Princesses Behaving Badly (30 page)

Traveling with this royal pain was also no picnic. Pauline had a habit of stopping her entourage so that she could switch from carriage to sedan chair, rearrange her clothing, or nap in a meadow. To ensure a comfortable snooze, she liked to use people as furniture. She would order one guard to sit upright so she could lean against him and another to lie down so that his stomach could serve as a footrest. Putting her feet on people seems to have been one of Pauline’s favorite pastimes. One duchess recalled entering her boudoir to find a lady-in-waiting stretched flat on the floor, Pauline’s feet resting on her throat. The poor woman cheerfully declared, “I am well used to it.”

But however much of a handful she could be, Pauline still had one virtue: loyalty. When Napoleon was down on his luck, she was the only sibling
to support him. When he divorced the wife he loved, a move born of the necessity to produce an heir, Pauline threw no less than ten grand balls to cheer him up (true, she’d never liked Josephine anyway). And though she may not have agreed with his imperial pretensions, she sold her jewels to pay for his armies (extravagance is sometimes a good investment).

Even as forces within the French empire conspired against her brother, Pauline could be counted on. In April 1814, after a decade as emperor, Napoleon was ousted and exiled to the island of Elba, a rocky but beautiful outcropping off the Mediterranean coast of Italy. Pauline went with him. “If he will permit me to follow him, I will never leave him.… I have not loved him because he was a Sovereign, but because he is my brother,” she said. To scare up cash, she sold properties and more jewelry. Just as she had been on Saint-Domingue, she became first lady of Elba, organizing balls, theatrical presentations, and receptions for the exiled emperor, holding court with local leading families and a growing retinue of hangers-on and exiled French officials. Napoleon even bestowed on her the awesome title “Organizer of Entertainments on the Island of Elba,” which sounds like the nineteenth-century equivalent of “Cruise Director of the
Love Boat
.”

This little island kingdom didn’t last, however. By February 1815, Napoleon was ready to try his luck at reclaiming his empire. His plans failed. After only 100 days in power, he was defeated at the battle of Waterloo. Sewn into the lining of the carriage he abandoned there was a diamond necklace Pauline had given to fund his cause.

It was all over for the emperor, Pauline, and the Bonapartes. Joining Napoleon in exile in St. Helena was out of the question, though Pauline repeatedly asked for permission from the British authorities who sent him there. Meanwhile, she needed to figure out how she was going to live, especially after her long-suffering husband, Prince Borghese, sued for divorce. In June 1816, the couple was granted a decree of separation, and Pauline came out the victor: she got a 20,000-franc annual income and use of the Borghese palace.

Her existence somewhat secure, Pauline spent the next few years entertaining, visiting spas, and trying to help her brother, to no avail—Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, still in exile. Pauline didn’t find out until
months later, and then it was as though her light went out. She’d grown thin worrying about her brother, and her beauty had faded. She demanded that the Canova statue, the one she’d so loved to show off, be put in storage. Though she still took lovers and sometimes entertained gentlemen guests while in her bath, Pauline largely retreated from the partying life she’d once led. Her health, never robust to begin with, declined precipitously.

By all accounts, Pauline was an indolent and vain woman chiefly concerned with money and sex. But she was also fiercely devoted to her family and could exhibit some of the most daring qualities of bravery when her loved ones were in danger. When she died at the age of 44, her famed beauty was gone and she was in constant pain. Her will, however, made it clear what she’d valued most; she left everything to her family, including a villa for her estranged husband, with whom she’d reconciled. It made no mention of any of the men who’d been her lovers.

Margaret

A
UGUST
21, 1930–F
EBRUARY
9, 2002
G
REAT
B
RITAIN

T
he heist made headlines, and rightfully so: on the night of Saturday, September 11, 1971, a gang of thieves tunneled into the safety-deposit box vault at a Lloyd’s Bank and made off with an untold fortune. The perpetrators had rented a storefront two doors down, at the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road. Under the cover of renovations, they dug a tunnel about 40 feet long, passing under a Chicken Inn restaurant and emerging inside the vault. At the crime scene were the scrawled words “Let Sherlock Holmes try to solve this.”

Estimates at the time put the haul at around £500,000, but in fact it was much more, perhaps as much as £3 million ($51 million today)—it’s impossible to know the full value of the contents of the safety-deposit boxes. In the end, it didn’t take the legendary detective to figure out who did it. In 1973 four men were arrested and jailed for the crime, although the mastermind was never apprehended.

But just four days after this incredible story broke, the newspapers stopped talking about it. In the world of British tabloids, that was extraordinary. Rumors spread that the authorities had put out a “D-notice,” effectively a gag order preventing media from discussing details that might compromise national security. A few reports in the London
Times
followed, but the story was basically swept under the rug. Why?

The producers of the 2008 crime film
The Bank Job
claim to have the answer: the titular heist was, in fact, set up by British Security Service, better known as MI5, to steal back compromising photographs of Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II’s wayward younger sister. The film suggests that Margaret, whose marriage was in steep decline and who was enjoying a lot of time on the Caribbean island of Mustique, had been captured in blurry images participating in a threesome with a nameless man and woman. More recent chatter suggests that if the robbery was set up by MI5, then the pictures were of Margaret and small-time gangster John Bindon, who’d also spent time on the island. Bindon claimed in 1972 that he’d engaged in an intimate relationship with the princess, and that he had photos to prove it.

