Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the second daughter of George VI of the United Kingdom and the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II.

Quotes

• Silly ass. The land would be much more valuable today.
  • On being told that George III had given the Crown lands to Parliament in 1761 in return for a fixed allowance. As quoted in Andrew Duncan The Reality of Monarchy (William Heinemann, 1970), p. 181

• We had to put a stop to it. Every tart in London was getting in.
  • On the end in 1958 of the presentation of Debutantes at court, as cited by Liz Hoggard in "High Society: Whatever happened to the last of the debs?", The Independent on Sunday (24 September 2006)

• Which one? My sister, my mother or my husband?
  • From Anne de Courcy Snowdon: The Biography (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008), as cited in "Lord Snowdon, his women, and his love child", The Telegraph (31 May 2008)
  • In the 1960s, "while Princess Margaret was attending a high-society party in New York ... the hostess asked her politely how the Queen was keeping".

• You have done more to bring shame on the family than could ever have been imagined.
• Not once have you hung your head in embarrassment even for a minute after those disgraceful photographs. Clearly you have never considered the damage you are causing us all. How dare you discredit us like this and how dare you send me those flowers?
  • Letter to the then Duchess of York (now Sarah Ferguson, c. 1995), as cited in Naomi Bartram "Here’s why Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson split", Cosmopolitan (12 October 2018)
  • The "disgraceful photographs" reference is to images published in August 1992 of the toes of the Duchesses being sucked by John Bryan, her financial advisor, during a holiday in St Tropez, France.

About Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

• Her Royal Highness was charming ("I have this terribly flat voice," she told me apologetically), with a ready sense of humour and a dry wit. We did one rehearsal and the producer said: "That's very good, Ma'am, but do you think you could sound as if you were enjoying yourself a little more?" She looked him straight in the eye and said acidly, "Well, I wouldn't be, would I?"
  • Sara Coward (undated), as cited in "Obituary: Sara Coward", The Times (16 February 2017).
  • Recollection of the recording of Princess Margaret's appearance in an episode of The Archers broadcast on 22 June 1984. An account of this incident by the radio soap opera's then producer, William Smethurst (extracted from his book The Archers: The True Story, Michael O'Mara Books, 1996), differs in detail, but not in substance.

• But we can go back further still, for the thing did not start with Princess Anne, either; before her there was Princess Margaret. She, too, was attacked for going on holiday, and indeed for putting on weight, but the main charges, which seem almost incredible today, concerned her choice of men friends - and after, not before, her divorce.
  • Bernard Levin, "Uneasy Lies the Head", The Times (23 January 1989).

• She is far too bright for her station in life, which she takes altogether too solemnly.
  • Gore Vidal Palimpsest: A Memoir (Random House, 1995), as cited in "Princess Margaret in quotes", The Independent on Sunday (10 February 2002)
  • According to the princess, in an undated attributed comment: "The trouble with Gore is that he wants my sister’s job".