Townsend met and married Marie-Luce Jamagne – a Belgian woman with a striking resemblance to Princess Margaret – in 1959 when he was 44. Princess Margaret went on to marry Anthony Armstrong Jones, Lord Snowdon, in 1960 in a union that lasted almost 20 years. The two were eventually forced to end the relationship when it became clear that the British Cabinet would not approve their marriage, believing it would cause conflict for her duties as part of the Royal Family.

The two began a relationship in 1947 during a royal tour of South Africa but the romance was controversial and the pairing was heavily discouraged by the government as Townsend was divorced and could not re-marry in the Church of England – a major conflict given that Margaret’s sister, The Queen, was (and still is) the Church’s Supreme Governor. Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend first met when Townsend was an equerry to her father, King George VI. The royal reunion will be shared in a new special airing at 9pm tonight on Channel 5 in the UK called ‘Elizabeth: Our Queen’. Lady Glencoccer added: “I looked out the window and saw him getting out of the car, he was an old man…Yet in her eyes he hadn’t changed. The late Princess Margaret’s close friend, Lady Glencoccer, has revealed that when the princess told her Peter had joined her for lunch, she said that he was “charming, he hasn’t changed at all”. Following her divorce from Lord Snowdon in 1978, Princess Margaret reunited with her former love, Peter Townsend, for lunch 30 years after their doomed romance ended.

Time and Chance by Peter Townsend