Was the bank robbery done in service to the crown? Possibly. The producers of the film claim they got the inside scoop from those in the know, but of course they would say that. Even if it’s not true, there’s no denying that Princess Margaret was a frequent fixture in the British gossip pages. Long before Prince Harry learned the hard way that what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas, his great-aunt was giving the palace serious palpitations.

Margaret was born in Scotland in 1930 during a late-summer thunderstorm. If you’re inclined to see these sorts of things as omens, then you
could say she lived the rest of her life directly under that dark cloud.

When Margaret was six years old, her uncle David, known officially as King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne over his refusal to give up Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American temptress with Nazi sympathies. Margaret’s father, Bertie, became King George VI, and her older sister, Princess Elizabeth, became heir apparent. And Margaret? She was heard wailing, “Now that Papa is king, I am nothing.”

Royal or not, the sisters fell into a pattern familiar to many parents. Elizabeth, four years older, was the serious and dutiful one. Margaret was the fun-loving spoiled prankster of whom little was expected. The sisters fought (Margaret was a biter); Elizabeth complained, “Margaret always wants what I want.” Their childhood was as normal as could be expected. Margaret excelled at music, loved blood-soaked pirate comic books, and was a natural comedian. In 1939, as the outbreak of war forced the royal family to decamp to Windsor Castle, Margaret whined, “Who is this Hitler, spoiling everything?”

While Elizabeth was groomed to be the next queen, Margaret was left to founder. By the time she was 20 years old, her older sister was already married and had two children. Margaret’s greatest talents seemed to be mastering the latest dance steps and being bright and funny; her only purpose was to marry a rich aristocrat. While waiting for that eventuality, she threw herself into partying and clubbing, staying out until four in the morning, smoking in public, and generally having a jolly good time.

But the first man Margaret fell in love with was not a rich aristocrat. He was a dashing middle-class fighter pilot named Peter Townsend, who had shot down the first German bomber on British soil. At age 29, he was considerably older than 13-year-old Margaret when he came into her father’s service as equerry (i.e., the guy who announces visitors to the king). And he was a married man. Margaret developed a “terrific crush” on him, one that would blossom into full-blown infatuation a few years later. He accompanied her on her official duties, and she could often be found hanging around his office, a perk of his promotion to deputy master of the household.

When she was 22, their affair began in earnest; Townsend’s marriage was by then breaking up, and Margaret wasn’t a child anymore. At first, it seems, both the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth—who had ascended the throne on February 6, 1952, after the death of their father—were prepared to accept Townsend. But Margaret was not a private citizen, and marriage was not hers to decide, a fact that highlights one of the most bizarre aspects of modern royal life.

According to the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, until she reached the age of 25, Margaret could not marry without the queen’s consent. After that, her nuptials would have to be agreed on by British Parliament as well as the Parliaments of Commonwealth countries. The queen couldn’t help a sister out either, because the monarch is also the head of the Church of England, and Townsend, as a divorcé, was not acceptable to the church. The queen would have to win agreement from the prime minister, Winston Churchill, who thought it would be a bad idea for Elizabeth to give her consent before her coronation (set for June 2, 1953).

It’s strange to think that, having just survived World War II, the country would be so concerned over the marriage plans of a 22-year-old woman, regardless of her royal rank. But Britain had only just moved beyond the 1936 abdication crisis triggered by Wallis Simpson’s divorce record. Now, despite efforts to keep the story under wraps, British tabloids had gotten wind of Margaret’s romantic travails. According to the BBC, rumors began circulating after Margaret was seen brushing a piece of fluff from Townsend’s jacket at Elizabeth’s coronation. Bad press began to accumulate. As one newspaper sniffed, “It is quite unthinkable that a royal princess, third in line of succession to the throne, should even contemplate a marriage with a man who has been through a divorce.” The state moved to part the lovers, and in July 1953, Townsend was assigned to a position abroad. The couple wouldn’t see each other again for a year.

And so Margaret waited. When she finally reached her twenty-fifth birthday, she was cautiously confident that Parliament would at last give its seal of approval. But the politicians had other ideas—the princess was told that a sizable faction threatened to resign in protest if she married a divorced man. Marriage to Townsend was still possible, but only in a civil court. And that would mean giving up her rights of succession, her duties
and privileges as a princess, and, crucially, her income. She would, like her uncle before her, be forced to move abroad for an indeterminate time. That was too much to ask. On October 31, 1955, the BBC interrupted its normal broadcast to read a statement from the princess, in which she told the nation she had decided not to marry 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 teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.”

Margaret had always been given everything she ever wanted, but she couldn’t have love. “If I had been allowed to marry Peter, I am sure we would have been happy,” she later lamented. “And who knows? It might have lasted.” Sadly, her real marriage did not.

The official royal family biography of Margaret is a bare-bones affair: married to Antony Armstrong-Jones on May 6, 1960, at Westminster Abbey, two children, divorced in 1978. Just the facts, none of the juicy reality.

Here’s what really happened: After the Townsend affair, Margaret found herself with few matrimonial prospects; all the nice young men who’d once been a part of her “set” had been taken by other women while she was waiting for permission to marry. So once again she threw herself into wild living, visiting nightclubs and dancing the cha-cha, jitterbug, jive, and charleston. (After meeting the princess following one of his shows, Louis Armstrong pronounced her “one hip chick.”) Margaret could sing well, if a bit huskily after a decade of heavy smoking, and she liked a good drink. None of that made it difficult for her to perform her daytime duties, which included opening schools and cracking bottles of champagne on various things. If Margaret resented her sister, she showed it by not arriving to the queen’s tenth wedding anniversary celebration until after midnight (and staying for less than an hour).