Margaret: A life of parties and duty

Margaret was like the Caribbean island she enjoyed, one writer mused, "remote and known only to a few"

By CNN's Margaret Lowrie

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Princess Margaret led a life largely on the sidelines of the royal family but she also attracted national sympathy when she surrendered love for duty.

Princess Margaret Rose, born in 1930, was the youngest daughter of the man who would be King, George the VI and sister of a girl who would one day be queen.

She died on Saturday at 6.30 a.m GMT at King Edward VII Hospital, London, after suffering a stroke on Friday.

Although always one to avoid centre stage she was also never far from the spotlight that shines on the British monarchy.

British journalist Jane Moore said: "She very much kept herself to herself, she had a very close circle of friends that she trusted.

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"She had her regular villa that she visited on Mustique, she tended to go the same places that she knew.

"I think she would have said herself that she managed to live a fairly guarded life."

Guarded perhaps … but she was still a regal sometimes imperious player on the royal stage.

Moore said: "She loved going out to parties, she was recognisably the more attractive royal as well. She was very beautiful when she was younger. She had a great sense of humour and a great sense of fun."

In the 60s and 70s, Margaret moved in arty, upper crust circles at home, was a jet setter on the international scene but also a heavy smoker and drinker -- a party princess.

To many, if sister Elizabeth the queen seemed self-sacrificing Margaret often appeared simply self-indulging.

Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said: "She very much set a trend for royals behaving badly.

"And then of course in later life she came to despise both Fergie and Diana for the way they carried on, but in fact she was the one that started the trend.

"There was nothing she didn't do. As a result she experienced some great unhappiness."

Perhaps Margaret's greatest "unhappiness" came from her love affair with then-Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Their doomed romance gripped the nation. They couldn't marry, government ministers ruled because Townsend was divorced.

Two decades earlier, history had provided a costly object lesson when Margaret's uncle, King Edward the VIII, married divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.

He lost not just crown, but country. The abdication of their uncle thrust their father onto the throne and set Elizabeth on the path to monarchy.

Margaret chose differently deciding to put duty ahead of love.

By giving up her relationship with Peter Townsend, Margaret, seen here with her mother, put duty ahead of love

Seward said: "She felt bitter that she wasn't allowed to marry the man that she loved, but she wasn't prepared to give up being Princess Margaret.

"There was an alternative - she could renounce her right, and she could renounce her money. But she was also very religious and I think that was the real guiding light that decided her."

A decision that won the nation's sympathy.

Moore said: "People love a good love story, and that's what that was.

"I think people felt that she'd been hard done by in that in her duty to the royal family she couldn't marry the man she loved."

The man she did marry in 1960 was society photograher Antony Armstrong Jones, which ended in divorce.

But their union produced David and Sarah, now grown and married themselves and leading relatively low-profile lives.

They are two of the royal children who have managed to balance knowing what their duty is as a member of the royal family, but also managed to bring it into modern times and earn their own living, which is something that has earned them great respect.

Princess Margaret's life too became lower and lower profile in her later years.

Margaret sufferered a series of strokes and was eventually confined to a wheelchair during her last appearance

Various health scares -- including an accident in which she severely scalded her feet, made headlines but she largely managed to keep largely out of public view.

At her last appearence in public Margaret was confined to a wheelchair and wore heavy dark glasses, her sight having been affected by a stroke.

As one writer recalled, she was like Mustique, the Caribbean island she so enjoyed -- "small, remote and known only to a few."

Seward said: "People looked at Princess Margaret as a tragedy. They always felt so sorry for her that she was never allowed to marry the man that she loved.

"So it was a sort of romantic feeling that life had dealt her a bad blow, but in fact I don't think that's totally correct.

"Princess Margaret had a very nice life, she had a lot of friends, she travelled a lot, she didn't have too arduous royal duties."

Some saw her as demanding with little sense of humour -- a royal who wanted to be treated like one.

She had little use for spin doctors, or opinion polls.

No great believer in photo opportunities she did her bit for "the family" when necessary and kept to herself when not.

Less a hostage to fortune, perhaps, than an accomplice to her own destiny.