Ma’am Darling

by Craig Brown

  ‘I remember it as the most splendid possible occasion!’ says Lord Thorpe. ‘Don’t you, darling? I’m sure you do!’

  HRH Princess Margaret raises her glass. She is a woman of few words, but her restrained smile says it all.

  Many other suitors had been mentioned in the press – Group Captain Townsend, of course, but also man-about-town Colin Tennant and fashionable photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, now better known as Tony Jones.

  ‘I was tickled pink when Princess Margaret was good enough to accept my proposal,’ laughs Jeremy. ‘To be frank – I never thought I stood a chance!’

  We are sitting in the private drawing room in the royal couple’s beautifully furnished apartment in Kensington Palace. Souvenirs of their glamorous life together are scattered hither and thither. On the grand piano by the window there are photographs of some of the key moments in Jeremy’s political career: his first day as home secretary in Edward Heath’s government, his elevation to the House of Lords in 1977, and, in his judicial robes, as lord chancellor. There are, inevitably, those who suggest that marrying the Queen’s sister might have smoothed his upward trajectory. ‘There will always be the failures and malcontents, sniping from the sidelines, bless ’em!’ he laughs.

  It seems to have been a glorious career, but have there been any hiccups along the way?

  ‘Well, some wonderfully kind souls have suggested that one might have risen to the highest office in the land had not one’s role as consort obliged one to speak at all times with such impeccable restraint,’ he smiles. ‘Obviously, one’s wings have been clipped. But, all things being equal, one hasn’t done too badly, I suppose!’

  And has Her Royal Highness ever felt that the hurly-burly of her husband’s political life meant that he wasn’t around when she needed him?

  ‘Not really. No. In fact I would have preferred to have seen rather less of him, to be perfectly frank,’ she jokes, producing gales of laughter from her husband. Famous for her deadpan sense of humour, the Princess herself somehow manages to stop herself breaking into a smile.

  At this point their butler, Norman, enters the room. Norman – or ‘Bunny’, as they know him – has been with Lord Thorpe and Princess Margaret ever since their wedding, and seems very much part of the furniture. I ask him how he first came to work in the royal household all those years ago.

  ‘Bunny,’ interrupts Lord Thorpe, ‘has been a complete godsend, don’t you agree darling?’

  The Princess seems about to reply.

  ‘Very kind of you to say so, Your Lordship.’ Once again, her ever-dutiful butler has beaten her to it!

  And how did they first come to employ the trusty Norman?

  ‘Oh, dear me, all that’s very much lost in the mists of time!’ laughs Lord Thorpe. ‘Now, Norman, you mustn’t let us keep you from your duties, must you? You’d better run along!’

  ‘Yes,’ agrees the Princess. ‘Some of us are positively PINING for a drink!’

  Lord Thorpe and Princess Margaret have a reputation for remaining fiercely loyal to old friends. Lord Thorpe’s former fellow Liberal MP, Peter Bessell, is now the Princess’s private secretary, and his associate David Holmes is the Comptroller of the Household. ‘If Her Royal Highness ever attempts to lift a finger,’ jokes Lord Thorpe, charmingly, ‘Peter and David come down on her like a ton of bricks!!’

  40

  After their initial meeting, Payne kept tags on Tony’s progress. He noticed the tell-tale letters ‘T.A.J.’ appearing with increasing frequency on the top right-hand corner of the envelopes he collected every morning from the on-duty policeman. They were delivered by hand, and often topped brown paper packages containing photographs. ‘But at this time and throughout their courtship I never once saw a photograph of Tony in Princess Margaret’s possession or even in Clarence House. One thing did strike me though. Even up to the time of her engagement those three tiny portraits of Peter Townsend never left the Princess’s bedside table.’

  After Tony’s first weekend at Royal Lodge, Payne noticed that the young man ‘had made a hit’ with the Queen Mother. ‘But I have often wondered whether the Queen Mother would have approved so much of their friendship then if she had known what it was going to lead to later on.’

