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Princess at Clarence House, where they drank to their past and to their separate futures.
Townsend returned to Uckfield en route for Brussels. The statement they had agreed on
was finally released at 7 p.m. that evening:
I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been
aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract
a civil marriage. But, mindful of the Church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious
of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.
I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing
support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend. I am deeply grateful for the concern of all those who have
constantly prayed for my happiness.
Margaret.
Margaret told a friend that she had been determined to underline the religious aspect of
her renunciation and that Eden, because of his own divorce and remarriage (and,
presumably, those of the other divorced members of the Cabinet), had tried to have it
cut out. Ordinary people reacted differently. She received 6,000 letters from people
telling her of their own romantic problems.
Amazingly, the royal family did not rally round Margaret on the night of her formal
renunciation. She dined alone while her mother kept an official engagement at London
University. The Queen Mother did not say goodnight to her daughter on her return. For
some time they had barely been on speaking terms; for the Queen Mother, the
Townsend affair had been as traumatic as the Abdication had for Queen Mary. Elizabeth
telephoned for a brief conversation, after which Margaret returned to watching boxing
on television. The King’s death and his widow’s subsequent withdrawal, Elizabeth’s
marriage and Margaret’s romance had weakened the family bonds that had linked ‘us
four’ so closely together.
Margaret’s life has not been happy or successful; perhaps given her position and her
personality it never would have been. It is by no means certain that if she had married
Townsend, even keeping her royal position and income, she would have been happy.
Marriage without position would have been a disaster. She is seen as a sacrificial victim
of the image of the monarchy, forced by what some people saw as hypocrisy, others as
right thinking, to make the cruel choice between love on the one hand, duty, security
and regal comfort on the other. Resentment at the sacrifice she made in 1955 has
rankled and has not helped to make her contented in her life. Principally she has
blamed Lascelles for not telling her the marriage was impossible from the outset – at
one moment, seeing him on the drive, she contemplated telling her chauffeur to run him
over, but she curbed it and they lived in uneasy proximity in Kensington Palace until his
death in 1981 aged ninety-four. Lascelles was only a scapegoat; if anyone was to blame,
it was the couple themselves in the first instance and in the second Margaret’s family,