Antony Armstrong-Jones: Marriage, Divorce, and Secret Children

Few royal marriages started with more spark than the one between Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, a working photographer who married the Queen’s sister and became Earl of Snowdon. Their wedding, on 6 May 1960, was the first royal one broadcast on television, yet within 18 years the marriage had ended in divorce — and the story only got messier from there.

Full Name: Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon · Born: 7 March 1930 · Married: 6 May 1960 · Divorced: 1978 · Children: 2 (David and Sarah) · Died: 13 January 2017

Seven facts frame the biography — and the pattern is how quickly the fairytale turned legal: married in 1960, separated in 1976, divorced by 1978.

The key dates tell the story: a birth in 1930, a televised wedding in 1960, and a divorce that became a public milestone.

Did Antony Armstrong-Jones go to Margaret’s funeral?

When Princess Margaret died on 9 February 2002, Armstrong-Jones did not attend her funeral. According to Wikipedia’s account, he stayed away as his health was failing and the relationship had long since cooled — a quiet ending to a marriage that had once been a national event.

His absence was read at the time as the final public marker of how far the couple had drifted. It also became a standard part of his obituary coverage 15 years later.

When did Lord Snowdon die?

• Died on 13 January 2017, aged 86, with obituaries framing him as a “celebrity photographer” whose royal ties always overshadowed the work (The Independent, UK news outlet).

By 2017, the funeral question had become part of the record: the man who missed Margaret’s funeral was remembered as much for the marriage as for the portraits.

The pattern: the royal marriage overshadowed the photography for most of his life, and even his death was reported through that lens.

What happened between Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones?

The public story began with a genuinely modern royal moment: a royal wedding broadcast on live television. The private story was messier. The marriage produced two children — David and Sarah — and by the mid-1970s it was over in all but law.

The Mirror’s retrospective on the couple traced the turning points: the separation was announced in March 1976, and the divorce followed in 1978 (Mirror, British tabloid). That made the Snowdon divorce one of the most closely followed royal breakups of the century.

Was the Queen keeping a secret from Margaret?

• No published account confirms that Queen Elizabeth knew about Tony’s affairs before Margaret did.
• Biographers point to the palace’s culture of discretion, not to any documented conversation.

The question rests on a premise the record doesn’t support — that the Queen was keeping a secret. What the record shows is simpler: the wedding went ahead with royal approval in 1960, and the marriage collapsed on its own.

What led to their divorce?

• Reported infidelity on both sides, starting early in the marriage (Biography.com, royal biography reference).
• A widening gap between Tony’s life as a working photographer and Margaret’s life at court.

Biographical accounts describe a husband pulled between his studio and the palace, and a wife who resented the constraint. By the mid-1970s they were leading separate lives, and the formal split became public in March 1976.

What this means: the marriage was never just a private arrangement. It was the first royal relationship managed entirely in the glare of modern television, and the pressure showed.

Who was the love of Princess Margaret’s life?

The love that defined Margaret emotionally predated Snowdon: Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced military officer she met in the royal household. She was forbidden to marry him, and the relationship became one of the defining royal controversies of the 1950s — the church and the establishment would not allow it (Encyclopaedia Britannica, reference publisher).

What happened to Peter Townsend after Margaret?

• According to Wikipedia’s account, Townsend later married a Belgian woman.

The second marriage was quiet, and Townsend lived out his life away from the British spotlight.

Was Margaret at Peter Townsend’s funeral?

• No confirmed account documents that Margaret attended Townsend’s funeral.

The documented record centers on the 1950s romance and its collapse; the funeral question survives mainly because biographers keep returning to what might have been.

The paradox: the love the establishment blocked was the relationship Margaret carried into a marriage that had every official approval — and still failed.

Did Antony Armstrong-Jones have any illegitimate children?

This is the most persistent charge against Snowdon’s memory. Reports alleged that he fathered a daughter before his marriage to Margaret — a child later identified as Polly Fry, born on 28 May 1960 (The Telegraph, British broadsheet; El Periódico, Spanish news outlet).

Biographer Anne de Courcy’s account said DNA tests later confirmed the relationship (El Periódico, Spanish news outlet). The story became a staple of royal reporting after the Telegraph documented it under the headline “his women and his love child.”

Another alleged child — a son named Jasper — reportedly arrived during Snowdon’s second marriage (Biography.com, royal biography reference).

How many children did he have?

• Three documented: David, Sarah, and Lady Frances Armstrong-Jones, his daughter with his second wife (The Telegraph, British broadsheet).
• Two alleged: Polly Fry and Jasper (The Telegraph, British broadsheet; Biography.com, royal biography reference).

So the documented count is three; if the paternity reports are accurate, it rises to five.

Why this matters: the paternity claims didn’t change his photographs or his titles, but they changed how the marriage was remembered. A man who captured the royal family on film was, by the end, a figure the royal family couldn’t keep contained.

Was Tony faithful to Margaret?

The honest answer, based on the biographical record, is no. Sources describe a pattern of extramarital affairs by Armstrong-Jones during the marriage (Biography.com, royal biography reference), and Margaret was also linked to other men. The record is simply more specific about his behavior after the fact.

The most concrete case sits in the paternity chronology: Polly Fry was born on 28 May 1960, three weeks after the 6 May wedding. If the DNA finding reported by biographer Anne de Courcy is correct, the relationship that produced her began before the marriage, not after it.

Who did Tony have affairs with?

• The record is thin on named partners; the clearest documented case is the Polly Fry paternity claim.
• Jasper’s mother has also never been publicly identified.

Unlike the named scandals around other royal figures, Snowdon’s affairs were mostly described in general terms by biographers. The exceptions are the children tied to his name.

The trade-off: the same restlessness that made him a sharp portrait photographer made him an unreliable husband — and Margaret paid the price along with the marriage.

Key dates in the Snowdon–Margaret story

Seven dates tell the whole arc — from a London birth to a televised wedding, a divorce, and a funeral he missed.

The pattern: the public dates are clean, but the private ones were always out of sync — the fairytale ran on television time while the marriage ran on its own, slower clock.

What’s confirmed and what’s still unclear

The split tells its own story: the official dates are solid, but the emotional record is full of gaps. That’s what makes the Snowdon–Margaret story hard to summarize — the facts are public, and the truth is not.

Voices from the record

Biographer Anne de Courcy’s account states that DNA testing later confirmed Polly Fry as Snowdon’s daughter.

— Anne de Courcy, royal biographer, as reported by El Periódico, Spanish news outlet

Princess Margaret’s biographers described the marriage as a fairytale gone wrong — a televised royal wedding in 1960 that ended in separation by 1976 and divorce in 1978.

— Biographers of Princess Margaret, via the historical record

The Mirror’s retrospective framed Snowdon as the rebel who married into the royal family and remained emotionally tied to Margaret long after the marriage ended.

— Mirror, British tabloid

What this means: the sources agree on dates, but not on interpretation — and the interpretation is where the story lives.

The takeaway

Antony Armstrong-Jones was a serious photographer who married into the most scrutinized family in Britain and then spent decades being defined by that choice. The confirmed record shows a man of real talent and genuine failures; the unclear record leaves a trail of paternity claims, palace secrets, and questions the family never answered. For royal watchers, the implication is clear: enjoy the photographs, treat the 1960 fairytale as a production, and remember that the marriage itself was the one thing the cameras couldn’t fix — or else you’ll miss the part where it fell apart.

Frequently asked questions

The questions that persist are the ones the official record never answered — and that’s precisely why they keep getting asked.