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A friend of the princess has revealed that Margaret would have “lost part of her glamour” if she had gone ahead with the marriage.
Speaking in new BBC documentary Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal, Lady Jane Rayne said she did not think the Queen’s younger sister was heartbroken when the marriage did not go ahead.
She said: “She looked as if she was absolutely heartbroken but I don’t think she was.
“I think she thought ‘Right, go back to my old bachelor days’.
“She weighed everything up to realise what her life would have been like [had they married].
“She would never be a nobody, but she would have lost part of her glamour.
“I think if she’d have married him, she would have been rather an ordinary housewife and she didn’t want that at all.”
Margaret and Peter ended their engagement in 1955, reportedly due to pressure by the Queen.
Princess Margaret issued a statement following the split. The statement said: “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 indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others.
“I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend.”
Princess Margaret went on to marry Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 but the pair divorced in 1978.
The couple had two children, Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth. Princess Margaret died in 2002 aged 71.
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