No, it’s not that royal wedding tiara from Princess Margaret’s collection. But this dazzling diamond tiara, which was later worn by another famous royal bride, traveled with Margaret to a royal family wedding in Scandinavia, just weeks before her own secret romance was revealed. Today, during Margaret’s birthday week, we’ve got a closer look at her appearance in the Cartier Halo Tiara in Norway in 1953.
In the spring of 1953, shortly before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, would travel to Oslo in May to represent her sister at the wedding of Princess Ragnhild, granddaughter of the King of Norway, and Erling Lorentzen, a member of a prominent Norwegian shipping family who had served as the princess’s bodyguard during the war. Margaret and Ragnhild were second cousins, both great-grandchildren of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The princesses were the same age, both 22, born just a few months apart in 1930.
Princess Margaret was accompanied on the trip by Lady Jean Rankin, one of the Queen Mother’s ladies-in-waiting who was also a close confidant of the princess, and Major-General Guy Salisbury-Jones, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps. It should have been her second foreign royal wedding trip, after the wedding of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Princess Josephine-Charlotte of Belgium, but her attendance at that wedding was canceled after the death of Queen Mary in March 1953.
Margaret flew to Oslo on May 14, the day before the wedding. She was greeted at the airport by King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav, as well as Princess Ragnhild and her fiancé. That evening, she shared an informal dinner with other guests, including King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark and Prince George and Princess Anne of Denmark, before she was taken on a tour of the Norwegian capital city by car. On Friday, May 15, after a lunch at the palace with the King and a reception at city hall, Margaret was driven in full evening gala dress to the small parish church in Asker, 20 miles outside of Oslo, for the royal wedding.
The dress code at this royal wedding was a somewhat unusual one, with half of the congregation inside the church wearing day dress and the other half in evening attire. That’s because only half of the guests were going on to attend the evening reception at Skaugum, the home of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha. Like Margaret, the ladies attending the reception wore gala gowns and tiaras.
Margaret arrived with the principal group of royal wedding guests, about five minutes before the wedding was scheduled to begin. She was accompanied by another cousin, Prince Bertil of Sweden, the second son of King Gustaf VI Adolf and his British-born first wife, Princess Margaret of Connaught. Bertil’s brother-in-law and sister, King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark, were part of the same group. Leading the royal party were King Haakon VI of Norway, paternal grandfather of the bride, with his sister, Princess Ingeborg of Sweden, who was the bride’s maternal grandmother. (Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha, the bride’s parents, were first cousins.) With them was Crown Princess Martha, the bride’s mother, escorted by her son, Prince Harald (now the present King of Norway).
All of the ladies were resplendent in gowns and jewels. Margaret, per the Telegraph, wore “a shining white gown and ermine cape.” The scrolling lace panels on her dress echoed the tiara that she chose to wear for the occasion. The Cartier Halo Tiara had originally been given by Margaret’s father, King George VI, to her mother, Queen Elizabeth, in 1936. Eight years later, they presented the tiara to Margaret’s elder sister, Elizabeth, as an eighteenth birthday present.
The younger Elizabeth was never photographed wearing the tiara, and by 1948, she began lending it to Margaret to wear for gala occasions. A few weeks after this wedding, Margaret wore the same tiara for her sister’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in London. She would continue wearing the tiara occasionally through the 1960s, when it was handed over to her niece, Princess Anne. Most recently, the tiara was worn as a bridal diadem by the present Princess of Wales.
Margaret also added additional diamond pieces to her ensemble, including a diamond bracelet on each wrist, worn over her evening gloves. She also wore one of the classic diamond rivière necklaces from her personal collection. Margaret owned two: the Lady Mount Stephen Necklace, which had previously belonged to Queen Mary, and a similar second necklace reportedly given to her by her father, King George VI, as a 21st birthday present in 1951.
Based on length alone, my guess is that this is the Lady Mount Stephen Necklace, but the two are notoriously difficult to tell apart. The Lady Mount Stephen Necklace was sold at Christie’s in 2006 by Margaret’s children, but the King George VI Necklace remains with her daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto, today.
