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In April 1953, a decorated former RAF officer named Peter Townsend caused a stir by proposing to Princess Margaret, who was 15 years his junior.
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- Smithsonian Channel
- Who Were The Duke and Duchess of Argyll?
- Why The Marriage Ended in Divorce
- What Happened During The Divorce Proceedings?
- How The Argyll Divorce Case Gives An Insight Into 20th Century Misogyny
- What Happened to The Duchess of Argyll?
Before she became known as the Duchess of Argyll, Margaret Whigham, born 1912, was an heiress of a Scottish businessman and millionaire. Famed for her beauty, Margaret moved through the most desirable social circles as a debutante and was engaged four times by the age of 19. She reportedlyunderwent an illegal abortion aged 15. In 1933, aged 20, she...
The Duke and Margaret married in 1951—Margaret became an aristocrat and the Duke gained much-needed financial relief from his many gambling debts through her inheritance and money from her previous marriage. Their marriage was rocky from the start; both had numerous lovers throughout their relationship and distrusted one another. The Duke reportedl...
The Duke applied for divorce on the grounds of adultery, and claimed that Margaret had slept with 88 men. During the hearing, he presented the compromising Polaroids, depicting Margaret, wearing nothing but her signature pearls, performing a sex act on a man whose head was cropped from the photo. The identity of the lover was never revealed—though ...
Details of the Duke’s infidelities weren’t mentioned during the proceedings. Campbell was also not questioned over the theft and display of Margaret’s private photos—which would now be considered revenge porn. Although societal attitudes were changing as Britain headed in the 1960s, and the contraceptive pill became more readily available, women we...
Although defiant in the face of the cruel gossip and societal judgment, Margaret never quite recovered from the divorce proceedings. She was ordered by a judge to pay the bulkof her ex-husband’s legal fees of £50,000—over $1.4 million today. Over the decades that followed, her fortune dwindled. In a bid to capitalize on her public notoriety, she op...
- Eloise Barry
Dec 23, 2021 · The sheer scandal of photographic evidence of Margaret’s blatant infidelity – she was identifiable by her signature three-strand pearl necklace – was shocking to a world which, in 1963, was on the cusp of a sexual revolution. The headless man, or men, in the photographs were never identified.
Peter Wight (born 1950), sometimes credited as Peter Wright, is an English actor.Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wight_(actor)Created with Wikipe...
Dec 27, 2021 · While she was away, he broke into a cupboard in their shared home in Mayfair and found a set of sexually explicit Polaroid photos of the Duchess, which were later shown in court.
Peter Wright remains in The Yorkshire Vet, despite leaving his days at Skeldale Veterinary Centre behind. The Channel 5 series continues to depict him tendin...
Jul 25, 2024 · The pictures were part of a legal case the duke drew up against the duchess as part of divorce proceedings, alongside a list of 88 men he accused her of having sex with behind his back.
