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From the late 1960s the private life of her sister once again presented a major
headache for Elizabeth. The grim predictions of the bridegroom’s family and friends
before the Snowdons’ marriage were turning out to be disastrously true. The couple had
two children, David, Viscount Linley, born 3 November 1961, and Lady Sarah
Armstrong-Jones, born in May of the same year as Prince Edward, 1964. (Tony
Armstrong-Jones, who had refused a title on his marriage, accepted the Earldom of
Snowdon so that Margaret’s children should not remain commoners.) Although the
couple were physically passionate, there had been strains in the marriage almost from
the beginning. Snowdon made a determined effort to fit in to the royal family, even to
the extent of learning to shoot under the tutelage of Philip, and walking with his hands
behind his back as Philip did. He made himself agreeable to the family, successfully with
the Queen Mother who liked amusing young men, less so with Prince Philip with whom
he had nothing in common. Snowdon, like Philip, had some difficulty adjusting to his
new role of walking two paces behind his wife. In the household at first, Margaret, royal
provider of both the house and the money, dominated a situation which, as a free spirit,
he found hard to take. His determination to take control was signalled by the abrupt
departure of the butler and, more significantly, Ruby MacDonald, Bobo’s sister,
Margaret’s dresser almost since childhood. Ruby called the Princess ‘Margaret’ and was
possessive and jealous of anyone who came too close to her. She would abuse the ladiesin-waiting
who carried out Margaret’s orders which she thought should have been given
to her; ‘She was the bane of my life,’ said one. ‘She was in a very powerful position and
was awful to the rest of the staff, and on tour to ADCs and practically to Governors… a
tray of drinks always had to be sent up to her.’ ‘Ruby was a fiend – royaller than the
royals. Tony got rid of her and quite right too,’ said another. The butler sold his story to
a Sunday newspaper; his chief complaints seem to have been about the tightness of his
employer’s trousers and his refusal to employ three charwomen instead of one,
shortcomings which he claimed it was his duty to reveal in order to preserve ‘the dignity
of the royal family’. Margaret, used since childhood to have people dancing attendance
on her, expected her husband to do the same. As she had almost nothing with which to
occupy herself, she wanted him always with her. Their six-week honeymoon was
something which she had regarded as normal; for Tony Snowdon, active and used to
working for a living, such royal lounging was hard to take. ‘She was terribly possessive
of him,’ a friend said. ‘We warned her. “Be careful, he’s a bohemian…” She didn’t
understand. She wanted him all for herself and couldn’t accept that he was a bohemian
and wouldn’t necessarily turn up at eight on the dot.’ His increasing success as a
photographer and his job on the Sunday Times Magazine gave him the necessary
independence, but a battle of wills began which eventually turned into a war and
destroyed the marriage.
In the early to mid-1960s the Snowdons were a popular, glamorous couple,
undertaking numerous public engagements which reduced the pressure on Elizabeth.
Both of them were indefatigable; so much so that Private Eye unkindly dubbed them ‘The
two highest-paid performing dwarves in Europe’. In recognition of their growing family