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She was the “sparkly” younger sister of the Queen, touring Canada in the summer of 1958, not long after royal protocol prevented her from marrying her divorced lover. He was a “bachelor lawyer” from Montreal, stepson of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, formerly an Olympic-caliber sprinter and Rhodes Scholar, as yet unattached.

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So when Princess Margaret, then 27, met John Turner, two years older, at a ball at the naval base on Vancouver’s Deadman’s Island, rumours of romance were almost inevitable.

Mr. Turner’s sister Brenda would later say it was “instant attraction … fairy tale stuff.”

Now, newly released letters from the late Princess Margaret to a friend suggest there might have been more to the rumours than had been previously known, even perhaps a planned marriage between the princess and the future Prime Minister.

Princess Margaret’s tour of Canada, five years after her sister became Queen Elizabeth, is the stuff of Canadian political legend. It even inspired a folksy campaign trail quip by Brian Mulroney, who defeated Mr. Turner in the 1984 election: “When I was driving a truck, John Turner was dancing with Princess Margaret.”

When I was driving a truck, John Turner was dancing with Princess Margaret

“After three dances with Mr. Turner, who flew to Vancouver for the occasion, the princess retired to a small table on the lawn outside the ballroom and talked with him for an hour and seven minutes,” according to an admirably precise news story at the time. “During that time, she refused invitations to supper at least four times.”