The Crown Recap: Episode 6 'Gelignite'

gel·ig·nite

ˈjeləɡˌnīt/

noun
a high explosive made from a gel of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose in a base of wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate, used particularly for rock blasting.

So QEII is finally crowned and we now get to the juicy part of the series, the revelation of Princess Margaret’s relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend. A reporter at one of the tabloids is working on a story speculating on the relationship between the two. See, he saw the Princess pick a piece of fluff of the Captain’s uniform at the coronation. The editor is not sold, but the reporter insists that where there is smoke, there is fire. Actually he calls the article 'gelignite' since it seems that the name of the episode has to be referenced at least once. Picking the fluff off a man is a gesture even more intimate than a kiss because it suggests that the kissing has already happened. When the owner of the paper is appalled that the editor is planning on running the story but he doesn’t put the kibosh on the story. Tommy Lascelles (played by Pip Torrens who is so brilliant and evil as George Warleggan’s Uncle Cary in Poldark) is miffed that the owner didn’t tell his editor to kill the story. In real life, the American papers were actually the first ones to report on Princess Margaret’s relationship, which is what also happened in the 1930’s with King Edward VIII’s relationship with Wallis Simpson. The British papers were late to the game in both instances. Tommy informs the Queen Mother who wants to issue a denial but is talked out of the idea.

We finally get to see the Queen at the races in this episode. She attends the Epsom Derby with Prince Philip. It’s nice to see the show finally acknowledge one of the great passions of the Queen’s life, her horses. We get a lovely scene of Margaret watching the coverage on telly while canoodling with Peter Townsend. One wonders if the Queen Mum was so worried about the relationship, why she left Margaret and Peter alone together so often! They talk about the Queen's popularity. Margaret says that she doesn't care because she has Peter and they are going off to Rhodesia on tour. Yes, the tour is really the Queen Mum and Margaret, but these two seem to be able to find lots of time to sneak off together. 

In case you were wondering, Philip is still being an alpha hole in this episode.  He’s spending time with his equerry Mike Parker at a lunch club where they drink a lot, ogle the waitresses and talk about current affairs.  Yes, really, we are treated to a short lecture on what is going on in Egypt with Nasser (which will come up in later episode).  Philip points out to Elizabeth all the unrest going on around the world that she should be aware of. Earlier Princess Margaret rings up the Queen to invite her to dinner and we are treated to the logistics of the effort it took to connect Clarence House with Buckingham Palace. It is a nice reminder of what was life was like back in olden times. Claire Foy managed to give a simple word like ‘Oh,’ any number of meanings.  At dinner, Margaret and Peter announce that they would like to get married. Elizabeth is taken aback that the relationship has gone this far. Elizabeth informs Margaret that she needs to take advice but that as her sister, she would never try to prevent it. (In real life, everyone knew about Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend at this point).

While Elizabeth isn’t enthused about the marriage, Philip is downright hostile. He finds Peter to be boring and dreary. He thinks the best thing would be for Peter and Margaret to forget the whole idea and for Peter to reconcile with his wife. The Queen suggests that Princess Margaret get married in Scotland where they could get married in a church (Princess Anne remarried in Scotland) since it is not possible to marry in the Church of England if the divorced person still has a spouse living. Margaret is overjoyed.  The Queen is brought swiftly down to earth however by the Queen Mother and Tommy Lascelles.  Apparently the Queen was not aware of what the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 actually entailed.  This another ham-fisted way that show shares information with the audience. It is incredibly clunky but whatever! Tommy informs the Queen that Princess Margaret has the Queen’s permission to marry if she is under 25 and given that the Queen is the head of the Church of England, it would be unwise. However, if Margaret waits until she is 25, then she no longer needs the Crown’s permission. They suggest that it would be better for Peter and Margaret to wait out those two years in separate countries given the media frenzy. Margaret is not happy especially since Peter will not be able to accompany her and the Queen Mother on their tour of Rhodesia (I swear the first time I watched this episode, I had no idea what country she was talking about! Her upper class accent was so hard to understand). We finally get another intimate scene between the Queen and her sister, unfortunately it is one where she is bringing bad news. It is a lovely scene but it makes one wish that there had been more of them. Peter is just happy that he will be in Brussels where he can at least be close enough to see his sons.

