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Princess Margaret dead
By Hasan Suroor
LONDON
FEB 9.
Princess Margaret, younger sister of the Queen, died here this morning after a stroke bringing to an end a life, lived to the full and often controversially. She was 71. Her death cast a shadow over the Queen's golden jubilee celebrations, and came as a huge blow to the 101-year-old Queen Mother, herself battling with ill health.
Princess Margaret, who had been ill for sometime, died "peacefully in her sleep'' at the King Edward VIII Hospital, an official announcement said. She was rushed to the hospital after she developed cardiac complications during the night following a stroke on Friday afternoon. Her two children — Lord David Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto — were at her bedside when she died. The Queen who was at the family retreat at Sandringham in Norfolk returned to Buckingham Palace, and was reported to be devastated.
Despite their contrasting personalities, the sisters had been very close though it is widely believed that Princess Margaret never quite got over the complex of being junior to her in the pecking order. As the word of her death spread, people — mostly tourists — collected at the Buckingham Palace where the Union Jack was lowered to half mast, but generally the public mood was of quite resignation. Even as television networks set aside the day's news agenda to concentrate on Princess' death, they repeatedly made the point that it had not been unexpected given her steadily deteriorating health in recent months. The stroke which proved fatal was the third, and after her second stroke last year she had been practically confined to the wheelchair and been in and out of hospital several times.
In her last days, Princess Margaret had become a recluse — a distressing denouement to a life spent in a social whirl. She was the most feisty member of the Royal family of her generation best remembered in gossip columns for her very public affair with Roderic "Roddy'' Llewellyn, a man 17 years younger than her, after her divorce from Lord Snowdon. Earlier, in her youth, she nearly caused a Royal scandal when she fell in love with a divorcee, Group Captain Peter Townsend, and wanted to marry him. That was an age when divorcees were regarded as untouchables in Royal circles and she was virtually forced to abandon him. She then married the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones who later became Lord Snowdon. Though they had two children, the marriage did not last and he divorced her in 1978 — giving her the dubious distinction of being the first Royal to be divorced since Henry VIII.
A heavy smoker and a spirited drinker, Princess Margaret was a high-flying socialite — more frequently in the news than the more diligent and low-profile Queen. She lived through a number of health scares, and had lung surgery for suspected cancer. Her health began to deteriorate seriously when she suffered her first stroke while on an overseas vacation in 1998. Extensive burns when she accidentally stepped into a bath of scalding water left her nearly invalid for a long time. For nearly a year, she had become a shadow of her past self.
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