The Crown returns in the Swinging Sixties
Second run for The Crown will tell story of romance between photographer and Princess Margaret
THE second series of The Crown is to document the romance between Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon, portraying him as a charmer who harbours “dark secrets”.
The lavish Netflix series returns later this year, and while the Queen remains at its heart, the arrival of a young Antony Armstrong-jones will provide some of the most involving storylines.
Snowdon, who died in January aged 86, enjoyed what one obituarist described as “an extraordinarily complex love life”.
The drama is expected to delve into his affairs both before and after his marriage to the princess in 1960. One such liaison resulted in the birth of an illegitimate child while he was on honeymoon aboard the Royal yacht Britannia.
There were also rumours that the society photographer was bisexual. He told his biographer: “I didn’t fall in love with boys – but a few men have been in love with me.”
Snowdon will be played by Matthew Goode, a familiar face from Downton Abbey and the film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. Vanessa Kirby continues in the role of Princess Margaret.
The series will show the princess falling in love after meeting Snowdon at a dinner party in 1958. A few weeks later he would take her portrait and she began making surreptitious visits to his Pimlico studio.
Snowdon was the first commoner in four centuries to marry a British monarch’s daughter. Less happily, they became the first royal couple to divorce since Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves.
His lack of aristocratic pedigree caused a stir at court. The Duke of Gloucester was said to have greeted Harold Macmillan, then prime minister, at Balmoral with the line: “There’s a fellow called Jones in the library who wants to marry my niece.” Peter Morgan, writer
of The Crown, said:
‘These are vital, fascinating years – a period where Britain rejected a type of paternalistic leadership’
“Tony is everything the palace isn’t: seductive, dangerous, risqué – remarkably modern and progressive. “He’s a source of great happiness for Margaret, tired of the button-down conservatism of palace life, but he hides dark secrets. He brings a new flavour and rhythm to proceedings.”
The truth about Snowdon’s secret daughter remained hidden for decades. He and Princess Margaret were friends with Jeremy Fry, descendant of the Fry’s chocolate company founder, and his wife Camilla, and regularly visited their manor house in Somerset. His affair with Camilla resulted in the birth of Polly, who confirmed her true parentage with a DNA test in 2004.
The Crown returns on Dec 8. According to Morgan, it bears witness “to the end of the age of deference” and finishes in 1963 with the downfall of Macmillan. The second series covers the advent of the Swinging Sixties, when Snowdon and the princess were part of a hedonistic social scene. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh inhabited a different world and the drama will show milestones in their lives, from 1957, when the Queen formally made her husband a prince, to the birth of Prince Andrew in 1960.
Morgan said: “These are vital, fascinating years – a period where Britain rejected a certain type of paternalistic leadership.”