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moved out, taking advantage of a situation which had been handed to him by his wife
on a plate. Two days later a statement was issued from Kensington Palace:
Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and the Earl of Snowdon have mutually
agreed to live apart. The Princess will carry out her public duties and functions unaccompanied by Lord
Snowdon. There are no plans for divorce proceedings.
Elizabeth’s Press Secretary, Ronald Allison, told the press, ‘The Queen is naturally very
sad at what happened’, adding that there had been ‘no pressure’ from her on ‘either
Princess Margaret or Lord Snowdon to take any particular course’.
This was literally the truth. Elizabeth was indeed desperately sad at the failure of the
marriage. She doted on the Snowdon children, who had spent so many of their holidays
with her at Balmoral, Windsor and Sandringham while their parents were in some exotic
location. She loved her sister, who seemed doomed never to find happiness. Even while
she disapproved of the Roddy Llewellyn connection, describing it privately as ‘my
sister’s guttersnipe life’, she had not attempted to forbid it. Like the rest of Margaret’s
inner circle, she felt somehow that the unhappy Princess’s personal well-being was a
responsibility on all of them. The Queen Mother, just as she had over Townsend, had not
interfered, despite the fact that she had become extremely fond of Snowdon, consenting
to a joke ‘royal opening’ of his country retreat, ‘The Old House’, of which Margaret had
disapproved. Margaret had taken Roddy down to the Royal Lodge to introduce him to
her mother, but in general the royal family had not welcomed him; he had been
tolerated at a distance as yet another of ‘Margot’s’ whimsical fancies and as long as the
friendship remained private they were prepared to go along with it. He was never
invited to Windsor and while Elizabeth was on one of her Caribbean tours Mustique had
been out of bounds to him. Private confrontation and interference in her sister’s life was
not Elizabeth’s style, but once the News of the World had brought the Llewellyn affair
into the public domain, impinging on the image of the monarchy, she felt compelled to
act. Even then, she tried to avoid personal confrontation, deploying a sophisticated man
about town to ‘deal with’ the Roddy problem. She remained, as ever, totally protective
of her sister.
From her point of view, however, the fall-out from the Roddy affair became worse
and worse. He was pictured travelling to Heathrow in Margaret’s Rolls-Royce; while in
the Caribbean he fell ill and was hospitalized in Barbados, where a concerned Margaret
was photographed visiting him. He became involved in trying to start a career as a popsinger
and then was persuaded to act as front man for a night-club in Battersea, which
was much resented by the local people and resulted in extremely bad publicity.
Outraged Labour politicians seized on the subsequent headlines to attack Margaret and
her Civil List allowance. Willie Hamilton pointed out that the Elizabeth Garrett
Anderson Hospital for Women was threatened with closure for lack of funds while
Margaret’s Civil List allowance had risen to £55,000 a year. Why not deduct at least
£30,000 from her pay to help the hospital, he asked. ‘If she thumbs her nose at