  Why did Payne entertain such strong misgivings about Tony? In his memoir, he lists a number of what he calls his ‘bad habits’. For a start, he always stayed too long in bed. On that first morning, Tony arrived downstairs ‘well past eleven’, by which time ‘Princess Margaret had already finished her early morning vodka and orange juice’. After reading the newspapers for three quarters of an hour, ‘he got up slowly and stretched a few times’ before going back upstairs, ‘rubbing his eyes sleepily’, to fetch a camera. ‘I then watched him lazily idle down the steps and out into the garden.’

  And so Payne became a snooper. ‘I stood out of sight at the window to the lounge and studied him as he pottered from spot to spot in the garden in an aimless sort of way … He looked like such an energetic young man in the evening. But now I was seeing him at his most listless.’

  Without warning, the Queen Mother burst into the room, having returned from exercising her dogs. ‘She must have realized that I was watching someone out of the window because she came across and glanced out on to the garden.’ She asked Payne whether any of the guests were still in the house.

  ‘“I believe Mr. Armstrong-Jones is in the garden, Your Majesty,” I replied. But I knew that she had already seen him from the window.

  ‘“I will go out and join him, then,” she said, and after giving me a searching look walked out of the lounge.’

  Payne’s curiosity was excited. Going about his household chores, he kept an eye on the Queen Mother and Armstrong-Jones from different vantage points in the Lodge. Presently, they were joined by Princess Margaret; the three of them enjoyed the sunshine, apparently unaware that the eyes of Payne were upon them.

  Lunch was followed by a break to ‘change into lighter clothes’ before the party went out on the terrace. Payne still had his eyes glued to Tony. ‘Every few minutes he would glance up from the magazine which lay open on his lap and look at the Princess. Their eyes would meet and a meaningful smile would pass between them.’

  Payne studied ‘my Princess’, in her light wide-necked summer dress, her face, arms and shoulders ‘a soft honey brown’. Her hair, ‘rippled by the gentle breeze, had never looked more lovely’. Looking back on that moment in the months to come, he decided that ‘it must have been then that Tony lost his heart completely to my beautiful Princess’.

  A couple of weeks later, Payne’s vigilance paid off once more. It was a Friday evening. Returning to Royal Lodge for the weekend, the Princess was ‘playing with a lighted cigarette between her fingers. She seemed to be nervous.’ Glancing at her watch, she told Payne that Mr Armstrong-Jones ‘should be here at any moment. Please go and look for him.’

  The Royal Lodge steward, Mr Havers, informed Payne that a car driven by Mr Armstrong-Jones had just passed through the gates of the park.

  The car pulled up ‘with a crunching skid on the gravel driveway’. Tony leapt out, wearing a pair of cavalry twill slacks, a striped shirt, a red tie ‘with a blue flowered motif’ and a brown sports jacket. ‘His hair was disarranged and looked very boyish as he sprang lightly from the driving seat and slammed the front door.’ Payne was ‘astonished’ to find that his luggage consisted of just one ‘rather soiled’ brown zippered holdall.

  He led Tony to the Octagonal Room, where the Princess was waiting. ‘Margaret was so relieved to see Tony that all thought of royal procedure must have been swept from her mind. As she reached him Tony’s arms went up and he caught her fingers in his. Then with their hands held in front of them they leaned towards each other and kissed. It was a tender moment and one which I will never forget. Obviously it was not their first kiss, but it was their first in someone else’s presence.’

  Payne was mesmerised. ‘I watched as Tony’s arms slowly crept dow
n and around Princess Margaret’s tiny waist and pulled her closer to him. Her fingers, freed from his, caught at the back of his coat and she clung to him.’

  This, he observed, ‘was by no means a Royal escort’s kiss – those I had seen many times’. Rather, ‘it was a full-blooded lovers’ embrace. Their lips were tight to each other. Indeed, it was the same sort of heartfelt embrace which I had seen the Princess offer to only one man before – and that man was Peter Townsend.

  ‘After what seemed an age to me as I stood by the door, slightly embarrassed,’ their embrace came to an end.

  ‘Tony. How wonderful it is to have you here,’ said the Princess. All ears, Payne judged her words ‘adequate yet inadequate to the situation’. On the other hand, ‘Margaret had at that time no real experience of dealing with the one she loved.’

