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The baby was christened Princess Margaret Rose of York. Her grandfather, seagoing George V, was still king. Her Uncle David, then Prince of Wales, had shown no signs of relinquishing his heritage when it came. Even should her father, the Duke of York, become king, there was still an elder sister ahead of Margaret. -Five years later her Uncle David became King Edward VIII. Then, suddenly his reign was over, and he went off to marry Wallis Warfield. "Are they going to cut off his head?" Margaret asked her big sister expectantly when she heard the news. When she finally understood that her own father was to be the monarch, her interest gave way to bored impatience. "Oh, bother," said Great Britain's princess, "and I've only just learned to spell York."
Tantrums & Trains. Rapid changes on the throne made Margaret acutely aware of the monarchy, but they did nothing to alter her status in her own family. Both as the child of the relatively obscure Duke of York and as the daughter of the King, Margaret has been a younger sister. She has never much liked the role. Not that she dislikes sister Lilibet or even envies her; she has just never enjoyed second place. In her turn, Lilibet has always treated her little sister as an unpredictable child who must be watched.
The first good look the world had of the sisters together was when they stood side by side at their father's coronation, wearing identical robes of royal purple, trimmed with ermine. Reporters, cameramen and radio commentators were fascinated at the sight of six-year-old Margaret yawning, stretching, tapping her silver slippers, riffling through the pages of a prayerbook, and tickling her sister, while eleven-year-old Elizabeth frowned and nudged her in lofty, outraged dignity. The reporters might have been even more fascinated had they been in the palace earlier and seen Princess Margaret kick up one of her first and worst tantrums. When she learned that Elizabeth's dress was to have a train and hers none, she raised such an unholy uproar that the King himself called in the dressmaker and ordered trains for both girls' dresses. .
Potatoes & Toad. Nonetheless, the two sisters have always been fast friends. Margaret's bubbling imagination and great self-assurance have been a buoy for Elizabeth's shy conscientiousness; dutiful Elizabeth has been a steady rock for mercurial Margaret. When Elizabeth at eleven became a Girl Guide, she insisted that Margaret be enlisted too. The younger sister was signed up as a Brownie, Leprechaun division.
Whatever Elizabeth did, Margaret followed in her own unpredictable way. When Elizabeth set out a neat garden of daffodils and tulips, Margaret planted rows of potatoes and pulled them all up to see how they were doing. While Elizabeth fondled her ponies and puppies, Margaret made pets of a salamander and a speckled toad. When Elizabeth won a certificate for lifesaving, Margaret had her day: she heaved her sister's pet Corgi into the pond on the day of a Buckingham Palace garden party and dived in after him, triumphant and heroic in her best party dress.