Princess Margaret & Lord Snowdon: The Royal Divorce That Broke a 400-Year Taboo
Queen Elizabeth's sister shattered a royal taboo that had stood since the 1540s
Key Facts
What Happened
Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 in a Westminster Abbey ceremony watched by 300 million television viewers worldwide. He was created Earl of Snowdon, and for a time they were the glamorous face of a modernizing monarchy. But behind the public facade, the marriage was troubled from the start. Both were strong-willed, both enjoyed the social scene, and infidelity plagued the union from both sides.
Margaret had already suffered one devastating romantic loss. In the 1950s she had fallen in love with Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced royal equerry. The Church of England prohibited the remarriage of divorced persons whose former spouses were still living, and Margaret — as the sovereign's sister — was expected to uphold those standards. In 1955, she publicly renounced Townsend in a statement that referenced her duty to the Church and the Commonwealth. The heartbreak was visible to the entire world.
By the early 1970s, the Snowdon marriage had collapsed. Margaret began a well-publicized relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior. Photographs of Margaret and Llewellyn on the island of Mustique appeared in the press in 1976, creating a scandal. On March 19, 1976, the couple publicly announced their separation. The decree nisi was granted on May 24, 1978, and the divorce was finalized on July 11, 1978.
It was the first divorce of a senior member of the British royal family since Henry VIII's era — specifically since Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh divorced Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse in 1901, and the first for someone so close to the throne in the modern era. The divorce shattered the notion that royals were bound by the Church of England's prohibition on divorce. It opened the door for Prince Charles and Princess Diana's divorce in 1996, and fundamentally changed the relationship between the monarchy and the institution of marriage.
Legal Breakdown: Royal Divorce
Royal Divorce and Constitutional Implications
As the sovereign's sister, Margaret's divorce had constitutional dimensions. The monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which historically opposed divorce. Margaret's divorce required navigating both civil law and the unwritten constitutional conventions governing royal behavior. The precedent it set was enormous — demonstrating that even those closest to the throne were not immune to marital breakdown, and that the institution would survive.
The Double Standard of Royal Marriage
Margaret was denied marriage to a divorced man (Townsend) in 1955 because of Church of England rules, yet she herself was later granted a divorce. This exposed the contradictions in how the Church and Crown applied marriage standards. The same institution that prevented her from marrying the man she loved later permitted her own divorce — a painful irony that highlighted the evolving and sometimes inconsistent nature of religious authority over civil unions.
Media Scrutiny and Public Divorce
The Mustique photographs were a turning point — private behavior made scandalously public. In modern terms, this parallels how social media evidence can transform private marital difficulties into public crises. The lesson from Margaret's case is timeless: in the age of photography and media, privacy in a failing marriage is almost impossible for public figures, and managing public perception becomes as important as the legal proceedings themselves.
What This Means for Your Divorce
- →Institutional rules about marriage and divorce evolve over time. What was forbidden in one generation may be accepted in the next.
- →Being denied the right to marry someone you love because of external rules can have lifelong emotional consequences — Margaret never fully recovered from losing Townsend.
- →Media exposure of private relationships can accelerate divorce proceedings and remove any possibility of reconciliation.
- →Even the most privileged people face the same fundamental divorce pain as everyone else — heartbreak does not respect social status.
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This article is based on publicly available court records, news reports, and legal analysis. It is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this content.
Divorce laws vary by jurisdiction. Always consult a licensed attorney in your area before making legal decisions.