On her dress, Margaret also pinned three personal decorations: the Royal Family Orders of her grandfather, King George V; her father, King George VI; and her sister, Queen Elizabeth II. The silk ribbons of the orders would have added a splash of color to Margaret’s white ensemble. George V’s ribbon was pale blue, George VI’s ribbon was pink, and Elizabeth II’s was light yellow. Elizabeth II handed out her first round of order badges and ribbons at Christmas in 1952, giving them to the Queen Mother, Queen Mary, Princess Margaret, the Princess Royal, the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, and Princess Alexandra. This royal wedding in Norway was, I believe, one of the first times that Margaret was photographed wearing her new order ribbon.
Princess Margaret was a hit with the Norwegians, who splashed several pictures of the glamorous princess on newspapers during her visit. After the wedding, the princess stayed on for another additional evening in Oslo. On Saturday, she visited the Kon-Tiki Museum and had a lengthy conversation with Thor Heyerdahl, the famous adventurer and explorer who led the expedition. And on Sunday, she stayed to enjoy the festivities at the Royal Palace in Oslo to mark Constitution Day. Children parading past the palace shouted “Margaret!” until King Haakon escorted her to the front of the balcony to wave back at them. Later that day, she blew a kiss to the King as she boarded the airplane to take her home, waving to Crown Prince Olav, Prince Harald, and Princess Astrid on the tarmac below.
The young, eligible princess’s appearance at a royal wedding naturally sparked continued debate over her own marital prospects. Newspapers latched on to the photographs of Margaret with Prince Bertil and wondered whether they might be able to overcome their nearly 20-year age difference and start a royal romance of their own. What no newspaper reporter knew (or at least shared) in May 1953 was that Bertil already had a British partner of his own: the Welsh-born Lilian Craig, with whom he had been in a committed but secret relationship since the war. (They were finally able to marry in 1976.)
In just a few weeks’ time, the press would learn that Margaret had an older man already in her life, too. She had been involved with Group Captain Peter Townsend, her father’s equerry, for some time. By the time she attended Princess Ragnhild’s wedding, Townsend had already proposed, and the Queen had pleaded with Margaret to wait until after the coronation tour of the Commonwealth to consider the matter. But when Margaret picked a piece of lint off of Townsend’s jacket on the palace balcony after the coronation on June 2, reporters took notice. The Sunday People broke the story in Britain on June 14, and Margaret’s romance disintegrated into chaotic public speculation. The two, ultimately, did not marry. Margaret wouldn’t wear her own royal wedding tiara until seven years later.
Before I wrap up today’s discussion of this particular wedding, it seems only right that I should briefly touch on what the bride and her mother wore for the service. Newspapers described Ragnhild’s dress as a “white gown brocaded in gold” with “a long, pearl-embroidered train.” Her mother, Crown Princess Martha, wore a “long pale moire dress” with the emeralds that she had inherited from her mother, Princess Ingeborg. Martha wore the same jewels a few weeks later in London for the coronation.
Princess Ragnhild and her husband would settle in South America with their children and grandchildren. To celebrate her wedding, she received numerous gifts from royal relatives across Europe. Princess Margaret had several presents from family members with her when she landed in Oslo. Queen Elizabeth II sent silver candlesticks, and the Queen Mother offered a gold brooch set with sapphires and diamonds. Princess Margaret had chosen an inkstand for the couple.
But the most poignant gift of all came from Queen Mary herself, who had passed away just six weeks earlier. Mary and the bride’s grandfather, King Haakon, were in-laws; her husband, King George V, and his wife, Queen Maud, were siblings. Before Mary’s death, she had acquired a “finely chased English silver bowl” which was sent along with a card of congratulations written in her own handwriting just days before she passed away. A Norwegian courtier told the press that “Queen Mary and King Haakon were great friends. This present to King Haakon’s granddaughter will always be deeply treasured.”
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