The Avant-Garde Princess Margaret

In the 1960s they were the royal glamour couple, but the ritzy world of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones stood in stark contrast to her sister the Queen’s.

- Andrew Morton

Decades before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were flag-bearers of the progressive and global, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon were established as Britain’s hippest couple, peerless representatives of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and living proof that the monarchy could be both traditional and modern.

According to Lord Ardwick, editor of the Daily Herald, the Snowdons signified ‘a new kind of royalty’. He went on: ‘they had far more contacts among writers and artists and so forth, not among stuffy courtiers. They became the new family model of fast travelling, hard-working, affluent young people – but at a price, a cost that was not always welcome.’ Together, this bohemian couple raced through the streets of London on Snowdon’s motorcycle or in his new Mini, visiting street markets, jazz clubs and theatres.

Such was their appeal that even First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was deeply disappointed when neither the princess nor her husband was present at a dinner in honour of President Kennedy held at Buckingham Palace in June 1961. Internationally, they were the royal version of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: sophisticated, artistic and raffish. Once, Margaret tried on the 29.4-carat diamond ring that had been given to Taylor by her third husband Mike Todd. She joked it was ‘vulgar’. Liz replied: ‘Yeah ain’t it great.’