KEY POINTS:
If further evidence were needed of the ludicrous tangle of misery that characterises the lives of the modern royal family then here it is, complete with wellies and tiaras. Margaret Rose's decadent story is both so sad and so silly that it unlocks the truth about the whole sorry show.
The inevitable conflict between the weakness of mortal flesh and the antiquated respectability required of anyone regal is there on every page, and summed up by a few of the surreal photo captions in Heald's biography.
"In 1978 the Princess succumbed to viral pneumonia before she was able to grant independence to the tiny Pacific country of Tuvalu," reads one.
Princess Margaret's life probably still means most to those who grew up as she grew up, in the years after the war; first watching her become a glamorous "gel" in the cinema newsreels and then wincing as her personal relationships became public soap operas.
For the rest of us, her narrative simply represents, just like the grander abdication episode that had brought her father to the throne, the first telling tugs of a new tension between royal duty and private freedom.
The memory of the crushed and fragrant Princess solemnly announcing that she was giving up her lover, a divorced equerry 16 years her senior, for the sake of her country is commonly held to be her defining moment.
Heald, however, presents a persuasive argument that Margaret's famous decision to turn down an offer of marriage in October 1955 was not the self-sacrifice it is often painted as. Heald suggests that she was unable, or frightened, to give up her privileged role to become the second Mrs Peter Townsend. "In the end the answer was that too many powerful interests were opposed to the match and they didn't love each other enough," he concludes.
The real tragedy for Margaret may have happened three years previously.
Heald argues that her sudden diminution in the eyes of the world following the coronation of her sister was at least as painful as her doomed love affair. She went from being the gayer, prettier, more spoiled daughter of a loving king in a big palace to the lonely job of caring for a grieving mother in Clarence House.
The theory has always been that Princess Margaret was "good copy". Her legendary rudeness and snobbery coupled with her style and wit put her at the centre of many naughty anecdotes. Hedonistic behaviour and celebrity pals gave her endless gossip-column mileage. But this book proves that, when it comes to plush living and aristocratic parties, you really had to be there to get any sense of the fun. The Observer newspaper's photographer, Jane Bown, tells Heald that the Princess sat for her once, and she remembers "wonderful eyes, like twin pools, bottomless and beautiful". Her subject apparently "stared gloomily out of the window", telling Bown: "You know, I seem to spend most of my days like this."
There is no reason, of course, why Margaret should have been a particularly scintillating person. Her notoriety was an accident of birth. To crudely paraphrase the republican sentiments of the playwright David Hare, this biography confirms that having a royal family is a very expensive way to be cruel to a small group of people.
* Published by Weidenfeld
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