Queen Ingrid of Denmark was the only European royal who accepted the invitation to attend Princess Margaret's wedding to Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 |
Avoiding controversy has always been one of the
Queen's priorities. At a time when even the innocent parties of a divorce were banned from the royal presence at Palace garden parties or the royal enclosure at Ascot, newspapers took delight in speculating how the Queen would react to sitting opposite the bridegroom's twice-divorced father and divorced
mother when her sister Margaret married society
photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960. There was more media delight when the best man, Jeremy Fry, had to be hastily replaced before the wedding when it was discovered that he had a conviction for a homosexual offence eight years earlier.
For the Queen the most upsetting
aspect of her sister's wedding was
that the invited European royal
families all declined to attend with
the exception of Margaret's
godmother, Queen Ingrid of
Denmark. Royal princesses were
expected to marry princes, dukes or
earls. The idea of Margaret marrying
a mere Mr – albeit a double-barrelled one – was widely ridiculed by her continental cousins.
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