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Princess Margaret and her taboo relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend almost tempted her to give up her charmed life in the royal family to become his wife.

Margaret “Placed Duty Before Love” And Decided Not To Marry Townsend

Margaret opted not to agree to the marriage because his status as a divorcee meant she would lose her status as a royal. It was a choice hailed as “placing duty before love.”

He entered the Royal Air Force in 1930 and was authorized as a pilot officer in 1935. He was considered a war hero and distinguished combatant pilot in the Battle of Britain in World War II.

During the war, he almost died several times. Deciding life was too short, he later joked that he

“stepped out of the cockpit and married the first pretty girl I met,”

who was his first wife, Rosemary Pawle.

In 1944, Townsend took a position that would change his life.

Thanks to Netflix's hit series The Crown, the world is again fascinated with Queen Elizabeth's sister, Princess Margaret, and her highly-publicized royal romance with Peter Townsend. The first season of The Crown ended with Elizabeth telling Margaret that she could not marry Peter because he was a divorcee — and, until Season 2 premiered in December 2017, many fans were left wondering, did Margaret stay with Peter after all? If not, did she end up marrying someone else? In October 1955, a then 25-year-old Margaret released the following public statement revealing she and Peter, 40, had officially ended their romantic relationship: "I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. But mindful of the Church's teachings that Christian marriage is...

Princess Margaret’s ill-fated romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend may have started much earlier than originally thought.

In a new biography of the late royal, who died in 2002, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses Of Princess Margaret, author Colin Brown writes that new details seem to reveal Margaret and Townsend’s affair began years before it was thought to have, while Townsend was still married to his first wife, according to the Daily Mail.

Brown’s book reports that Margaret and Townsend had already begun seeing one another in October 1947. Townsend had accompanied Margaret to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she was...