10th Anniversary of Princess Margaret’s Death

February 9th, 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. She was the younger daughter of Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom.

Princess Margaret passed away in 2002, after suffering the last of her several strokes. She has been unwell for almost two decades, having had an operation in 1985 in which part of her lung was removed (this was caused by the Princess’s heavy smoking throughout her adult life). Pneumonia, strokes and a bathroom accident left Princess Margaret in a wheelchair, paralysed on her left side. The Princess was seventy-one.

A private funeral at St George’s Chapel, Windsor was held on February 15th, the same date her father’s funeral was held in 1952. The funeral was the last public appearance of the Queen Mother. After the service, the Princess’s body was cremated at Slough Crematorium, and her ashes were placed in her parents’s tomb in the King George VI Memorial Chapel at St George’s Chapel. This occurred two months after her death, when Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother herself passed away.

The Princess Margaret Rose was born on August 21st, 1930 at Glamis Castle in Scotland, the family seat of her mother. Her father became King in 1936, and World War II broke out three years later. She and her sister, the current Queen Elizabeth II, stayed at Windsor Castle throughout the course of the war, their mother stating that “the children won’t go without me. I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave” when the question of evacuating the princesses to Canada was brought up by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Princess Margaret was reknowned as a great beauty in her youth, and a social butterly. Her love affair with Group Captain Peter Townsend in the mid-1950s ended with the Queen refusing permission for the two to be wed. The Princess and Mr Townsend broke off their relationship, and Margaret married Mr Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960. Their two children, David and Sarah, were born in 1961 and 1964, respectively; before the couple divorced in 1978.

The Princess was survived by her two children, the Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, and four grandchildren, Charles and Margarita Armstrong-Jones and Samuel and Arthur Chatto. She was also survived by her mother, the Queen Mother, and her older sister, Queen Elizabeth II.

Click here to read about Princess Margaret.

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Tagged Anniversary, Biography, Death, Princess Margaret Countess of Snowdon.

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