Queen’s role as Princess Margaret was told to choose between her true love and the monarchy

While the Queen was given a new role, her sister Princess Margaret was forced to make a difficult decision behind the scenes.

The Queen may have chosen her own husband, but sadly, her sister was not able to do so.

Princess Margaret suffered the same fate of so many spare heirs – going from equal sibling, to slipping further and further down the line of succession, while still trapped by palace conventions.

This time, it would be her own beloved sister who ruled.

Princess Margaret’s love for Group Captain Peter Townsend, a war hero and equerry to her father, then her sister, was revealed when she was spotted brushing the fluff off his shoulder at the coronation.

The newspapers ran with the love story and the public supported the pair – but there was one problem, Peter was divorced, which at the time, was seen as scandalous, particularly when a Royal Family member was involved.

A troubled Princess Margaret returns to Clarence House after a weekend in the country where Group Captain Peter Townsend was also a guest. The decision not to marry Townsend was announced 31st October 1955. Picture: Getty

It had, after all, ended in the abdication of her uncle.

It was down to the Queen and Queen Mother to guide Margaret and they did so by sending Townsend to Brussels and asking her to wait until she was 25 and no longer needed her sister’s permission to marry.

Princess Margaret at the British Industries Fair at Olympia, London. Captain Peter Townsend, the divorced Royal Air Force captain she was later refused permission to marry, stands in the background. Picture: Getty

She did, but in 1955, the Queen told Margaret the government decreed in order to marry her true love, she must renounce her royal position. Unlike Prince Harry, she chose to stay and gave up Townsend instead.

On one side, conservatives commended the Queen’s sensible guidance and traditional values, on the other, they railed at the outdated cruelty.

Margaret “paid a high price for her proximity to the throne,” says biographer Matthew Dennison, a story that would play out again and again through the decades.