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The romance and marriage of Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret captivated the country at the start of the 1960s.

Now, their story has fascinated a new generation through its portrayal in the acclaimed Netflix drama The Crown.

At a time when Prince Harry is looking forward to marrying American actor and campaigner Meghan Markle it can be hard to appreciate just what a shock to the royal system Lord Snowdon’s arrival in their ranks represented.

He was a photographer – and he didn’t have his own royal title (his peerage was granted in 1961). In fact, technically speaking, he was a commoner.

(Image: Netflix)

Antony Armstrong-Jones was hardly a child of the backstreets. His father was a QC and deputy lord lieutenant of Carnarvonshire, and since the 19th century the family had made use of the elegant country house of Plas Dinas, Bontnewydd, near Caernarfon.

Although it might be pushing it slightly to call him Welsh, his paternal grandmother was the daughter of Sir Owen Roberts, the Welsh educationalist, and in The Crown, Princess Margaret describes him to the Queen as "Welsh". When she responds: "Is that interesting?" Margaret replies "No, not particularly."

He attended Eton and rowed for Cambridge (although he failed to take a degree) and was at ease in the company of glamorous individuals. But it was still an act of extraordinary social mountaineering for someone who was of neither royalty nor top-tier nobility to win the hand of a child of the monarch.

The drama of someone breaking through the ancient strictures of Britain’s class system was enough to capture attention – but there was more than that.

The pair seemed to embody a wider liberty that would shortly rip through society. They revelled in the company of celebrities and bohemians.

For most people in postwar Britain, the Sixties were not swinging. But this couple looked as if they knew how to have fun.

(Image: Daily Herald) (Image: PA/PA Wire)

In The Crown, Armstrong-Jones is introduced as a motorbike-riding photographer who pays no attention to Princess Margaret's status in the way he speaks to her. They are portrayed meeting in a dinner party in London before he persuades her to come to his studio and flat to take her birthday photograph. That photograph - in which Princess Margaret appears to be naked (but isn't) - then makes the papers.

The precise details of how the pair met may never be nailed down but they are thought to have known each other in 1959 when he took her birthday photograph. It’s said the princess was taken aback by his lack of deference as he treated her like any other sitter.

She may have found the company of someone who refused to be bound by convention particularly refreshing. Convention was not just a restriction she bridled against, it was a source of anguish.

She had loved Group Capt. Peter Townsend, a World War II hero of the RAF. The problem was not that he was 16 years older but that he had been married before and had two sons.

The Government, the Royal family and the Church of England was not about to give the green-light to the Queen’s sister marrying such a person.

(Image: Mirrorpix)

There is speculation that his revelation in a “thunderbolt” letter that he planned to marry the Belgian Marie-Luce Jamagne was the jolt that prompted her to wed the charming and self-assured photographer.

Armstrong-Jones was more than a playboy with a hobby. He had real talent as a photographer and he went far beyond recreating the stiff poses you see in royal oil paintings.

Prince Charles and Princess Anne were captured reading on the floor. His work appeared in Vogue, and he was also trusted to photograph the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Such synergy of fashion, celebrity and royalty continues to this day.

Their wedding was a Westminster Abbey spectacular, broadcast to a television audience of 300 million followed by a honeymoon on the Royal Yacht Britannia.

This was proof, as if it was needed, that royalty can match and eclipse the glamour of any Hollywood romance. But the pair also proved that a fairy tale wedding does not always lead to a happy marriage.

At first, their union seemed filled with excitement and delight, with highlights being the arrival of their son, David, and daughter, Sarah.

In 1961 he entered the House of Lords as Lord Snowdon.

As the New York Times put it: “The Snowdon title has centuries-old royal associations, borne by Welsh princes and the House of Gwynedd before 1282. But it was given as a nod to his own Welsh antecedents.”

In 1963 he was made Constable of Caernarfon Castle, and he would play a prominent role in the 1969 investiture of the Prince of Wales.

But by this time there was regular speculation about the state of the royal couple’s marriage. Foreign newspapers detailed marital strife, there was gossip about his relations with other women, and in 1970 Buckingham Palace had to deny that separation was being discussed.

Their quarrelling became notorious and in 1976 the pair did split up. The Princess’ relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, the son of an Olympic show-jumper, was the subject of much attention and in 1978 they divorced.

Lord Snowdon did not vanish from public life. Far from it.

He remained one of Britain’s most famous photographers and his romances continued to make headlines.

(Image: PA)

He met Lucy Lindsay-Hogg while working on a television series and married her in 1978. This union also ended in divorce, reportedly after he fathered a son by another woman; a biography claimed he also fathered a daughter while courting the princess.

But if his tumultuous public life seemed to feature chapters of unhappiness, perhaps one of the toughest experiences came when he was just 16.

While staying at Plas Dinas he contracted poliomyelitis, a form of polio. He spent six months at Liverpool Royal Infirmary and it is said his only immediate family visitor was his sister Susan; his parents had already divorced.

Luminaries from the world of showbiz provided a break from the isolation. His uncle, theatre designer Oliver Messel, is reported to have arranged for celebrities including Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward to swing by.

For the rest of his life he had a limp – and he used the advantages of public life to champion the rights of disabled people.

He battled the president of the Royal Horticultural Society over disabled access at the Chelsea Flower Show; eventually, guide dogs were permitted. He designed the Chairmobile, an electric wheelchair.

(Image: Daily Post Wales)

Lord Snowdon passed away in January last year. His portraits captured an era of change, as did his own life.

The latest on-screen portrayal of his ferocious charm will fascinate a new audience that was not alive to witness first the royal romance and the bitter end of a royal marriage. He is not the type of character who can be forgotten in a hurry.