Princess Margaret wears ruby and diamond brooch in 1993

As a young woman Princess Margaret made the devastating decision to choose duty over love, after learning the Royal Family could not support her marriage to Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Captain Townsend was her late father’s royal equerry, and not only was he 16 years Margaret’s senior, he was also a divorcee.

On October 31 1955, exactly 68 years ago, the Princess announced that their relationship was over in a statement put out over BBC radio.

She 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 teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have decided to put these considerations before any others.”

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It has often been assumed that Queen Elizabeth felt she could not give her younger sister permission to marry her partner, as she was Head of the Church of England which did not condone divorce and remarriage.

The story was heavily featured in the first series of the Netflix royal drama The Crown, featuring Claire Foy as the late Queen and Vanessa Kirby as Margaret.

Less than twenty years earlier the royals had been rocked by another remarriage scandal, with Edward VIII ultimately abdicating in 1936 so he could marry the divorced Wallis Simpson.

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If Margaret had chosen to marry Captain Townsend, she would have had to leave the trappings of her royal privileges behind her and live life as a commoner, something which proved to be a step too far for the 25-year-old.

Captain Townsend first met Margaret when she was just 14, after he became royal equerry to her father George VI, with him later being made Master of the Household in 1950.

After George’s death in 1952 the Captain became Comptroller of the Queen Mother’s household, at which point Margaret would have been in her early twenties.

The Group Captain later wrote of his first impressions of the Princess: “She was a girl of unusual, intense beauty, confined as it was in her short, slender figure and centred about large purple-blue eyes, generous, sensitive lips, and a complexion as smooth as a peach.

“She could make you bend double with laughing and also touch you deeply in your heart.”

In April 1953 he proposed to Margaret, but as she was under the age of 25 at the time the Queen had to consent to her marriage to a divorced man under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772.

They were kept apart for two years while Captain Townsend worked in Belgium, but upon his return Margaret ultimately decided against the union.

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