Nov 10, 2009, 11:17 GMT
Britain's Princess Margaret was not banned from marrying Group Captain Peter Townsend, it has been revealed.
A recently unearthed letter has overturned the long held belief Queen Elizabeth's younger sister, who died in 2002 aged 71, was forced not to marry her long-term lover by the royal family and advisors.
Instead, the letter from Princess Margaret to then-Prime Minister Anthony Eden revealed she herself was "unsure" of her love for the Battle of Britain pilot.
She wrote on August 15, 1955, that she would only be sure of her feelings towards Townsend when they met again in October that year.
The note promised to advise the prime minister of her decision by November.
Confused Margaret, then 24, wrote: "It is only by seeing him in this way that I feel I can properly decide whether I can marry him or not.
'The Queen of course knows I am writing to you about this, but of course no one else does, and as everything is so uncertain I know you will regard it certainly as a confidence."
In October of that year she said in a public statement that she was no longer seeing Townsend.
It read: "Mindful of the Church's teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others."
Margaret fell for Townsend as a teenager when he was already married with children. Their controversial relationship was exposed in 1953.
Townsend - who was then Comptroller of the Queen Mother's household - was swiftly dispatched to Brussels as an air attaché to avoid further negative publicity.
After her decision to stop the relationship, Margaret married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 but they divorced in 1978.
The letter was discovered by a producer of TV docudrama 'The Queen' at the National Archives in Kew.
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