Princess Margaret’s reputation for being the original royal rebel is legendary. By all accounts, the late younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II lived a luxurious life with a morning routine that could have given Marie Antoinette a run for her money.
A recently unearthed excerpt from Craig Brown’s Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret provides a dazzling depiction of her daily schedule.
Margaret’s day begins at a reasonable 9 am with breakfast in bed. However, it will be hours before she rises – it’s not like she’s rushing out the door to get to work. Instead, the Princess listens to the radio, reads in bed all the while chain-smoking. Margaret had a well-documented slate of vices and never apologised for her behaviour.
Sometime around 11 am Margret takes a bath for an hour before she begins her tedious primping regimen. Which involves “hair and make-up at her dressing table,” and “a vodka pick-me-up” at 12:30.
Princess Margaret also “never wore any of her clothes more than once without having them cleaned,” lest she be labelled an outfit repeater.
By 1 pm she’s ready for another drink, joining the Queen Mother for a four-course lunch that included “half a bottle of wine per person.”
If this glimpse into Princess Margret’s daily life is just an average morning, one could only imagine what her afternoon schedule must have entailed.
Her short life is marred with heartbreak, the Countess of Snowden made headlines around the world for her ‘party-girl’ lifestyle and her relationship with her father’s equerry Group Captain Peter Townsend.
She died at the age of 71, in 2002, after developing lung complications and a bout of pneumonia.
This article originally appeared on InStyle.
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