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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Ben Pimlott
Aired February 09, 2002 - 07:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Great Britain, Buckingham Palace announces the death of Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's younger sister. Princess Margaret died in her sleep at a London hospital, with her children at her side. She had suffered a stroke yesterday, and then developed cardiac problems during the night. Princess Margaret was 71 years old.
In years past, some might remember Princess Margaret as the Diana of her day, more free-spirited than her older sister. One who remembers better than we is royal biographer, Ben Pimlott, who joins us now live from London -- Mr. Pimlott, good to have you with us.
BEN PIMLOTT, ROYAL BIOGRAPHER: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: How will Princess Margaret be remembered in Great Britain?
PIMLOTT: Well, I think in some ways, as you mentioned. I mean, she was the mischievous one, one with a sparkle in her eye. And she will also be remembered as having been a sort of pioneering spirit; a very beautiful woman, leader of a set, smart society, and who was in sort of where a female John the Baptist for Diana in the sense that she defied the establishment and was prepared to go her own way.
And the newspapers began to discover through her that you could attack the royal family and sell more papers, which was a kind of a critical breakthrough, I think, in terms of press coverage of royalty.
O'BRIEN: Mr. Pimlott, as we were talking there at the beginning, we saw those rather striking pictures of her last public appearance. I believe it was the last time she was seen before cameras. She was in the wheelchair with a sling, and she clearly was ailing.
PIMLOTT: Yes.
O'BRIEN: But not much was said about her, or put it this way, she wasn't in the public eye to the extent that some of the other royals are. Was that her choosing?
PIMLOTT: Well, she was for many years very much in the public eye. I think in the last few years, as you rightly indicated, she hasn't been -- she had a series of strokes. She scalded herself badly in the bath two or three years ago. And she has been basically an invalid recently. But earlier in her heyday, she was a massive (ph) world Grable (ph) news in all of her exploits and the great row over whether she could marry a divorced man, Peter Townsend, in the early 1950s. It was blazoned around the world in the aftermath of Queen Elizabeth's coronation in a way that was entirely comparable to the height of Princess Diana's fame.
O'BRIEN: I guess what's interesting to me is that she had that free spirit side of her, and yet, she didn't marry the man she loved.
PIMLOTT: Yes.
O'BRIEN: It was kind of a contradiction there then.
PIMLOTT: Well, yes, and I think she sort of -- but she came to regret it. We don't know. But she kowtowed to the combined pressure of the Church of England and the newspapers like the "Times," which in retrospect, it seems completely absurd. But the argument was that he was divorced, even though he was an innocent party in the divorce. And therefore, it would be inappropriate for somebody who was in direct line of succession to the throne Britain and the empire to marry such a person. And she made this famous plea and statement about being mindful of the teachings of the church, and she renounced him.
She then later rather kind of kicked over in the traces (ph) following her marriage to Antony Armstrong-James. There was a kind of series of scandals involving (UNINTELLIGIBLE) younger man, and she became sort of -- thusly thumbed her nose at public values and public mores.
O'BRIEN: Tell me about the relationship between the sisters, the queen and Princess Margaret.
PIMLOTT: I think it was always very close. It was a very close sort of nuclear family, the former duke and duchess of York and Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. The duke of York, of course, became George VI when his brother, Edward VIII, had to abdicate in a similar sort of controversy involving Wallis Simpson. And they led a kind of beleaguered existence, the four of them in their rattling, great mosoleum about Buckingham Palace.
And so it was a very tight-knit family, a very affectionate family, and I think it remained very close throughout their lives. Of course, Princess Elizabeth as queen had a very different kind of existence from her younger sister. But they remained very intimate, and the last I heard, she was very worried about her sister.
O'BRIEN: This comes as the queen begins celebrations of her 50th jubilee, obviously unfortunate timing.
PIMLOTT: Yes.
O'BRIEN: How will this play into all of that?
PIMLOTT: Well, I think it will play in the sense that there will be revived interest at the moment, just as the jubilee is beginning to take off, and that may affect it. But of course, it has not direct bearing. I think there is a sort of poignant coincidence about the fact that Princess Margaret has died almost to the day 50 years after her father died. She was very close to her father. She went into sort of a deep depression momentarily, and indeed, became quite religious in the aftermath of her father's' death.
And it's conceivable -- I don't know how conscience she was on February 6, which was the actual anniversary. But it's conceivable that she may have hastened her own death.
O'BRIEN: Ben Pimlott is a royal biographer -- thank you very much, sir, for being with us from London this morning.
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