Prince William & Prince Harry Aren't The Only Royals To Have Complicated Sibling Drama
William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, used to be a duo that charmed crowds whenever they appeared together. But more than that, they made the whole royalty business feel effortless. Now, they have a feud timeline, proving that the House of Windsor is nothing if not consistent, especially when it comes to its ability to produce pairs of siblings who adore and resent each other in equal measure — and across different generations, no less. The two princes were hardly the first royals to discover the circumstances of their birth and upbringing make for a combustible mix.
Indeed, before Prince Harry's U.K. visit sparked furious finger-pointing over all the family drama, before the public realized Prince William's beef with Prince Harry had more to do with Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and certainly before Harry's memoir "Spare" set the whole thing alight in hardback, there were two small girls at Royal Lodge, and the elder one was told she would be queen someday. Princess Margaret, young and still unmarred by decades of royal duty, had two words for her sister, the future Queen Elizabeth II, according to the book "The Windsor Legacy" (per Marie Claire): "Poor you."
The sisters were intimate enough that they kept a private line between their households for gossip-filled calls, and Queen Elizabeth II wept at Margaret's funeral in 2002. Yet that bond was at times an exercise in casual cruelty. When Peter Townsend, a divorced man, made known his intention to marry Princess Margaret, the queen's private secretary reportedly told him, "You must be either mad or bad" (per The London Review of Books). Townsend was then conveniently posted to Brussels, and the relationship ended, with Margaret citing the Church of England's opposition to divorced people remarrying while their ex was alive.
The sisters had their rows, but the rest of the royal world hasn't fared any better
Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret's rivalry started young. According to royal expert Victoria Arbiter in the 2020 documentary "Princess Margaret: Rebel Without a Crown," their governess, Marion Crawford, said the girls fought in earnest, with Elizabeth in particular wielding "a good left hook" and Margaret countering by biting her (per Daily Express). As adults, the damage only got more expensive.
When Margaret was photographed on Mustique in 1976 with a man 17 years her junior when she was still married to Lord Snowdon, MPs in Parliament called her a "royal parasite" (per Harper's Bazaar). Elizabeth wanted the affair ended, but Margaret refused to do it. She reportedly told Gore Vidal it was the fault of their status: "When there are two sisters and one is the queen who must be the source of honor and all that is good, the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister" (per Biography).
The details may vary, but the template isn't new. Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 and handed his younger brother a throne he didn't want, then took offense at how his brother chose to do it. Mary I arrested her half-sister, the future Elizabeth I, and sent her to the Tower of London. Elizabeth and Margaret may have settled childhood grievances with fists, but by Prince Harry's own account, he and Prince William were no better, telling ITV that they would "fight all the time like a lot of siblings" (per Entertainment Tonight). Margaret's romance with a divorced equerry was smothered by courtiers and a sister who could not sanction it. Harry's marriage to an American divorcée became the thing his brother could not get past.