth and Margaret, there was this bond of love between them that had been there from the time Margaret was born. To the day that Margaret died. At her funeral, the Queen perhaps showed the most public emotion we have ever seen on a public occasion, where her eyes, I suppose, really betrayed the sadness she was feeling. To have to come to terms with the death of your younger sister, who you could expect certainly to live with you into old age, is very hard. When the Princess died, that was quite a blow to the Queen, followed, as it was, seven weeks later by the death of her mother. She is said to have said her biggest nightmare would be losing her mother and her sister. And that, of course, is what happened in 2002. Princess Margaret's life, though privileged, was a sad one in many ways. Margaret was a flawed and often troubled woman. She did not have her sister's weighty responsibilities, but nor did she have the certainties. I think that what Margaret did was really stretch at the limits of what it was acceptable to do for a woman in her position. This, I think, created a precedent and also much more breathing space for future younger royals to enjoy, even in the celebrity-infested world that they inhabited, something more approaching normal lives. If she had a few tiresome aspects, well, who doesn't? I would actually say she was probably a pretty supportive member of the royal family. She did do her bit. On a day-to-day basis, her life was very full. She had very interesting friends. She went to the ballet. She went to the theatre. She read books. She was alert and interested in things. She loved music and wasn't boring. She, too, helped to modernise the monarchy, to bring it into what, at that time, was the 20th century. For her sister, the Queen, however, her history is still being written. The monarchy has shown itself, under the Queen's leadership, to be flexible, adaptable, and something that can be seen as both a stable institution and something that can change and reflect new values. I think, more than anything else, Britain's own conception of itself as a post-war nation, she was definitive. She has been criticised. Her family have been deeply criticised. And by just being herself and keeping going and being straightforward, it's absolutely paid off. The world they ended up inhabiting when they were a lot older was one where the social class system had died and the mass celebrity and media rage was dawning. In the case of Margaret, you could say that she was very much a product of that age that was unveiling. In the case of Elizabeth, she managed to be his architect.