Princess Margaret was nothing like her older sister, Queen Elizabeth II. While the monarch is reserved and sticks to royal protocol, Margaret was viewed as the glamorous sibling who was less careful in public but became one of the most popular royals among fans.
The Countess of Snowdon earned quite a reputation with her staffers as well but it wasn’t favorable. In fact, those who worked in the royal household gave her the nickname “Her Rude Highness” for her over-the-top demands and how poorly she treated one of the most respected members of the royal family.
Former staffers didn’t enjoy working for Princess Margaret
In the documentary Royal Servants Peter Russell, who was a royal aide between 1954 and 1968, described Princess Margaret as “difficult.”
Author Anne de Courcy wrote in Vanity Fair that Margaret treated “those who looked after her inconsiderately and with maddening demands that often caused endless extra work.”
De Courcy relayed a story about how Lord Adam Gordon, the controller of the household, made a remark echoing what others felt writing, “As Margaret passed him where he stood on the top step as the glass coach waited to take her to Westminster Abbey, Gordon bowed and said, ‘Good-bye, Your Royal Highness’” then as she pulled away uttered “‘and we hope forever.’”
She treated this respected royal poorly
Members of her staff at Clarence House were also appalled at the way the princess would talk to her own mother.
According to de Courcy, “With them she was not always popular, in part because of her frequent rudeness to her mother.” Saying things to her mom like, “‘Why do you dress in those ridiculous clothes?’”
Lady Anne Glenconner, who served as Margaret’s lady-in-waiting, also detailed what the princess’s relationship was like with the Queen Mother.
“Those weekends at Royal Lodge were always fun, despite the bouts of bickering between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, who at times had a slightly strained relationship,” Glenconner wrote in her book Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown per The Express.
Glenconner added, “One would do things like open all the windows, only for the other to go around shutting them. Or one would suggest an idea and the other would dismiss it immediately.”
Margaret made no secret that she disliked Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson
The countess also let it be known that she loathed Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson.
Margaret took Diana, her Kensington Palace neighbor, under her wing when she first joined the Firm. But when Diana did her Panorama interview and aired out all that dirty laundry, Margaret wanted nothing to do with her. She even banned any pictures of Diana on magazines and such from being in or brought into her house.
The same went for Sarah, Duchess of York after she made headlines for her toe-sucking scandal while still married to Prince Andrew. When Fergie tried to get back into Margaret’s good graces by sending her flowers, the countess sent them back with a note that said, “How dare you send me flowers, have you ever considered what damage you have done to the royal family?”
Princess Margaret never made amends with either woman. She died in 2002, five years after Princess Diana’s fatal car crash. The Queen Mother passed away seven weeks after Margaret.
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