The lord of discretion

Afterwards, there will probably be words of comfort exchanged with the Queen Mother who, in particular, has always retained a great affection for her favoured daughter’s former husband.

That Snowdon, 71, should be made to feel so welcome at such a family occasion, 24 years after he was acrimoniously divorced from Princess Margaret and with a tangled love life lately played out in public, is a commendable achievement.

The Royal Family and the public, as the Duchess of York knows only too well, can be quick to turn on those seen to be stepping out of line. Snowdon has certainly given them plenty of material to do so. His second wife divorced him after it emerged he had fathered a son with a woman young enough to be his daughter, who in turn accused him of refusing to acknowledge their child. A second affair, which ran throughout the marriage, was only discovered when his mistress committed suicide.

Another man could have expected to be publicly pilloried for his behaviour. Yet Snowdon has somehow managed to keep his image as a gentleman intact, retaining the respect of others and his own dignity.

Likewise, he emerged from the break-up with Princess Margaret with reputation relatively unscathed. Despite having indulged in an adulterous affair of his own, it was the Princess who received most blame for the end of the 18-year marriage. Snowdon was widely perceived as the injured party - quite a feat for the man dubbed the ‘Royal Rake’ during their relationship.

"He was obviously always very attractive to women, a great ladies’ man," says Theo Aronson, author of Princess Margaret, A Biography. "He’s pleasant to meet, charming, gentlemanly and well-spoken, softly spoken. You can be a gentleman and a philanderer at the same time."

Both the Queen and the Queen Mother have always been fond of Snowdon, who wed Margaret five years after the call of duty led her to give up Captain Peter Townsend, her first great love. He typified the sort of man the Queen Mother liked; artistic, amusing and attentive. "He presented quite a good face to the Queen and Queen Mother. I’m not saying it was false in any way, he was nice to them and they liked him.

"I think they also felt a bit guilty about the business with Peter Townsend, that they had been instrumental in some way for Margaret not marrying Townsend, so when she finally found someone she did want to marry, they were prepared to meet Snowdon halfway."

Following the divorce, Snowdon has always been included on the guests list of major royal events and is expected to be involved in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Any indiscretions have been forgiven in return for silence - Snowdon, in contrast to the Duchess of York and Princess Diana, has resolutely refused to speak about his Royal marriage, despite offers that would have made him a very wealthy man. In all the years since the 1978 divorce he has not even let slip one harmless unguarded remark about life with the Queen’s sister.

Such memoirs would be even more valuable now. But to Snowdon, it would be conduct unbecoming a gentleman to even consider it. He would view it as not only demeaning to the Princess’s memory but rude and undignified, below him.

"He has never given away any Royal secrets, which is why he’s won a certain amount of admiration," explains Aronson.

"When Jackie Onassis was working with a big publishing house in New York, they offered him a lot of money for his memoirs and he simply refused. He’s probably quite astute enough to know that he shouldn’t do it. There has been speculation that part of the divorce settlement was that he would never publish anything about the marriage but I think it is more likely that Lord Snowdon made the decision - he’s a very discreet man."

There is no doubt that he went into the marriage believing it would work. His character, however, was not suited to life in the shadows. He was too much his own man to walk two paces behind his wife and made no secret of his impatience at the archaic Royal pomp and rituals.

"He had his own way to make in the world, he was a very talented photographer and a very strong-minded man, so he wasn’t prepared to just be a royal consort," says Aronson. "He did for the first year or two, but afterwards he began to kick against it, he wasn’t prepared just to play second fiddle, he wanted to make his own way in the world.

"He was always in the public spotlight, which he didn’t really like."

Snowdon, once Antony Armstrong- Jones, turns 72 next month. The birthday celebrations are likely to be a quiet, low-key affair, perhaps a small gathering with his children by Princess Margaret, Viscount David Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, and a few close family and friends. He was never one for grand parties, even during his marriage to the notoriously social Princess. These days, he prefers one-to-one lunches at his favourite restaurant, Chanterelle, just down the road from his Kensington home.

Age has thickened the once-slim waistline, brought heavy jowls to his face and the need of a walking stick for even short distances - the legacy of childhood polio. Yet something remains of the handsome looks of the young Armstrong-Jones who attracted a Princess and countless other women.

Considered by some people as one of the world’s three best photographers, Snowdon was born on a March morning in 1930. His father, Ronald, was a barrister and his mother, Anne, the sister of Oliver Messel, the greatest ballet designer of his generation. They separated when he was four but he appears to have had a happy childhood. From an early age, Snowdon showed a flair for creativity. He invented a fully working wooden submarine at six and while at Eton, designed an electric toaster and a radiogram. When he was 16 he contracted polio and spent six months at Liverpool Royal Infirmary. It left him with a withered left leg, one inch shorter than the other, and a slight limp, which he learned to disguise. It may also have accounted for his relatively small adult stature of 5ft 7ins. Later in life he would draw from his own experience to campaign for the rights of the disabled.

At Cambridge University he read architecture, coxed the boat team to victory in 1950 and failed his final exams after neglecting to finish his portfolio. He took up photography and moved to London.

