Time for Decision

Shopgirls in Chelsea and clerks in Cheapside waited breathlessly last week for tidings that meant a happy or sad ending to the royal romance of the pretty Princess and the dashing airman. But beneath the soapsuds of sentiment, a serious crisis was forming. The plans of Princess Margaret, third in line for the throne of the British realm, and Group Captain Peter Townsend, R.A.F., a once-married commoner, have grown into the topmost concern of church and state. Britons sensed that a decision was in the making, but few knew all that was going on to shape it. The question concerned not only Princess Margaret's happiness but the British balance of church, state and throne.

Deliberate Affront. Powerful forces joined to change the mind of the earnest, conscientious young woman of 25, forced to choose between love and duty. In Anthony Eden's Cabinet, in the Established Church, even in the palace itself, persons opposed to the marriage were bending every effort to make the Princess aware of the seriousness of the step she proposed to take. Each day that passed threw more pressure against Margaret's apparent determination to renounce her royal rights and marry Peter Townsend.

Early in the week Queen Elizabeth officially sought the advice of her Cabinet ministers on her sister's wish to marry. Most of the ministers were against advising her one way or the other, but at least one came out stoutly against the marriage. He was Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, 62, whose family have scolded and guided the sovereigns of England since Elizabeth I.

Salisbury has been for years Anthony Eden's close friend and mentor. As Eden's chief representative in the House of Lords, he wields strong influence, and he is pressing it to the full. If the Cabinet came out for amending the Royal Marriage Act to ease the way for Margaret to marry a commoner and a divorced man, Salisbury warned, he would quit the Cabinet. His reasoning was simple and without malice: the Queen heads the Church of England, and Margaret, as a member of her family and a potential successor to her throne, must abide by the church's rules. Eden, who is himself divorced and remarried (to Winston Churchill's niece, in a civil ceremony), had hoped to remain neutral, not fight a palace decision to approve the marriage. But Salisbury's firm opposition confronted Eden with the possibility of serious dissension in his Cabinet and perhaps even some disruptive resignations.

Even the Church of England, whose canons against marriage after divorce form the sternest deterrent, was split on the matter. A newspaper poll of 100 Anglican clergymen revealed that 85 would refuse to officiate at the proposed marriage, 13 would be willing to marry the pair, two were undecided. One outspoken churchman, Canon Charles Kirkland of Canterbury, told an audience of mothers last week that the Princess "contemplates doing something which is deliberately an affront both to religion and the church." Some other Anglican churchmen were quick to condemn these words as "cruel and unjust."

Nonetheless, Kirkland's words were known to reflect the views of 68-year-old Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, and, next to Queen Elizabeth herself, the highest official in the Anglican hierarchy. Like the Queen, the Archbishop avoided speaking his mind in public. But he is a close, old friend of the young Princess, and he was her greatest comforter at the time of her father's death.

Within the royal family itself, Margaret's brother-in-law, Prince Philip--himself a newcomer to the ruling family--threw his influence against the marriage and urged his wife, the Queen, to oppose it.

"Devotion to Duty." As the pressures bore in upon her last week, Margaret kept her own counsel and performed with cool dignity the duties of her rank. But her face told a story of strain, suspense and indecision. Crowds of photographers, dogging her steps, glimpsed sometimes a young face, suffused with girlish happiness, sometimes a woman's face taut with worry. For nine out of ten successive days, the Princess managed to spend some well-chaperoned hours with Peter Townsend, usually at small, informal parties in the homes of friends. One such evening spun out until 1 a.m.

Next morning Airman Townsend galloped off alone into the morning mists for his daily ride, while his Princess went down to Limehouse to dedicate a new church community center. At one time, Margaret had to face and make polite conversation with 50 bishops of the church, her reluctant antagonists, at a formal dinner in Lambeth Palace, Canterbury's official residence. Another day she journeyed to Wiltshire to present a new set of colors to the 1st Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. "History," she told the kilted soldiers, "is not made by a few outstanding actions. It is made remorselessly . . . by devotion to duty, by steadiness in times of anxiety, by discipline in waiting."

Her own time of anxiety and disciplined waiting was fast drawing to a close. Princess Margaret went off to Windsor to spend a weekend with her sister the Queen. There the decision might well be made. Though many were involved in its making, it was, in the end, Princess Margaret's decision to make. With the House of Commons returning and the public clamoring for news one way or the other, it could hardly be delayed much longer. "There really seems no reason," snapped the arch-Conservative Daily Telegraph in a moment of impatience last week, "why the facts should not be stated."

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