The Queen promises Margaret that she and Peter will be able to have a few days together when she returns before he leaves to take up his new job as air attaché. She also asks Peter to accompany her and Prince Philip on a tour of Northern Ireland.  Unfortunately, the press is more interested in the Group Captain, then they are in the Queen. Peter also sticks his foot in his mouth when he sidles up to the Queen on the plane and calls her Lilibet, her childhood nickname, used only by close friends and her family. When Tommy comes to see her, Elizabeth tells him to make sure that Peter has to leave early for his new job, despite what she promised her sister. When Peter is told the news by Tommy and Martin Charteris, he tells them that they are making a mistake, the press are on their side. Tommy ‘the moustache’ Lascelles will not be threatened by a peasant like Townsend.

Here is where I have a problem with this episode.  All of a sudden, Peter Townsend seems to have turned into some sort of smarmy bounder who is drunk on his own press. It goes back to the episode where he refused to leave royal service, despite Tommy’s best efforts. It came across than as rather self-serving and that is not the impression that I have gotten over the years in the various biographies I have read about Princess Margaret and the royal family.  Did he overstep by falling in love with Princess Margaret? Maybe, he was older and married, but I also got the sense that he was surprised to find that Princess Margaret returned his feelings. What the show does well is illustrate just how immature Princess Margaret is compared to Peter Townsend who has a much more realistic view of life. This is also an episode that could have benefited from some flashbacks to Prince Philip’s courtship of Princess Elizabeth as a contrast to Margaret’s relationship with Peter. Instead we’re just told about it.

Margaret receives a telegram in Rhodesia telling her that Peter won’t be in London when she returns. She is furious and yells that she needs to speak with her sister immediately. There is a bit of comedy as switchboard tries to locate the Queen at one of her many residences. She’s finally located at Sandringham where she is examining one of her horses. Margaret unloads on her, telling her that since the Queen didn’t protect her, she won’t protect the Queen. “You reap what you sow.” The episode ends with a montage of various people reading the latest article on the royal romance. We start with Philip and Elizabeth, move on to Churchill and Clemmie and end with the Duke of Windsor and Wallis practically crowing over the article. 

What this episode did well is demonstrate that Elizabeth is beginning to learn that there is a clear distinction between the Queen in her private life, what she might want and do, and the public face of the monarchy and sometimes they don't coincide.  It is a painful lesson and one the Queen obviously never thought she would have to face, at least in Peter Morgan's version. We get a brief scene of party-loving Princess Margaret at Clarence House instead of in a night club where it might have been more appropriate.  I'm amazed that the Queen Mother didn't stomp in and try to shut it down. 

The Princess and the Gangster - Fact or Fiction?

Princess Margaret and John Bindon photographed on Mustique

A few months ago, I watched a little British film called The Bank Job. The film is based on the 1971 robbery of Lloyd's Bank in London to steal photographs kept in a safe deposit box, and subsequently hushed up by MI5. The photographs were rumored to be of Princess Margaret in a compromising position set on a Caribbean beach with a small-time gangster and actor by the name of John Bindon although he’s not specifically named in the film. The robbery became known as the “walkie-talkie bank job” because a member of the public overheard the robbers talking on a two-way radio.

I had never heard that Princess Margaret had been involved with a gangster, so I was intrigued. However, flipping through the two biographies of Princess Margaret that I own, one by Christopher Warwick and the most recent by Tim Heald, Warwick doesn’t mention him at all and Heald dismisses the rumors. So I turned to the good old Internet to do some research. I found Bindon’s Wikipedia entry which gave me some clues; apparently there were two separate documentaries on British television that detailed the alleged relationship, as well as an article in the Daily Mail written by journalist Wendy Leigh, the author of several biographies of Prince Edward, Hugh Grant and Grace Kelly.

