Princess Margaret‘s rollercoaster love life continues in season 3 ofThe Crown,as the Netflix hit tackles the dissolution of her marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones — and her affair with a man 17 years her junior.
Princess Margaret married Armstrong-Jones, the bohemian photographer who was given the title of Earl Snowdon, in May 1960 — but there were issues even before their walk down the aisle. Armstrong-Jones had been sleeping with Camilla Fry, the wife of one of his oldest friends, Jeremy… and she became pregnant. Camilla gave birth to a daughter, Polly, just three weeks into Margaret and Armstrong Jones’ honeymoon. However, it wasn’t until many years later — 2004, to be exact — that Polly learned that Armstrong-Jones was her biological father through a DNA test.
Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty
The photographer’s complex love life didn’t end there. Addressing rumors of his bisexuality, he once said, “I didn’t fall in love with boys, but a few men have been in love with me.”
The decision to marry Margaret was a difficult one for Armstrong-Jones, according to Craig Brown in the biographyMa’am Darling: “There was so much he would have to give up, not least his other girlfriends, one of whom confided to a friend that Tony had wept on her bare breasts at the prospect of getting married to royalty.”
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
By 1972 — after 12 years together, two children and rumored infidelities on both sides — Snowdon began seeing Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, a divorced television researcher whom he would later marry.
Not long after, Margaret was introduced to Roderic “Roddy” Llewellyn, a gardener and aspiring pop star 17 years younger than her. In February 1974, Margaret invited Llewellyn to Les Jolies Eaux, her four-bedroom villa on the Caribbean island of Mustique.
When a photograph of Margaret and Llewellyn sharing a private moment later landed on the front page of theNews of the World, the royal family was at last forced to issue a statement acknowledging the end of the Margaret’s marriage to Snowdon. The divorce, which became finalized in 1978, was the first official split in the immediate family of a reigning monarch since King Henry’s VIII’s annulment.
Roddy Llewellyn and Princess Margaret.Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty
Llewellyn and Margaret’s relationship continued after her separation from her husband in what became in an eight-year romance.
Bonham Carter told theSunday Timesthat she met with the real-life Llewellyn: “He came to tea with me and Harry [Treadaway], who plays Roddy. He was so fun and warm — that’s what she needed. He’s very musical. He started singing a song in my kitchen.”
Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret.Julian Broad for EW
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Off-screen, 53-year-old Bonham Carter is dating 32-year-old writer Rye Dag Holmboe — mirroring Princess Margaret’s relationship age gap.
Speaking toThe Times, the Oscar nominee said that her real-life romancedidn’t give her any insight to playing Margaret.
“It’s strange, though,” Bonham Carter said. “It was odd timing that I seem to have a similar age gap as her, but I think it would have happened whether I was playing her or not.”
source: people.com
