Lord Snowdon, ex-husband of Princess Margaret, at 86
LONDON — Lord Snowdon, the society photographer and filmmaker who married Britain’s Princess Margaret and continued to mix in royal circles even after their divorce, has died. He was 86.
Buckingham Palace said that Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret’s sister, had been told that he died.
“The Earl of Snowdon died peacefully at home on 13th January, 2017,” said Camera Press, the photo agency with which he worked.
One of the country’s most famous photographers, Lord Snowdon was one of the few top-echelon royals to hold down an outside job after he married the queen’s sister in 1960, and his professional reputation grew steadily. Margaret died in 2002. Lord Snowdon was admired for his discretion, never speaking with the media about the breakup of the marriage in 1978, and rejecting offers to write a book about it. But over time a number of details about his complicated love life emerged.
Born Antony Armstrong-Jones, he was a slightly bohemian member of London’s smart set and an established society photographer when he and the queen’s sister surprised the country with their engagement in February 1960.
They had met at a London party and managed to keep their courtship a secret in the months that followed, despite intense interest in Margaret’s romantic life.
Unconventional, artistic and not nearly as wealthy as Margaret’s other suitors, Mr. Armstrong-Jones lived in a studio in west London and did his own cooking. He was certainly not seen by the public and press as a royal prospect.
The “Jones Boy” married the high-spirited Margaret at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 1960, in the first royal wedding to be televised. Whatever doubts the country might have had about his suitability were swept aside by general relief that Margaret had, at last, found love. It had been five years since her widely publicized decision to end her romance with divorced war hero Peter Townsend after pressure from church leaders, political figures and her own family.
Armstrong-Jones was named the Earl of Snowdon in October 1961, in time to give a title to their first child, David, Viscount Linley, born the following month. Linley became a successful furniture designer. His sister, Lady Sarah, born in May 1964, became a painter.