Here are some facts that can be confirmed: Princess Margaret was introduced to Bindon on the island of Mustique where she owned a home for many years, in the late 1960’s. Bindon was dating Vicki Hodge at the time, a baronet’s daughter turned model and actress. Bindon later claimed that not only did he and the Princess have a brief affair but they had also done drugs together. The princess later publicly denied meeting Bindon, until photos surfaced that showed otherwise. She then claimed that while she might have had a nodding acquaintance with him, the rumors that they had any kind of sexual relationship were absurd. Despite the palace denials, Bindon’s ex-girlfriend Vicki Hodge believes that the story is true. “John told me that he had sex with Princess Margaret the first time that he went to Mustique (that would have been in 1968 according to Wikipedia), Hodge told The Daily Mail. “He always told me about his affairs, but he refused to go into details. In those days in Mustique, everyone thought nothing of making love on the beach. It could well have been that Margaret and John’s one dangerous moment was on the beach and that someone could have snatched a photo.”

So who exactly is this John Bindon guy? Well, John “Biffo” Bindon was born in 1943 in Fulham, London. The second of three children, Bindon had dropped out of school by the age of 15. He was soon given the nickname of “Biffo” for starting or getting into fights. By the time he was out of his teens, he had already done a stint in prison for possessing live ammunition. After a series of odd jobs, Bindon decided that acting was his true calling. Director Ken Loach spotted him in a pub and cast him in a film called Poor Cow, but his next big break was playing a gangster in a film starring Mick Jagger where he played a violent gangster, typecasting him from then on.

Bindon was suspected of running a protection racket in west London, and that he had ties to the Richardson Gang and to the Kray twins. Nobody apparently knows the extent of his involvement in the London underworld. He was also known for something else; apparently he was so well-endowed that one could hang five beer mugs off the end of it. Again, according to Vicki Hodge, one afternoon in Mustique while the butler was serving lobster and champagne, Princess Margaret while sipping her usual gin and tonic was asked by her friend Lord Glenconner if she wanted to see it. She said yes, and examined it ‘rather like a fossil.’

Princess Margaret’s enduring love affair with Mustique began in 1960 when her good friend Colin Tennant gifted her with ten acres of land as a wedding gift. She had a house built and called it “Les Jolies Eaux,” meaning the beautiful waters. It became her favorite escape from London and royal life over the years. By the time she allegedly met John Bindon, her marriage to Lord Snowdon was already in trouble, and they would separate for good in 1978. Mustique was also the scene of some wild parties that became the stuff of legend. According to the Daily Mail, Princess Margaret’s lover, landscape gardener Roddy Llewellyn, Colin Tennant, and Nicholas Courtney all stripped naked and were photographed by Margaret (oh yeah, that’s totally wild).

While it makes for a scandalous story, I have a hard time believing it. Although Princess Margaret was known as the Party Princess, there were still boundaries that weren't crossed.  Before her marriage to Lord Snowdon, she loved to go out to nightclubs every night, dressed to the nines, drinking and dancing until the wee hours.  She loved nothing more than singing around the piano or playing charades.  During the sixties, she and Lord Snowdon spent a great deal of time with a more glittering showbiz crowd, no the usual sort of people that royalty hung around with. While Princess Margaret allegedly had affairs with Peter Sellars and Warren Beatty, they at least had good looks and talent to recommend them. A thug like John Bindon might have been a curiosity to someone like Princess Margaret but I have a feeling that she would draw the line if he tried to take liberties. While she loved to laugh and flirt, Princess Margaret was always aware that she was the Queen’s sister, and never let people forget it. She might have enjoyed his off-color jokes but Bindon was not her type. Even Roddy Llewellyn, her much younger lover, was the son of a baronet. Bindon later claimed that MI-5 warned him off.

While Bindon had a credible career as an actor, he also had a vicious temper. While working security for Led Zeppelin, he got into a number of fights with crew members, journalists, and bouncers. He developed an addition to cocaine and heroin. Later he was arrested for stabbing to death gangster, Johnny Darke, at a London pub but he was acquitted. He later died of AIDS (although some claim it was liver cancer) in 1993, at the age of 50.

