Princess Margaret: why she felt “dispossessed” after the coronation of her sister, Queen Elizabeth II
The younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret has lived her entire adult life in the shadow of the Sovereign. Her best friend, Lady Glenconner, remembers a "melancholy" and "dispossessed" young woman.
On June 2, 1953, the United Kingdom celebrated the historic coronation of Elizabeth II, daughter of the late King George VI and Queen Consort Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. At only twenty-five, young Elizabeth was unknowingly entering the longest reign in British history.
A reign strewn with pitfalls for her and her husband, Prince Philip, but also for her sister Margaret, eternally cloistered in her sister's shadow. On the day of this memorable coronation, the young Lady Anne Glenconner was a bridesmaid. A close friend of Elizabeth and Margaret, she saw the past of the two heiresses shattered to pieces, now separated by a 1.28 kilogram crown.
In an interview with Point de Vue magazine, Margaret's best friend looked back on the day of the coronation of Elizabeth II. A very difficult day for young Margaret, who now had to share her sister with the rest of the world. "While we had already returned to Buckingham and the Queen began her long procession through the city, I found Princess Margaret terribly melancholy", confided the Baroness to our colleagues. "She always remained loyal to the Queen, they called each other every day until the end of their lives, but from the moment Elizabeth became Queen she was in so much demand that Margaret felt dispossessed."
"She didn't want to embarrass her sister"
And for good reason, the accession to the throne of Elizabeth not only lost a sister to Margaret, but she also had to sacrifice part of her freedom. "It was then that she was not allowed to marry Peter Townsend, as he was divorced and had children," Lady Glennconner recalled. “In reality, she herself had decided not to do it. Years later, I asked her why she had made this sacrifice on herself. She replied that she did not want to embarrass her sister, who is the head of the Anglican Church. And back then, you couldn't even be received in Buckingham when you were divorced. "
Thus, throughout her life and until her death on February 9, 2002, Princess Margaret made many sacrifices for the sake of the monarchy and her sister. Sacrifices that Anne Tennant recounts in her autobiography published in 2019, "Lady in waiting, my extraordinary life in the shadow of the Crown".
