The royals - Kitty Kelley [118]
“ ‘Oh, God,’ said Snowdon, hissing with irritation. He refused to stand up. Just jerked his head toward Her Royal Highness and said, ‘Meet the chief Sea Scout.’*
“It was a biting remark, incredibly rude, and intended only to humiliate her,” said the embarrassed reporter. “He then ignored the Princess for the next fifteen minutes until she finally left the room. He sighed with relief.”
The couple’s carping made their friends uncomfortable. “The marriage could never have worked,” said one woman. “There was an evil fairy at Margaret’s christening, and Tony, who is admirable and interesting, is hugely demanding. Both of them wanted to be stars, and their stars collided. He was more talented, but her appetite demanded constant attention, which he could not and would not give. She has a male ego in that it’s voracious. He’s got one, too, but he deserves his plaudits. She just demands hers.” The British press maintained an official silence about the royal marriage because the Princess, then fifth in line to the throne, is the Queen’s sister. “The British penchant for gossipy bitchiness cannot be offloaded on the monarch, who is inviolate, dull, and worthy,” said British writer Andrew Duncan. “The younger sister, therefore, becomes the outlet for hypocrisy.”
At first the stories that leaked into print protected the Princess more than the commoner she married. McCall’s magazine reported the Earl of Snowdon had attended a party “wearing too much makeup.” At another party, Private Eye reported him “racing across the room to Rudolf Nureyev and greeting him with a kiss full on the lips.” The satirical magazine referred to Lord Snowdon as a dog on a leash: “The Princess is continually losing her husband. He slips off his lead and vanishes, often for weeks on end.” The magazine suggested the Queen was so angry at her petite brother-in-law that she did not speak to him for eighteen months after his outrageous performance during the 1969 Christmas dinner at Sandringham: “It was then that the minuscule genius climaxed the evening by leaping onto the dinner table, crying, ‘And now—it’s Tony La Rue,’ and commencing a lively striptease.” The next year Princess Margaret went to Sandringham alone with her children while her husband spent the holiday in a London hospital having his hemorrhoids removed.
“The Queen has always been very fond of Lord Snowdon,” said a member of her staff, dismissing the magazine’s suggestion of displeasure. Years later, when Her Majesty met an Oscar-winning cinematographer, she asked him what he did in films. He said he was director of photography.
“Oh, how terribly interesting,” the Queen was said to have replied. “Actually, I have a brother-in-law who is a photographer.”
“How terribly coincidental,” the cinematographer responded. “I have a brother-in-law who’s a queen.” Her Majesty moved on without saying another word.
Behind the rumors about the Snowdons’ royal marriage lay a sordid mess of drinks, drugs, bright lights, and wild nights. “But worse than anything were the cracking rows,” recalled a former lady-in-waiting for the Princess. “Dehumanizing to them and to those around them. Tony traveled on photographic assignments—Tokyo, Melbourne, New York—as much as he could to get away, and Margaret longed for him to go. But after a week without him, she’d get bored.”
During a three-week assignment in India, Snowdon did not contact his wife. After the first week, the Times photo editor began receiving daily calls from the Princess, inquiring about her husband, who cabled the newspaper three times a day but didn’t communicate with her. When the photo editor was unavailable, his assistant took the calls from Kensington Palace and left messages on the editor’s desk: “HRH called,” or “It’s ma’am—again.” By the end of the third week, the messages from the assistant reflected the maddening frequency of the calls: “Please ring the royal dwarf.”
The disintegration of Princess Margaret’s marriage put subtle pressure on Prince Charles, whose only responsibility in life was to marry well and reproduce. He was constrained