The war hero turned royal beloved on the anniversary of his death: The life and times of Group Captain Peter Townsend – the equerry who Princess Margaret wasn’t allowed to marry, despite the ‘loving tenderness’ she felt
- On this day in 1995, Group Captain Peter Townsend passed away, aged 80
- He was described as Princess Margaret’s biggest love, but they were never wed
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Group Captain Peter Townsend and Princess Margaret were the talk of the town during their youth, however, fate would dictate that the star-crossed lovers were never meant to be.
Peter Townsend was born on November 22, 1914, in Rangoon, Burma, to Lieutenant Colonel Edward Townsend and his wife Gladys. His father was a senior representative of the Crown in a part of the British Empire.
One of seven children, Peter was just a few months old when his mother brought him back to the family home in Devon.
He joined the Royal Air Force in 1930, training at RAF Cranwell and was later commissioned as a pilot officer in 1935. Following four years of service, Peter went on to fight for his country in World War Two.
In 1944, he was made equerry to King George VI – and it was this position which would eventually spark a romance with Princess Margaret.
Group Captain Peter Townsend (pictured) was made equerry to King George VI – and it was this position which would eventually spark a romance with Princess Margaret
Princess Margaret attending the premiere of the film ‘Captain Horatio Hornblower’ at the Warner Theatre Leicester Square in 1951
Margaret with Group Captain Peter Townsend in South Africa during the royal tour in 1947
It was reported that Peter had been personally interviewed by the King when he first met the 14-year-old Princess at Buckingham Palace.
And just three months later, Townsend was her chaperone while accompanying the royal family on a three-month tour to South Africa, meaning the two spent a lot of time together.
READ MORE: ‘There was a loving tenderness in Margaret’s eyes, reflecting my own. Our feelings were unchanged…but incurred a burden so great we had to lay it down’, says PETER TOWNSEND in republished memoir
In August 1950, he was made deputy Master of the Household and was moved to comptroller to the Queen Mother in 1952.
Their ill-fated love story began eight years later, when 22-year-old Margaret fell for Peter soon after the passing of her father, King George, in 1952.
Recalling his first impressions, it was reported that Peter said: ‘She was a girl of unusual, intense beauty, confined as it was in her short, slender figure and centred about large purple-blue eyes, generous, sensitive lips, and a complexion as smooth as a peach
‘She could make you bend double with laughing and also touch you deeply in your heart’.
While Peter had previously been married to Miss Cecil Rosemary Pawle since 1941, with whom he had two sons, he eventually filed for a divorce in November 1952 after she had an affair.
Less than a year later in April 1953, Peter proposed to Margaret, but his status as a divorced man left the couple in a precarious situation and they were unable to wed.
As Princess Margaret was under the age of 25, her only sister, the Queen had to consent to her marriage to a divorced man, but her status as Head of the Church of England complicated things.
Princess Margaret, Princess Elizabeth and Group Captain Peter Townsend in the Royal Box at Ascot in June 1955
Margaret posing ahead of the premier for ‘Hamlet’ at the Leicester Square Odeon in December 1953
With both the royal family and the British government still recovering from Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, who was divorced, Queen Elizabeth was advised it would be unconstitutional for her to approve the match.
Speculation of their affair came to the surface at the Queen’s coronation in June 1953 when Margaret was seen picking a piece of fluff from his uniform while waiting outside Westminster Abbey.
It was decided that Townsend would be sent away to work as an air attaché for the British Embassy in Brussels for a year, after which, the couple was asked to wait another year.
Although Margaret had now turned 25, they were still denied the right to wed, and the government – led by Prime Minister Anthony Eden – stated that if she married her love then she would be stripped of her royal privileges as well as her income.
Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend leaving Windsor Castle on April 12, 1952
Group Captain Peter Townsend pictured at the Farnborough Air Show in 1955
The Daily Mail front page on November 1, 1955, announcing that Princess Margaret had decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend
The Princess told Eden in a letter: ‘It is only by seeing him in this way that I feel I can properly decide whether I can marry him or not’.
Margaret and Townsend remained apart for two years until the couple were reunited for the first time on October 12, 1955.
However, three weeks later, a statement drafted in Princess Margaret’s name read: ‘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 decided to put these considerations before any others.
Having returned to Belgium heartbroken after Margaret’s decision, he went on to marry a 20-year-old heiress named Marie-Luce Jamagne in 1959 and the couple went on to have two daughters and one son.
Group Captain Peter Townsend with his second wife Marie-Luce Jamagne and their daughter
Mrs Peter Townsend, wife of Group Captain Peter Townsend, with her daughter Marie-Isabelle
Captain Peter Townsend with his sons, Giles, then 16, and Hugo, then 12, crossing the road from the Carlton Hotel in Cannes
It was said by many that the young woman bore a striking resemblance to Princess Margaret.
A year later in May 1960, Margaret married a magazine photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones, now known as Earl of Snowden, at Westminster Abbey.
Having had two children, David and Sarah, during the course of their marriage, the pair eventually divorced in 1978 due to their extramarital affairs.
Twenty-three years after his separation from Margaret, Townsend releases his autobiography, Time and Chance, wherein he expressed his peace with her choice.
He wrote: ‘She could have married me only if she had been prepared to give up everything—her position, her prestige, her privy purse.
‘I simply hadn’t the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would have lost.’
Townsend and the Princess met again in 1993 for lunch at her apartment in Kensington Palace. This was believed to be their final meeting.
On this day in 1995, Group Captain Peter Townsend passed away at the age of 80 following a long illness from stomach cancer.
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