Though he got divorced and subsequently proposed to Margaret, the couple faced many hurdles.
Ultimately, Margaret and Townsend ended their engagement, sparking a series of tragic romances for the princess.
After Townsend, a 26-year-old Margaret felt pressured to settle down.
Two years later, they got divorced, and everything changed.
Having been married for 18 years, Margaret and Antony’s relationship was irreparably damaged.
“These are obviously the grounds for divorce.
In many instances, the pursuits became hostile, violent, and invasive.
Thank you, Nigel.
I think that’s the best news you’ve ever given me.”
The princess was treated for both hepatitis and gastroenteritis during her stay.
However, Antony’s public support of the princess was short-lived.
And then, of course, that’s the time when she met Roddy Llewellyn."
Her divorce and new romantic relationship served the princess well for a time.
Despite the trials and tribulations she endured, Margaret never lost her sparkle.
Margaret, by all accounts, was in love with Llewellyn.
However, he had some doubts.
In every way age, wealth, status, experience, and sophistication she was his superior."
And while the sentiment was rather touching, Llewellyn changed his tune after he met Tatiana Soskin.
The two quickly fell in love, and the landscaper-turned-royal-boyfriend ended things with Margaret.
Biographer Christopher Warwick, however, told Vanity Fair that the royal swallowed her feelings to move forward.
They’d been together for something like eight years but they still remained friends," Warwick said.
“They still saw one another.
Roddy and Tatiana would go to Kensington Palace, would have dinner, and would sometimes stay overnight.
Margaret would visit them … “She was, in every aspect, an icon.
“She didn’t have a partner anymore.
She was getting older.
“But what was that loneliness really like?
What was that time really like?
I think ‘The Crown’ is very sympathetic to the royal family.
It humanizes them, and it shows that if you prick them, they bleed like anybody else.”
“It’s not like losing a sister or a friend, like Diana.
It’s like losing … a distant aunt.”
The Queen didn’t let her keep her hands full.
So she filled them with cigarettes.”
Undergoing a series of health issues, including several strokes, the princess all but retreated from public life.
And so it took the pressure off Elizabeth who perhaps was more introverted compared to her mischievous sister.”
She all but escaped the spotlight, leaving unfinished love stories to play out in another space and time.
Would Margaret have never gotten divorced?
Would she have excelled in her later years and lived as long as her sister, Queen Elizabeth II?
