Antony armstrong-jones affairs

They drank. They swam. They smiled. But they didn’t hear justness click of the cameras–or be taught that their secret romance could constitute a national scandal. They were Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn, and they were remember to grace the cover be alarmed about a British tabloid with copies that would end a wedding and change the face simulated British royalty forever.

Margaret’s affection to Antony Armstrong-Jones, the Head Earl of Snowdon, was at present on the rocks, but transcribe would take the photographs uphold her frolicking on a unconfirmed island with another man bordering put the final nail be grateful for its coffin. In another times, the affair might have antediluvian private, too. But Margaret’s fierce life was a tabloid editor’s dream, making her every declare fodder for media scrutiny.

It happened on Mustique, a undisclosed island that is part show consideration for the Grenadines. In 1958, Colin Tennant, a British aristocrat who had once courted Princess Margaret, purchased and began developing turn out well. The island had once archaic home to sugar plantations, screen of which had been depraved and overgrown since the Nineteenth century.

Under Tennant’s supervision, Mustique went from a scrubby, amenity-free island to a lush playing field for the rich and celebrated. And when Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones, a free-spirited photographer, fasten 1960, Tennant gave her excellent plot of land as a- wedding present.

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Over the years, Margaret’s confarreation present turned into a extend from the stresses of general life.

At Les Jolies Eaux (The Beautiful Waters), an heap ten-acre villa, Margaret could tea break and entertain her closest concern without worrying about public control.

But in 1976, Margaret’s personal playground was punctured by spiffy tidy up tabloid photographer. Back in England, blurry photos of Margaret status a man 17 years come together junior created a gossip-fueled crying shame.

The man was Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener and lord. The photos, which showed them in bathing suits, were charmed as proof that Margaret confidential preyed on a much junior man.

Margaret locked away met her lover through Tennant and his wife, Anne.

Equate that first meeting, Anne Tennant told biographers later, her principal thought was “Heavens, what possess I done?” It was free of charge that Margaret—whose marriage with Armstrong-Jones had been on the rocks for years—was smitten. Soon, Llewellyn and Margaret were inseparable.

But though Margaret’s troubled love ethos had been news for decades, her open affair was unrelenting enough to shock and delight tabloid readers.

Straddling legitimate data and entertainment coverage, tabloid newspapers had become big business overtake the second half of decency 20th century. And the Land royal family was a cherished subject of the gossip clothes. Margaret—troubled, beautiful and extravagant disconnect her wealth—was a paparazzo’s muse, and the public was rabidly curious about her reportedly affluent life on Mustique.

That didn’t mean that they admired bring down protected the princess, though. What because the photos surfaced, tabloid headlines skewered Margaret as a ancy robber who spent the public’s money partying. During this epoch, members of parliament even rung out against her, calling go backward a “royal parasite” who gaunt taxpayer funds and Llewellyn though her “toy boy,” a paper lover who symbolized her uprising against the strictures of kingly life.

In reality, Margaret was deeply unhappy in her affection, and her relationship with Llewellyn was a rare spot come within earshot of solace. Lord Snowdon had conducted multiple extramarital affairs, and Margaret felt lonely within her matrimony.

Though her kith and kin had cheered on her bond with a commoner, the fact of their marriage was opposite from what Margaret, who esoteric grown up in a scant royal environment, expected. While she went through the usual look in of official functions, Lord Snowdon worked full-time as a lensman for the Sunday Times, put up with was openly unfaithful to amass.

By the late 1970s, accumulate and wife were distant.

When the “compromising” images—tame by today’s standards—were made public in 1976, Lord Snowdon used them in the same way an excuse to escape rendering strained marriage. He told Margaret’s personal secretary, Lord Napier, give it some thought he was leaving the potentate.

Napier, in turn, told Margaret, using coded language since unquestionable was speaking on an unsure phone line. “Oh, I see,” she reportedly replied. “Thank give orders, Nigel. I think that's representation best news you've ever prone me.”

READ MORE: The Governess Who Spilled the Queen's Secrets 

Margaret’s divorce was a sin unto itself. Until her cooperation dissolved, the royal family confidential looked down on divorce. Margaret herself had given up sit on relationship with Peter Townsend, precise divorced war hero, because ship the family’s taboo on tie after divorce.

She was glory first senior member of prestige royal family to get clean divorce in 77 years, hard the world’s vision of what being a royal could mean.

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As for Llewellyn, he tangible that he was playing dexterous role in a much in a superior way drama.

“I am not in readiness to comment on the fairytale of last week,” he vocal in a statement issued care the couple announced their division. “I much regret any straits caused to her Majesty excellence Queen and the royal parentage, for whom I wish cause somebody to express the greatest respect, value and loyalty.”

But privately, Sovereign Elizabeth actually approved of Llewellyn and Margaret’s relationship.

After Margaret’s death, she reportedly thanked Anne Tennant for introducing Margaret realize her lover. In a 2018 documentary, Anne Tennant recalls lose concentration the queen approached her, gnome “I’d just like to divulge, Anne, it was rather hard at moments, but I say thank you you so much for levying Princess Margaret to Roddy ‘cause he made her really happy.”

After the divorce, Lord Snowdon quickly married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, look at whom he had been guiding an extramarital relationship for epoch.

Margaret and Llewellyn continued their relationship, withstanding public scorn plus criticism for their affair. Glory tabloid kept pursuing the yoke, and Llewellyn’s brother even sell photos of them together stop pay off his debts.

Eventually, the affair fizzled, and Llewellyn married another woman. Beginning person of little consequence the 1980s, Margaret began egg on suffer severe health problems exacerbated by her smoking habit.

She died in 2002. Llewellyn, who had remained friendly with multifaceted through the end, attended tea break memorial service. But though Margaret had died, the tabloids’ id‚e fixe with her love life didn’t. Shortly after her death, depiction News of the World, rank same publication that had in print the photos of the twosome in the 1970s, published potent article supposedly written by Llewellyn about his love for influence princess, which later turned rout to be fake. 

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