The Crown: Princess Margaret rejects Billy Wallace's proposal
Princess Margaret, who died at the age of 71 in 2002, was known to have a number of high profile romantic relationships.
The sister of Queen Elizabeth II, 91, was engaged to marry no less than three different men during her lifetime.
While her doomed engagement to Peter Townsend and her engagement and subsequent marriage to Lord Snowdon are well known, her brief engagement to Billy Wallace is less so.
Margaret was engaged to Billy Wallace, an old family friend, at the age of 26 for a period in 1956 –just a month after she announced the end of her engagement to Peter. The pair's romance is depicted in hit Netflix series, The Crown.
Billy Wallace, whose full name was William Euan Wallace, was the son of the Minister for Transport, Captain Euan Wallace.
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Princess Margaret was once engaged to marry Billy Wallace, an old family friend
He was said to have been left a “large legacy” upon his father’s death in 1941, according to CNN.
Billy was part of the so-called “Margaret Set”, a group of high society individuals who enjoyed entertainment with the Princess.
This period of Margaret’s life is chronicled in Anne de Courcy’s 2008 book called Snowdon: The Biography.
Anne wrote: “As the beautiful, tragic heroine of a star-crossed love, she aroused both chivalry and sympathy, and the country speculated eagerly about the men in her circle.
"Would it be the Duke of Marlborough’s heir, Sunny Blandford, the Honorable Dominic Elliot, son of the Fifth Earl of Minto, or perhaps the rich and generous Billy Wallace who eventually won her?”
Princess Margaret: She almost married family friend Billy Wallace
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Princess Margaret: She got engaged to Billy shortly after breaking off her Peter Townsend engagement
“The Princess was giving no clues. Night after night, usually in a party of six or eight, she would visit theatres, restaurants, and nightclubs, smoking cigarettes through a long holder between courses and sipping whiskey.”
Margaret became engaged to Billy while she was pining after Peter, because she had decided it was better to marry “someone at least liked”, according to The Telegraph.
It is believed Margaret broke off their engagement after Billy told her he had enjoyed an affair with a woman in the Bahamas.
Last month, a documentary described the “ugly” breakdown of Princess Margaret’s marriage to Lord Snowdon.
Margaret married Lord Snowdon in 1960, but their marriage turned "ugly", as described in a royal documentary.
Princess Margaret: She later married Lord Snowdon
She married Lord Snowdon, also known as Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, in 1960. The pair divorced 18 years later in 1978.
A Channel 5 documentary, Kensington Palace: Fit For A Princess, has told the story of Princess Margaret and "Tony's" marriage and its subsequent breakdown.
The programme tells how their marriage became “ugly”, despite the couple’s “glamorous” reputation among peers.
The narrator described that everything wasn’t as it seemed inside the glamorous relationship.
“Margaret and her husband may have transformed Kensington Palace and made it into a celebrity hotspot, but behind the glamorous veneer their home life was in trouble."
“The arguments started to become rather public,” he said, adding that the couple were “attracted to other people”.
