Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton were able to join Royal Family for 'THIS surprise reason'
MEGHAN MARKLE and Kate Middleton were able to join the Royal Family because Princess Margaret's marriage to Lord Snowdon was a symbolic "symptom of the great changes in the monarchy", a historian claims.
Meghan Markle 'very similar' to Princess Margaret says expert
Long before Prince William and Prince Harry both chose to marry non-royals, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, respectively, it was Princess Margaret who made history by becoming the first daughter of a king to marry a commoner in 400 years. Following their marriage in May 1960, Princess Margaret and Mr Armstrong-Jones were known as Britain's most glamorous couple, but their love story wasn't always a joyful one. In an uncovered article from 1960, the late author and historian L.G. Pine commented how the marriage of Princess Margaret and Mr Armstrong-Jones, later known as Lord Snowdon, was “a symptom of the great changes in our Royal Family”.
They married in front of 2,000 guests and a TV audience of 300 million worldwide. It was the first royal wedding in history to be broadcast on TV.
Writing for London Illustrated News, Mr Pine said: “It was considered a sign indicating further democratisation of the royal ideal."
Margaret’s marriage at the time was considered quite the scandal in royal circles with most of the royal families of Europe boycotting the event.
In light of that, the Queen’s sister paved the way for her niece Princess Anne and nephews Prince Andrew and Prince Edward in marrying partners of non-royal blood.
Mr Pine remembers the “very great changes wrought by the 1914-18 War in the pattern of the royal marriages in Britain”.
The article states “only one of Queen Victoria’s children [Princess Louise married the nine Duke of Argyll] married outside the ranks of royalty”.
Mr Pine commented that “we have only to recall that, of the five children of George V who married, only one married a scion of royalty".
As her biographer Christopher Warwick notes in his 1984 book “Princess Margaret: A Life Of Contrasts”, her “unwitting legacy was that she made royal divorce acceptable".
Mr Warwick adds, “something that no doubt helped her niece and nephews, three of whom got divorced themselves, but which she was largely vilified for in the press at the time in 1978”.