La principessa Margaret britannica reale

La principessa Margaret, in piena principessa Margaret Rose Windsor, contessa di Snowdon, (nata il 21 agosto 1930, Glamis Castle, Scozia - morì il 9 febbraio 2002, Londra, Inghilterra), regno unito britannico, la seconda figlia del re Giorgio VI e della regina Elisabetta (dal 1952 la regina Elisabetta, la regina madre) e la sorella minore della regina Elisabetta II. Ha lottato per tutta la vita per bilanciare uno spirito indipendente e un temperamento artistico con i suoi doveri come membro della famiglia reale britannica.

Prince William e Catherine Middleton: Le nozze reali del 2011: la principessa Margaret e Antony Armstrong-Jones

Nel 1961 il libro dell'anno pubblicò una biografia della principessa Margaret Rose, sorella della regina Elisabetta

Margaret fu il primo membro della famiglia reale in circa 300 anni a nascere in Scozia, presso la sede della famiglia di sua madre nel Castello di Glamis. La sua educazione fu seguita da sua madre e lei e sua sorella furono affidate a una governante. Margaret mostrò presto interesse per la musica e prese lezioni di piano dall'età di quattro anni. Aveva sei anni quando suo zio, il re Edoardo VIII, abdicò e suo padre divenne re. Successivamente, la Principessa Elisabetta, in quanto erede al trono, ricevette un'istruzione separata, mentre Margaret continuò sotto la supervisione di sua madre. Inoltre, le era richiesto di prendere parte a impegni pubblici.

Margaret, who became known for her glamour and beauty, displayed an early love for nightlife and the arts. When she was in her early 20s, she fell in love with Group Capt. Peter Townsend, a war hero who had served as an equerry to her father. Their romance became public knowledge when Margaret was seen brushing lint off Townsend’s jacket at her sister’s coronation in 1953. Although Townsend and Margaret wished to marry, the fact that he was divorced made the marriage unsuitable, and Margaret gained worldwide sympathy in 1955 when she publicly renounced their plans to wed.

Margaret was already a fixture on London’s social and arts scene when she began secretly seeing photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1958. The announcement of their engagement in February 1960 caught many by surprise. They were married on May 6, 1960, in the first royal wedding to be televised. (Armstrong-Jones was created earl of Snowdon in 1961.) The marriage was at first successful, and they had two children: David, Viscount Linley, born in 1961, and Lady Sarah, born in 1964. By the 1970s, however, the couple had grown apart. Both of the Snowdons engaged in public love affairs, and the princess scandalized conservative monarchists, cultivating friendships and romances among actors, writers, ballet dancers, and artists. She spent much of her time on the Caribbean island of Mustique, in the Grenadines. When her long-standing affair with Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior, was exposed in 1976, she lost public sympathy, and her volatile marriage finally ended in 1978, the first divorce in the British royal family in 400 years.

Eventually her extensive charitable work, combined with a new, more modern sympathy for the restricted options she faced, gained her a measure of public respect. Princess Margaret, who smoked and drank heavily throughout her adult life, was often in ill health. She had surgery for possible lung cancer in 1985 (the tissue proved to be benign) and later suffered a series of strokes.