  But ‘if Margaret’s remark was simple, Tony’s was ridiculous: “Ma’am, it’s delightful to see you again.”’

  Payne found Tony’s formality theatrical and overdone: ‘I almost felt like laughing.’

  Only now did the Princess appear to notice Payne’s presence by the door. ‘With a smile and a nod she dismissed me.’ Payne seized the opportunity to carry Tony’s grubby little bag upstairs. Inside the bedroom, ‘anxious to get my chores done quickly’, he unzipped it, only to be gravely upset by what he found within. ‘The sight which met my eyes made me step back a pace and I stared aghast at the contents.’

  What had he found? A sawn-off shotgun? A blow-up sex doll? A copy of Socialist Worker? Payne had in fact been catapulted into this peculiar state of horror by the sight of unpressed clothes: a screwed-up dinner jacket, an unlaundered evening shirt, a pair of crumpled pyjamas wrapped in inky newspaper. ‘Everything seemed to have been rolled up in a ball. With a feeling of great consternation I remembered that Tony would have to dress for dinner with my Princess within the hour.’

  Down the side of the holdall, Payne discovered a dark-grey suit ‘carelessly tossed in’, a black bow tie, and an ordinary red tie. His indignation was unfettered. ‘The whole jumbled mess would have been a disgrace to the average man – but to a man who was to dine with his country’s favorite Princess it was worse. It was a sin. Especially as the clothes were well cut and of good material. But it was typical of Mr Armstrong-Jones’ attitude, which was slap-dash and lazy at this time. I wondered what his flat and studio could be like if they were anything like the state of that bag.’

  Finally, Payne fished out a leather washbag and busily rootled around in it, finding after-shave lotion, talcum powder, deodorant, hair cream and an electric razor. One particular item had the effect of making him feel more tenderly towards the young gentleman: ‘I noticed that Mr Armstrong-Jones favoured the same talc and toilet water as myself and later I was to see Princess Margaret give an appreciative sniff whenever I passed by.’*

  With less than an hour to go, ‘I made up my mind I could not allow Tony to appear downstairs to dine with my Princess in such shabby gear.’ So he nipped down to the kitchen with the clothes under his arm, pressed the trousers and ‘did what I could’ with the jacket. He then set about sponging the worst stains off the shirt and ironing it dry, before returning the freshly laundered clothes to the bedroom. Having drawn the curtains and run a bath for Tony, he went downstairs. The Princess told him that they had decided to have dinner watching television, and asked him to lay out two tables.

  ‘“Yes of course, Your Royal Highness,” I replied and with a meaningful glance at Mr. Armstrong-Jones I said: “I have laid your things out ready for you, sir. They are all in order now.”’

  The Princess ‘looked puzzled by this remark and looked at Tony’. In turn, Tony ‘just stammered a thank you and I could see he knew what I meant’.

  Dinner passed without a hitch. ‘I remember the grateful look which Mr Armstrong-Jones cast me while I was clearing away the empty soup bowls … I knew he was trying to silently thank me for making his dinner jacket presentable. And indeed when on it looked as smart as any I had seen.’

  Dinner over, Payne asked the Princess if she would be requiring him further that evening.

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  He retired to the servants’ sitting room and read a magazine. After two hours, she summoned him back. ‘You will not be required again tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Royal Highness,’ he replied, and bade them both a polite goodnight, though he was ‘inwardly fuming’ that he should have been ‘kept from my bed for two hours after being told that I would be needed that night’.

  The following weekend, Payne and Tony met again, this time at Balmoral. In Payne’s opinion, Tony seldom appeared relaxed, despite putting considerable effort into it. The British upper classes rarely take kindly to those who try too hard, and nor do their servants. On the moors, Tony wore plus fours, a corduroy jacket and a sharp peaked cap, pulled down well over his eyes. ‘I can only say that he invariably looked awkward and very much ill at ease whenever he wore this uniform … In actual fact Tony looked out of place in just about every place they went except the drawing room.’

  The lure of the lie-in was Tony’s undoing: he was always the last to appear for breakfast, late for the sporting day ahead. This did not go down well with the Royal Family, and particularly not with Prince Philip. The Land Rovers would be waiting outside for fifteen or twenty minutes for Tony to join them. After half a dozen of these late starts, Prince Philip finally lost his temper.