There he became part of an "in crowd" of young, artistic talent. Friends came from the world of theatre, dance and music, among them many homosexuals. There was no question, though, of the young Armstrong-Jones’s sexuality. Many beautiful women could be found making their way to the young photographer’s studio at his home in Pimlico, not always to sit for pictures. Before meeting Princess Margaret, he had romanced the actress Jacqui Chan, who starred in the West End production of The World Of Suzie Wong.

Always a non-conformist, Snowdon gave off the air of a cultured rebel, a free-spirited independent (he would drive a motorbike around in full leathers), irreverent and outspoken.

Princess Margaret met the then Armstrong-Jones at a private dinner party in 1958. A worldwide television audience of 300 million watched their wedding on 6 May, 1960.

Armstrong-Jones was created Earl of Snowdon in October 1961.

The new Earl felt obliged to give up his profession, but later joined the staff at the Sunday Times, undertaking foreign assignments.

During the marriage, Lord Snowdon is known to have had at least one affair, with the woman who became his second wife, and was seen escorting the model, Lady Jacqueline Rufus Isaacs.

Behind the outward charm, there has always been a touch of steel. He could be cruel, often humiliating Princess Margaret in public.

"He could be quite harsh, he had a hard side," says Aronson. "But one must remember that when you’re thrown into an artificial life and you’re a man of ambition and talent and you can’t manifest it in any way, it’s very frustrating. I suppose he turned on her (Margaret) and blamed her, really, that he was this bird in a gilded cage."

Those of his friends prepared to speak openly invariably describe him as a modest, self-deprecating man, generous and kind-hearted.

"He is a very caring person," says one of his oldest friends, photographer Bob Belton. "He bothers, in all sorts of ways." Professionally, Snowdon’s career is one of great achievement. He has refused to trade off his royal connections - even going to so far as to refuse a Rolls Royce laid on by the British Embassy during an assignment in Vienna and taking the bus instead - and is self-consciously egalitarian.

He hates the word "class", once saying: "I don’t think about class at all, I think about types. I am not upper class. I just had a marvellous mother and father. I have met an awful lot of people from all walks of life."

Since the divorce with Princess Margaret, he has continued to photograph every Royal birthday, wedding and new arrival - he took Prince Harry’s 16th birthday portraits - with his own casual-formal style. And in the 1960s he was able to express his creativity to an extent, designing the aviary at London Zoo, contributing to the design of the Prince of Wales’s investiture and working on several award-winning television documentaries on such issues as old age.

Snowdon has also invented a revolutionary wheelchair and a hearing aid. Made a life peer in 1999, he has used his seat in the House of Lords to speak up for disabled people.

His personal life, however, has been less successful.

In 1978, seven months after his divorce from Princess Margaret, he married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, a young television production assistant and had a daughter, Frances, now 22.

In 1997, an inquest into the suicide of journalist Ann Hills, 55, revealed that Snowdon had conducted a long-running affair with her. Hills, who met him at a press conference in 1977, killed herself on New Year’s Eve, 1996, with an overdose.

A message from Snowdon was found on her answering machine, telling her that he could not see her because, over the Christmas and New Year period, "we" - he was referring to the Royal Family - were under the spotlight.

An inquest concluded that she was upset by her failure to find a ‘lasting relationship’.

The Countess of Snowdon bore the humiliation. Worse was to come 18 months later when it was revealed that Snowdon had fathered a son, Jasper, by then Country Life features editor, Melanie Cable-Alexander, 34 years his junior. Even more damaging, Cable-Alexander, who omitted Snowdon’s name from the birth certificate, claimed that he had refused to accept their son. "He has never visited Jasper. He has seen him on a few occasions, though, when I’ve been out pushing the pram."

In September 2000 Countess Snowdon divorced her husband on grounds of adultery. Snowdon publicly acknowledged his illegitimate son, giving him the recognition of an entry in Burke’s Peerage, and even seemed prepared to make a go of it with Cable-Alexander. But he was reluctant to commit to a third marriage, believing he was too old for matrimony. Cable-Alexander’s patience ran out and, late last year, she is said to have ended the relationship. Snowdon helps pay for a full-time nanny for the boy, now aged three.

By appearances, Snowdon has a comfortable life. He has money (an estimated 8.5 million fortune), the respect of the Royal Family and his work. His health, however, is failing, although he affects not to care about his disability, saying: "I just shut up and get on with it. It’s boring". Of late he has had to resort to using a wheelchair, just like Princess Margaret did in her final months.

And the man who has always enjoyed the company of women now lives all alone in his large, four-storey house.

He is said to have never lost his feelings for Princess Margaret, the woman he always referred to as "PM Darling". During her last few years they had become close again, speaking every day. Her death will have greatly affected him.

"In many ways he’s quite an admirable man," says Aronson. "He has made his own way in life and achieved on his own what he wanted to do. He has always been very much his own man."

As Snowdon joins the Royal Family to say a last goodbye to the Princess, he may well reflect that, at times, perhaps he has been too much of his own man.