Snowdon’s daughter and husband split up

n REPORTS that the King plans to turn his mother’s private retreat, Balmoral, into a museum in her honour have delighted the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford. ‘Making Balmoral a year-round visitor attraction is something King Charles should consider,’ he says. ‘Obviously, the parts of the castle that are especially sensitive to the late Queen should remain out of bounds.’ Blackford adds: ‘It would provide a massive boost to both the local economy and employment. It would also help Balmoral pay its way.’

THE late Lord Snowdon was never inhibited in expressing emotions, as he demonstrated when art dealer Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal sought his permission to marry his younger daughter, Frances Armstrong-Jones.

Responding without hesitation, the celebrated photographer gave his prospective sonin-law his blessing — and hugged him in delight.

But how, if he were still alive, would Snowdon react if he saw von Hofmannsthal today? I ask because, after 16 years of marriage, Rodolphe, 41, and Frances, 43, have parted company. ‘They hadn’t been getting on for quite a while,’ I’m told. ‘They tried to hold it together for the children but, in the end, it just didn’t work out. Rodolphe’s moved out.’ Their union began with a glamorous society wedding at St George’s church, Hanover Square, in West London, with Snowdon radiating paternal pride as he gave Frances away, and with the Marchioness of Douro and Sienna Miller and her then beau, Jude Law, among the guests.

Also there, amid a slew of Armstrong-Joneses including Frances’s half-siblings, David (then Viscount Linley) and Sarah Chatto, was effervescent man-abouttown Nicky Haslam, who extolled Rodolphe for being both ‘luxuriantly red-haired and outstandingly clever’ and Frances for being ‘exquisite’ and a ‘proud possessor of a 22-inch waist’. The couple (pictured, left, in 2004) have two children.

Lady Frances’s father — Tony Armstrong-Jones before being ennobled — enjoyed numerous affairs during his first marriage, to Princess Margaret, including one with Frances’s mother, Lucy Lindsay-Hogg.

Despite his 1978 marriage to Lucy — who gave birth to Frances seven months later — Snowdon was simultaneously romantically involved with journalist Ann Hills, who killed herself in 1996.

He subsequently fathered a son, Jasper, with another journalist, Melanie CableAlexander, in 1998.

A spokesman for von Hofmannsthal, a director of David Zwirner Gallery in London, declines to comment. Inquiries at Luncheon, the magazine which Frances co-founded, went unanswered.