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taxpayers by flying off to Mustique to see this pop-singer chap, she shouldn’t expect the
workers of this country to pay for it.’ He pointed out that she had been on just eight
public engagements in the first three months of the year, during which time she had
drawn £14,000, ‘not bad for eight performances’. After a near-riot outside the nightclub,
Bennett’s, on 13 April 1978, Elizabeth and her advisers came to the conclusion that
Roddy must temporarily disappear from the scene. The final act of Princess Margaret’s
doomed marriage was about to be played. On 10 May it was announced from
Kensington Palace that the Princess was seeking a divorce; the statement stressed that
she had no plans to remarry and intended to live her life as the Queen’s sister to the full.
It was not, however, the end of her friendship with Roddy upon whom she was now
even more dependent for amusement and companionship.
Elizabeth’s arm’s-length attitude to Roddy and his relationship with her sister was
made perfectly plain in the difficulties over the organization of Margaret’s fiftieth
birthday party in 1980. Elizabeth made it plain that she could not attend any party for
her sister at which Roddy was present as it would therefore appear that she was
countenancing the relationship. Margaret wanted him at the dinner, Elizabeth did not
want him there at all. There were rows and eventually a compromise was reached: the
Tennants, who, as Margaret’s oldest and most loyal friends, would otherwise have been
seated at one of the top tables, were detailed off to give Roddy dinner elsewhere and he
would be allowed to come in after 10.30 with the after-dinner guests. It was a clear
signal that there could be no future in the friendship which had already lasted seven
years. To everyone’s surprise it was ended not by the Princess but by Roddy a year later
when he fell in love with and married Tania Soskin. The story ended happily for Roddy,
who by this time had made a name for himself as a garden designer; he and Tania had
two children and lived happily in an idyllic cottage in Oxfordshire. Margaret was alone
again. ‘I’m back to where I started with Peter’, she admitted, ‘but this time I’m
divorced…’
Elizabeth remained on good terms with Snowdon after the divorce. However badly he
might have behaved towards her sister when their marriage was on the road to ruin, his
comportment afterwards was impeccable and he proved to be an excellent father,
although sometimes showing his cruel streak. Elizabeth was very fond of the Snowdon
children, particularly Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones; ‘she virtually brought them up,’ a
friend said. ‘They love the Queen and she loves them.’ For all their failings together, the
Snowdons have produced admirable children. Margaret used to complain that ‘Tony was
so oily to my mother and sister’, and was not amused when Queen Elizabeth suggested
that Tony be asked to Sandringham for Christmas after they were divorced. ‘Really, my
mother!’ Margaret exploded.
As another sign of changing times in the royal family, in 1976 Elizabeth was
persuaded to give permission for her first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, to marry
Marie-Christine Troubridge (born Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz), who was not
only divorced but also a Catholic. Elizabeth felt sorry for Michael as a boy whose father
had been killed soon after his birth and whose mother had died relatively young. But she