Despite the lack of evidence, the rumors still persist. At least two programmes have been shown in Britain that suggest that Princess Margaret and John Bindon were once lovers, including The Secret Life of Princess Margaret (ITV 2005) and The Princess and the Gangster (Channel 4, 2009).

Royal Princess, Royal Scandal - the sad life of Princess Margaret

It'll be six years next month that HRH Princess Margaret passed away at the age of 71. Apparently her ex-husband, Lord Snowdon has decided to share intimate details of his marriage to the late Princess in a new biography.

According to Hello Magazine: "News of the book, which is set to hit UK stores in the summer, may come as a surprise to many royal watchers.

"There has always been an understanding that no biography would be published during his lifetime," says royal author Tim Heald - who wrote a biography of the Queen's late sister. "He has never spoken a word in public about Margaret," he continues, "He has remained very loyal to her and to her memory."

"However, the royal snapper, who married the beautiful, blue-eyed royal at Westminster Abbey in 1960, has given his "full agreement" to the new biography by well-known journalist Anne de Courcy. "I am now happy for people to know about my life and I want to put the record straight on some things," says the 77-year-old, whose famously turbulent union ended in divorce in 1978. Snowdon: The Biography will be published in June."

Before Princess Diana became the most written about and hunted royal in modern history, and pictures of Fergie getting her toes sucked were splashed around the world, Princess Margaret captured the imagination and the paparazzi's interest from the 1950's right up to her divorce from Lord Snowden in 1978. She was noted as one of the most glamorous, well-dressed women in the world. In the post war gloom of Britain, Princess Margaret could be seen out every night in glamorous night clubs with her society friends, cigarette in hand. A rather far cry from the rather forlorn figure in her last years who had a reputation for being rude and pompous.

Her Royal Highness, Princess Margaret Rose was born at Glamis Castle in Scotland on the night of a tremendous storm on August 21st 1930. In a sense it was an omen of what her life would become. At the time of her birth, her father, the Duke of York, was second in line to throne after his brother the future Duke of Windsor. Margaret was brought up with her older sister Elizabeth in a townhouse on Piccadilly. If things had been different, Margaret would have passed into history as a very minor member of the Royal Family, probably living her life out in the country as a member of the aristocracy, with their dogs, and hunting.

Instead, Margaret found herself thrust on the world stage when her Uncle David abdicated the throne in December of 1936. All of a sudden, her father was King and her sister was the heir apparent. They moved from their cozy little townhouse to the great behemoth that is Buckingham Palace. From childhood, Margaret was indulged. Although Elizabeth was the future Queen of England, Margaret was clearly her father’s favorite. She was naughty, with a wicked sense of humor and the ability to mimic anyone. When she was caught, she managed to diffuse the situation by making everyone laugh until they forgot why she was being punished. Margaret was also more affectionate and effusive than her older sister.

Although they fought like cats and dogs at times, the two sisters were almost like twins, until their father’s coronation when Elizabeth had a train on her gown but Margaret did not. From then on Margaret was aware of her status as the ‘spare.’ When her sister was being given lessons in history twice a week from the Provost at Eton, Margaret wanted lessons too. No one seems to have known what to do with Margaret. In the old days of Princesses, she would have been packed off as soon as possible to some foreign court to become the consort of a reigning Prince. But the First World War had taken care of most of the monarchies of Europe, and the ones that were left were holding on by a string.

Royal sons could go into the Navy or the Army, or be packed of to be Governor General of one of the colonies like Australia or New Zealand. There was no thought to the possibility of Margaret attending University the way Prince Charles and Prince Edward did, or even attending Art College the way her own children were able to. What ever talents she possessed were never developed beyond that of an amateur.

By the time she was 18, Princess Margaret was sexy, beautiful, and self-assured with a drop dead gorgeous figure that was turned out to perfection in the waspwaisted fashions of the post-War era. While Princess Diana had cultivated the image of ‘Shy Di,’ awkward and unsure of her role as the Princess of Wales, Margaret was the personification of the world’s idea of a Princess.

