The royals - Kitty Kelley [115]
In fact, Mountbatten had cautioned him against falling in love. He said Charles could not afford that luxury. “I can still hear him say that falling in love is not an option for the man who would be king,” recalled John Barratt. “ ‘Leave that to your cousin,’ Mountbatten advised.” He was referring to Prince Michael of Kent, who was sixteenth in line to the throne when he fell in love with Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz. She was hardly an appropriate choice for a man in the line of succession to the British monarchy. She was divorced, a Roman Catholic, and worse yet, a German, whose father had been a Nazi. The royal family has had other Nazis—the Duke of Coburg, brother of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, was a Nazi.
“Marie-Christine was tall, blond, and beautiful,” continued John Barratt. “Lord Mountbatten thought she would add a bit of glamour to the House of Windsor. So he helped Prince Michael get permission from the Queen to marry. The Queen consented, but she would not attend the wedding, even though it was not in a Catholic church. The Pope had forbidden that. So they had a civil ceremony, and Prince Michael* had to renounce his place in the line of succession.” Charles hardly needed a more glaring example of a marriage going haywire than that of his aunt, Princess Margaret, who was creating an international scandal.
The Italian magazine Men ran a cover story on the “wild and intimate parties” of the Snowdons, citing an alleged passion for pornography. The article described the Duke of Edinburgh as being disgusted by what it called the disgraceful behavior of Snowdon, who, the Duke said, “entered society through the tradesmen’s entrance.”
The satirical television show Spitting Image featured the Snowdons in a sketch entitled “Nightmare Couples.” “We paired the most horribly mismatched people we could think of,” said Roger Law, the show’s talented proprietor. “We had Margaret Thatcher and Johnny Rotten; Roman Polanski and Mae West; Diana Ross and Ian Smith. And, of course, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones.”
Esquire magazine reported the Snowdons’ sniping at each other, especially over her insistence that even their closest friends observe protocol and treat her with the deference due royalty.
“You address me by my Christian name,” protested a newspaper editor, who had known Margaret all her life, “so why can’t I address you the same way?”
“You can’t, that’s all,” said the Princess loftily. She insisted on being addressed as “ma’am” or “ma’am darling” and referred to as Her Royal Highness. She exacted abbreviated curtsies from women and small neck bows from men. Once she entered a room, no one was allowed to leave. And if she wanted to party until four in the morning, bleary-eyed guests had to dance attendance. No one sat in her presence without her permission, and if she wanted to sing, no one dared talk.
The Snowdons soon went their separate ways. Margaret built a home on the Caribbean island of Mustique, which her husband never visited. And he held weekend parties at his Sussex cottage, which she never attended. They maintained an open marriage with lovers on both sides. The Princess, who got a reputation as promiscuous, dallied with several of her husband’s friends, including rock star Mick Jagger, writer Robin Douglas-Home, actor Peter Sellers, and photographer Patrick Lichfield, who was also a first cousin once removed.* “We’re kissing cousins,” she said. “So it’s okay.”
Snowdon, too, engaged in extramarital affairs, including a year-long romance with Lady Jacqueline Rufus-Isaacs, the twenty-two-year-old daughter of the Marquess of Reading. But he objected to his wife’s romance with the nephew of former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The romance had started in December 1966 when Snowdon was traveling on a photo assignment for the Sunday Times. Upon his return, he learned that his wife had spent the weekend with Douglas-Home at his country estate. Snowdon flew into a rage, and Margaret quickly ended the relationship. The aristocrat fell further into alcoholism