A Son Tells All Defending A Royal Rebel

Is Margaret’s Wild Reputation Unfair?

- Judy Kean

She was the royal rebel of her generation – the striking beauty who caused major scandals when she fell in love with a divorced man and later had an affair with a much younger gardener.

Princess Margaret wasn’t as constrained by the rules as her older sister, Queen Elizabeth II, and led a rather more colourful life. But now her son, David, Earl of Snowdon, is fed up with his mother being painted as a “carousing floozie” and wants to set the record straight.

David (57) is particularly annoyed about the way Margaret, who died in 2002 aged 71, is being portrayed on Netflix drama The Crown. In the last series, Margaret, played by Vanessa Kirby, was seen as a diva who was fond of a tipple or two. Snippets of the next series, in which Helena Bonham Carter has been cast as the glamorous princess, show the breakdown of her marriage to David’s father, Tony Armstrong-Jones, the first Earl of Snowdon, and the start of her relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, 17 years her junior.

David is vowing to overturn the party-going, chain-smoking image from the show and from biographies about her – in particular, a book released last year called Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret – by writing his own book.

“My mother is often portrayed, whether it’s in ‘authoritative’ books or TV dramas, as being a socialite who was only interested in parties,” he says. “She was so much more than that and devoted a huge amount of her time to the arts, as well as her official duties on behalf of the Queen.