The press in the post war world was remarkably different from the diffidence shown the royal family previously. The culture of the paparazzi was in its infancy, and Princess Margaret was their first and most famous subject. When she wore a two piece bathing suit while on a royal tour of Italy, photographs appeared around the world. Nowadays when tons of photos appeared in the press of Princess Diana cavorting in a bikini while pregnant, nobody batted an eye but back then things were different. No royal had ever been photographed wearing a bathing suit before.

Princess Elizabeth had married Prince Philip in November of 1947, and by the next November she’d had her first child. She was a settled matron, living the life as a naval officer’s wife. Margaret took up her role as the royal with a vengeance. She had no job and not many friends her own age, apart from a few selected children who had been brought into the royal nursery when she and her sister were growing up. With no real role, Margaret threw herself into becoming the life of every party that was going on.

Her name was regularly in the gossip columns as she partied with the so-called Princess Margaret Set - Old Etonian Billy Wallace, Dominic Elliot (son of the Earl of Minto), the Earl of Dalkeith, Mark Bonham Carter, the Marquess of Blandford and many now-forgotten Guardsmen. And she loved to sing at the piano in nightclubs, surrounded by laughing friends.
She still had her duties to fulfill, which she apparently did well. Margaret’s generation took the idea of ‘duty’ seriously, even though what she was often called on to do wasn’t exciting or glamorous. Opening hospitals, petrol stations, christening ships, visiting schools were all a part of the daily round of royal duties that Margaret was expected to fulfill. She had more fun in her role as patron of the Royal Ballet.

Margaret’s world changed abruptly when her father, George VI died in February of 1952 at the age of 56. He’d not been well, worn down by the war years and the burden of being King. Margaret, being the quintessential Daddy’s girl, was devastated. She told a biographer that “there was an awful sense of being in a black hole. I remember being tunnel-visioned and didn’t really notice things.”

While everyone was catering to her sister in her new role as Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret was pushed aside, with no thought by anyone of what she might be going through having lost her father. From living at Buckingham Palace, she was now relegated to Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s new home. She was now marginalized for the new royal family consisting of the Queen, Prince Philip and Charles and Anne. Her role was now to be on the sidelines.

But Margaret wouldn’t stay there. The first and most famous incident in Princess Margaret’s life was her love affair with Group Captain Peter Townsend. Townsend had been her father’s equerry for years; he was a war hero, sixteen years her senior and married, although he was soon to be divorced. In her grief over her father’s death, Margaret turned more and more to Townsend for consolation. He too had suffered a loss when the King died.

The relationship had apparently started long before the King’s death and would probably have stayed under the radar, if Princess Margaret hadn’t been caught out brushing a piece of fluff off Townsend’s lapel during the coronation.

Princess Margaret desperately wanted to marry Townsend, but there were several obstacles, the most pressing being that he was divorced. Despite the fact that he was the injured part, divorce in aristocratic and royal circles was still a big taboo in the fifties. As the Queen was the Defender of the Faith and the Head of the Church of England, having her sister marry a divorced man was unthinkable.

When Prince Michael of Kent married the former Marie Christine Reibnitz in 1978, he still had to renounce his right to the throne because she was not only divorced but Catholic. 40 years after Princess Margaret gave up the man she loved, Princess Anne became the first divorced royal to remarry and that wedding had to take place in Scotland as Mark Philips is still alive.

Margaret was told, erroneously it turns out, that not only would she have to renounce her place in the succession, but that she would be stripped of her royal title, her civil list allowance and forced to live abroad in exile for the rest of her life like her Uncle. In 2004, it was revealed that Margaret and the Queen were deliberately given misinformation by the government. While Margaret would undoubtedly have had to renounce her place in the succession, she could have kept her royal title and the money. The reason for the subterfuge was that even though the abdication was almost twenty years prior, the wounds were still open. As the Queen had just ascended the throne, it wouldn’t do for her younger sister to be seen marrying a divorcé, no matter how well-connected.

