38656356325923

was far from overjoyed by the prospect of the marriage and would have preferred a less
exotic bride. She was persuaded into it by Mountbatten, the royal matchmaker, who felt
paternal towards Michael and was charmed by Marie-Christine – ‘the worst piece of
advice Mountbatten ever gave the Queen,’ according to several senior courtiers.
Realistically, Elizabeth had little room to act; rejection of a bride for a minor member of
the family on the grounds that she was divorced and of the wrong religion would
understandably have led to a good deal of criticism, and so, after approval by the Privy
Council, she gave her formal agreement. The wedding took place abroad (as the Royal
Marriages Act of 1772 specifically prevents members of the royal family being married
in civil ceremonies in England) in June 1978 in Vienna, the birthplace of the bride’s
mother, a Hungarian countess. At the last moment the Pope, who had granted an
annulment of Marie-Christine’s first marriage, refused a dispensation for a church
wedding, almost certainly because the children of the marriage were to be brought up as
Protestants in order to preserve their position in the line of succession to the throne
(which Michael, then sixteenth, would have to renounce because of his marriage to a
Catholic).
‘Even if her behaviour had been exemplary, I do not believe that Princess Michael
would ever have established a cosy relationship with the Queen,’ Mountbatten’s
secretary, who also later worked for Prince and Princess Michael, wrote. ‘The royal
family is very inward-looking and finds it hard to welcome strangers; and the Queen,
particularly, finds it very difficult to relax unless she is surrounded by those with whom
she feels at home.’ Elizabeth did not feel at home with Marie-Christine. Despite her
looks, chic and the powerful charm she could exert, the glamour which she brought to
the royal family was not appreciated nor regarded as a plus in public relations terms.
The inner circle royal family saw her as an adventuress and her behaviour seemed to
confirm their suspicions. Not content with life on the outer fringes of the family, the
new Princess Michael was determined to push herself in. She made it known that she
expected to be invited to join the family for Christmas. Elizabeth gave in, but was
surprised to find her unwanted guest complaining about the rooms allotted to her
children and their nanny. She did not care for the public complaints about not being
allotted money on the Civil List or of poverty when she gave Prince and Princess
Michael the house in Kensington Palace formerly occupied by the Snowdons (as a result
of which there were constant complaints about and quarrels with the PSA, the Public
Services Agency, which was then responsible for the royal palaces, over decoration) and
Marie-Christine then spent almost half a million pounds on doing up the Gloucestershire
manor house, Nether Lypiatt, which they subsequently acquired. Charles, who
particularly disliked her, tried to prevent their moving into the same county as his new
country home, Highgrove, but failed and at Kensington Palace both he and Margaret
made it clear that they did not like their neighbour, whom the family referred to as
‘Princess Pushy’, ‘the Valkyrie’ and ‘You Know Who’. After a spate of bad publicity
involving wigs and Texan millionaires, Princess Michael kept a lower profile, but was
left in no doubt that the family had frozen her out. Queen Elizabeth, an expert at the