  ‘He sat patiently for about ten minutes and then he started to give long blasts on the horn every few seconds and appeared to be getting very agitated. At last he turned to one of the guests and snorted in a loud voice:

  ‘“Where has that bloody man got to? Still in bed I suppose.” And his companions grinned. For to them Tony’s late rising was a standing joke. And the Prince’s impatience a source of amusement.

  ‘“I think he is coming now,” one of them said to Philip.

  ‘“And about time too,” snapped the Prince with a withering look in Tony’s direction.’

  Payne suspected something deeper than irritation beneath Philip’s attitude. ‘I feel sure there was something else, something much stronger behind it. It is a well known fact that Prince Philip has always been particularly fond of Princess Margaret and never loses an opportunity to talk to her or help her in and out of a car or onto a horse.’

  Tony’s tardiness made him an unpopular figure with the household staff, too. Some weeks later, on a Friday night in Royal Lodge, the bell rang in the servants’ sitting room. When Payne entered, the Princess’s sitting room was in semi-darkness. ‘Do switch off the television,’ said Margaret, without looking up.

  ‘Certainly, Your Royal Highness.’

  She remained cuddling up to Tony on the sofa, as though Payne were not in the room. ‘I was embarrassed,’ he recalled.

  ‘I want you to take up a breakfast tray to Mr Armstrong-Jones’s bedroom at 10 o’clock in the morning John.’

  ‘Yes, I will see to it Ma’am.’

  ‘You can leave us now, John. We will not be needing you again tonight.’

  As Payne shut the door behind him, he heard a tune from Oklahoma playing on the record player. A police guard later informed him that the couple had stayed up listening to records until 2 a.m.

  At 10 o’clock the next morning, tray in hand, Payne entered Tony’s pitch-dark bedroom. He switched on the light and drew back the curtains. ‘Then, setting down the tray on a bedside table, I gave Mr. Armstrong-Jones a shake. Trying to wake Mr. Armstrong-Jones at any time before midday was always a struggle and I had to shove him violently before he showed signs of waking up.

  ‘“What do you want?” he asked, testily.

  ‘I knew he had been late getting to bed and ignored his gruff comment.

  ‘“I’ve brought your breakfast as the Princess ordered last night sir.”’

  Tony denied ordering it. Payne repeated that it was the Princess who had ordered it. ‘“Did she?” grunted Tony, pulling the bedcl
othes over his head.’

  Payne left the tray where it was, and went downstairs. At midday the bell rang again.

  Payne returned. Tony was now lounging in his bed, ‘the top half of his bare body – he never wore pyjamas if he could help it – uncovered’.

  ‘I want breakfast immediately,’ he snapped.

  Exasperated, Payne snapped back, ‘You have had one breakfast already today, and have let that one get cold.’

  ‘Do as you are told and bring me another breakfast,’ said Tony, ‘glaring at me through his red sleep-filled eyes’.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Payne removed the untouched tray and took it down to the kitchen, where the cook was busy preparing lunch. Her mood, already poor, turned worse. ‘You go and tell him I’m cooking lunch now and if he’s too lazy to eat his first breakfast he can go without as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to start preparing another breakfast at this time of day for anyone.’

  ‘Do you really want me to go and tell him that?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  Payne went back upstairs, and repeated what the cook had just said, word for word.

  At this point, the narrative becomes a touch opaque.

  ‘“Oh did she say that?” he asked in a vexed tone.

  ‘“Yes. I’m afraid she did sir,” I told him.

  ‘“We’ll see about that,” he snapped and kicked the bedclothes off him. I heard him muttering about his breakfast and the cook.

  ‘“That to the cook,” he said.

  ‘I was rather shocked. It was not gentlemanly at all.

  ‘“Please, sir. Remember who you are … and why you are here,” I told him.

  ‘He looked a bit taken aback and then said: “Oh very well. But I do not think it is at all right that I should be treated this way.”

  ‘I watched him dress and he did not speak to me again that morning.’

  What was the rather shocking, ungentlemanly act that Tony had performed? Did Payne’s American editor judiciously censor a few words prior to publication?