After a two year separation, Townsend had been posted abroad to Belgium as an air attaché and only sporadic meetings, Princess Margaret agreed to give up any thought of marrying him. Despite their love for each other, Margaret had no concept of what it would be like to be anything but a member of the Royal family. The idea of living in exile, on his salary, was too much to be borne. Margaret simply wasn’t the type to have to do her own washing up, and cooking. It was one thing to play at it, knowing that you could also call the servants if something went wrong, another to have that be your way of life.

Margaret plunged back into the world of café society, partying harder than ever. As the years went by, more of her social circle married, leaving her in danger of becoming an old maid. She was also smoking and drinking a great deal. Her reputation also began to suffer as she began to appear aloof and difficult in public while performing her royal duties.

The public at large rejoiced, when the Palace announced her engagement at the age of 29, to the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. The princess had found happiness after all. But the truth was that the announcement came shortly after Margaret learned that Peter Townsend had married a Belgian woman, Marie-Luce Jamagne. Princess Margaret was distraught, apparently the two of them had made a promise that neither of them would marry.

Whatever the reasons, Princess Margaret became a royal bride when she married Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminister Abbey on May 6, 1960. At first it appeared that the newly married couple had a great deal in common, both sharing a love of the arts and a strong streak of irreverence. But the problem however was that while Princess Margaret may have been cheeky, she never forgot that she was the daughter and granddaughter of a King, and the sister of the Queen of England.

That wasn’t the only problem. Her staff treated him like an interloper, not like the husband of the Princess. Even the courtiers surrounding the Royal Family considered him not one of their “kind” despite the fact that his father was a wealthy QC and his mother came from a well known artistic family, her brother was the noted theatrical set designer Oliver Messel, and she herself had remarried the Earl of Rosse. Because he wasn’t born with a title, he was regarded with suspicion, treated like Princess Margaret was marrying down. Another problem was what to do with him. Previous husbands of royal Princesses had been princes or Dukes in their own right. For a proud man like Armstrong-Jones it was must have come as a shock that he was expected to walk several paces behind his wife.

The marriage floundered as the Swinging Sixties took hold of Britain. They were moments of joy in the birth of their two children, Viscount Linley in 1961 and his sister Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones in 1964, but also periodic bouts of infidelity on both sides, massive fights, and rampant drunkenness. According to biographer Sarah Bradford, Snowdon once left a note for Princess Margaret that read, "You look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you". Armstrong-Jones began to spend more time abroad on working assignments, while Princess Margaret retreated to the Caribbean, most often to Mustique, where she had her own villa on land given to her by her good friend Lord Glenconner.

In 1973, Princess Margaret was introduced to Roddy Llewellyn, who at 26 was 17 years younger. They frequently spent time together on Mustique, where they became quite close. Her marriage to Snowdon came to an end when pictures of her and Roddy were splashed in the tabloids. A formal separation wasn’t announced until 1976, and the couple were divorced in 1978. Snowdon remarried immediately to Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, the television producer he was having an affair with. Her relationship with Roddy ended soon after when he informed that he was getting married.

In her later years, she was plagued by constant ill-health. In 1984, she’d an operation on her lungs, and in 1998, she suffered a mild stroke. Later that year, the Princess severely scalded her feet in a bathroom accident. The accident severely restricted her mobility, forcing her to use a wheelchair on occasion. Although she eventually quit smoking, the damage to her health was already done. In 2000, and 2001 she suffered another series of strokes.

Princess Margaret passed away on February 9, 2002 at the age of 71, after suffering a massive stroke. Ironically her funeral was held on the 50th anniversary of her father’s funeral. Unlike most royals, Princess Margaret requested that she be cremated; her ashes placed in the tomb of her parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who only survived a few months after the death of her daughter.

Her good friend Gore Vidal wrote of her, "She was far too intelligent for her station in life." He recalled a conversation he had with the Princess, in which she discussed her public notoriety, saying, "It was inevitable: when there are two sisters and one is the Queen, who must be the source of honor and all that is good, while the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister.”