Jasper William Oliver Cable Alexander (2024)

FAQs

Did Antony Armstrong-Jones go to Margaret's funeral? ›

February 15, 2002: Antony Armstrong-Jones attends Princess Margaret's funeral.

Jasper, born in 1998, was the result of an affair with Melanie Cable-Alexander, an editor at Country Life magazine. The revelation about the birth of the love child led to the end of Lord Snowdon's second marriage.

What Margaret didn't know was that Armstrong-Jones was having affairs behind her back—and one of those women gave birth to a child. Meet Polly Fry, the photographer's love child. The child's mother, Camilla Fry, was the wife of Armstrong-Jones's best friend, Jeremy.

Armstrong-Jones's parents divorced in early 1935, before his fifth birthday. His mother remarried later that year. As a 16-year-old he contracted polio while on holiday in Wales; during the six months that he was in the Liverpool Royal Infirmary recuperating, the only visitor from his family was his sister Susan.

And when Princess Margaret passed away in 2002, Queen Elizabeth openly cried at her funeral—one of the only times the monarch has shown emotion in a public setting.

Like their father, both children pursued careers in the arts, with David working as a furniture maker and Sarah as an artist. Princess Margaret's kids also joined their extended royal family to mourn the loss of their aunt, Queen Elizabeth, in September 2022.

Princess Margaret fell in love with the dashing war hero Group Captain Peter Townsend when she was 22, but she was prevented from marrying him due to his status as a divorcé.

Her health deteriorated in the last twenty years of her life. She was a heavy smoker for most of her adult life, and had a lung operation in 1985 and a bout of pneumonia in 1993, as well as three strokes between 1998 and 2001. Margaret died in 2002 aged 71, after suffering her fourth stroke.

Snowdon had a bunch of lovers.

Two that we know about were Jacqueline Chan, with whom he started a relationship with before Margaret and with whom he was apparently in love, and model Gina Ward. In 1971, the press got confirmation of his relationship with Lady Jacqueline Isaacs.

His Marriage to Margaret

Princess Margaret first met Antony Armstrong-Jones at a dinner party in 1958, but it was far from love at first site. It took several months for romance to blossom, after Tony was commissioned to photograph Margaret, but even then things were kept very hush-hush.

How many times did Princess Margaret marry? ›

Princess Margaret never remarried following her divorce from Armstrong-Jones. Her later years were plagued by bad health, most of which was a consequence of her partying lifestyle earlier in life.

The sister of Queen Elizabeth II, 91, was engaged to marry no less than three different men during her lifetime. While her doomed engagement to Peter Townsend and her engagement and subsequent marriage to Lord Snowdon are well known, her brief engagement to Billy Wallace is less so.

In January 1985, she had to have part of her left lung removed. Though she gave up smoking years later, she continued to face health problems, including a series of strokes before her death in 2002. As The Crown season 6 recounts Margaret's health issues, here's everything to know about her death.

A series of strokes left her partly paralyzed and she struggled to walk without support or a wheelchair. As a result, she was largely unable to carry out public engagements.

In 2000 and 2001 further strokes were diagnosed. The Princess's poor health restricted the number of public engagements which Her Royal Highness was able to take on in her final years. The Princess nevertheless continued where possible to support the work of many of her organisations.