Margaret's Royal title pledge

13 April 2012

Princess Margaret was promised she would be allowed to keep her royal title and Civil List allowance even if she had married her great love, Group Captain Peter Townsend, according to official files made public today.

Papers released to the National Archives show Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden was even prepared to scrap the eighteenth century law requiring members of the
Royal Family to seek the consent of the monarch to marry.

In the event, Margaret, under intense public pressure and facing fierce opposition from the Church of England, announced on October 31 1955 that she would not wed the divorced Townsend.

However the documents released today effectively destroy the myth that she would have been cut adrift from the Royal Family and left to survive on Townsend's RAF pay.

They suggest she was given a "categorical assurance" that not only would she continue to receive her £6,000-a-year Civil List allowance, she would also get the extra £9,000-a-year she was entitled to on her marriage.

She would have continued to have been called "Her Royal Highness" and to have carried out public duties - although ministers acknowledged that this would have depended on the public reaction to her marriage.

There was even a suggestion that after "some years" Townsend also could have received a title and an official allowance.

The disclosure of Margaret's affair with Townsend - a former equerry to her father King George VI and 18 years her senior - caused a public sensation at the time.

But it was not the age difference or Townsend's lowly origins, but the fact she wanted to marry a divorcee which created the storm of controversy.

Less than 20 years after Edward VIII had given up the throne to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson, the 25-year-old Margaret - who was third in line to the throne - faced a similar dilemma.

Eden's predecessor, Sir Winston Churchill, had warned the Government could not approve the marriage, while the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Geoffrey Fisher threatened that she would be barred from taking Holy Communion if it went ahead.

As public speculation mounted during the summer of 1955, 300 journalists staked out the Balmoral estate where the Royal Family was staying while newspaper headlines demanded "Come on Margaret! Please make up your mind!"

The level of concern - and the extent of the pressure on the Princess - is underlined in an unsigned handwritten memorandum in Eden's files.

"If she is uncertain in her mind, she will doubtless weigh carefully all the adverse considerations, which should then assume greater force. It is clearly not a marriage which all sections of the country would welcome wholeheartedly," it warned.

"The marriage cannot fail but do some harm, though not of course fatal harm, and not necessarily lasting harm, to the Royal Family, even though the Princess recognises the situation by renouncing the succession."

As speculation reached fever pitch during October, Eden himself voiced concern that it "could do the monarchy no good if the decision were held up much longer".

Whatever the misgivings, the files also make clear that Downing Street had made extensive arrangements should she have decided to go ahead with the marriage.

A series of draft statements to Parliament was drawn up announcing "legislation designed to relieve Her Royal Highness and her descendants of their rights to the succession to the Throne" - the one price she would have had to pay.

There are also two drafts of the formal message which Margaret would have had to have delivered to the Queen, her sister, and to Parliament announcing her intention to wed Townsend.

"I have come to the conclusion that in all the circumstances the best course for me to follow is to marry PT and to give up my rights to the Succession, both for myself and for my descendants," one version read.

"I recognise that this will not be possible unless legislation can be passed to facilitate it, but I earnestly hope that Your Majesty and Parliament may be pleased to take whatever steps are necessary to enable my wishes to be realised."

It is also clear that she would have received her full Civil List allowance, although the Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook expressed concern that before he died, George VI may have laid down conditions on the payments continuing.

"Before the person in question (Margaret) is given any categorical assurance that her annual income from public funds would in a certain eventuality be £6,000 plus £9,000, I think it ought to be verified that the £6,000 was not in fact made subject to any conditions material to the situation now envisaged," he wrote.

According to the draft statements, the legislation removing Margaret's right to the succession would have included a provision "to enable the marriage between

Princess M and PT to be solemnised by a Registrar in London".
Eden was also prepared to abolish the Royal Marriages Act 1772 - passed in the reign of George III - requiring members of the Royal Family to seek the consent of the monarch to marry, although once they reached the age of 25 they could wed anyway, provided Parliament did not object.

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, told Eden: "The act has no pride of ancestry, is badly drawn and uncertain and embarrassing in its effect."

He suggested that Eden should ask the Queen whether she would be content simply to rely on the common law power of "care and approbation" over the marriages of her family.

After Eden's consultations with the Queen, it was later decided that the Act would remain in force but would be restricted to the monarch's children and grandchildren.

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