Princess Margaret's beautiful words about her sister, The Queen, revealed in previously unpublished interview

Princess Margaret's interview with Royal author Andrew Duncan has given us a rare insight into her relationship with the Queen

Princess Margaret and the Queen
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Princess Margaret's interview with Royal author Andrew Duncan reveals so much about how she felt about her sister, Queen Elizabeth.

  • Royal author Andrew Duncan has released an interview from the late 1960s with Princess Margaret.
  • In Princess Margaret's interview, she talks fondly about the Queen and the relationship between herself and her sister.
  • In other royal news, why is the Queen not at Ascot? The potential reason Her Majesty could skip the event this year.

The author of Reality of the Monarchy shared a rare interview with the Radio Times, which he carried out with Princess Margaret in the late 1960s.

Talking about her sister, the Queen, she said, "My sister has an aura. I'm enormously impressed when she walks into a room. It's a kind of magic.

"In my own humble way, I've always tried to take some of the burden off my sister."

Princess Margaret, who passed away in 2002, also talked about helping her sister with royal duties. "She can't do it all ... and I leap at the opportunity to help."

Princess Margaret spent her younger years living at many different residences. Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Clarence House—name a royal residence, and Margaret probably lived there at some point in her youth. Kensington Palace was her official home, however. 

But that doesn't mean the duties expected of her were all fun, "Sometimes it can be very formal and boring, but I've got a reflex against that now. It's very much up to one not to be bored,' she said at the time.

In the article Anthony also said how the princess revealed how, at 39, she had learned to relax more. "My friends used to tease me and call it my 'acid-drop' expression... I'm much nicer in old age," Margaret said.

Princess Margaret's funeral in 2002 was attended by the whole royal family and her obituary in the New York Times read, "Attractive and fun-loving, Princess Margaret earned a reputation in her youth as a free spirit. But her 20s were clouded by an unlucky romance with Group Capt.

"Peter Townsend of the Royal Air Force, a Battle of Britain hero with whom she fell in love when he served as an equerry to her father, King George VI."

More about her life can be discovered in the new two-part BBC Two documentary, Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal.

The program features archive footage and a series of revealing interviews, following Margaret’s life as she re-defined our image of the modern princess.

Sarah Finley

Sarah is a freelance journalist - writing about the royals and celebrities for Woman & Home, fitness and beauty for the Evening Standard and how the world of work has changed due to the pandemic for the BBC. 

 

She also covers a variety of other subjects and loves interviewing leaders and innovators in the beauty, travel and wellness worlds for numerous UK and overseas publications. 

 

As a journalist, she has written thousands of profile pieces - interviewing CEOs, real-life case studies and celebrities - interviewing everyone from Emma Bunton to the founder of Headspace.