In 1951, she married the eleventh Duke of Argyll, who was common, charming and good-looking, but in addition malicious, hooked on alcohol and playing, and a shameless sponger. By 1959, and decided to divorce since Margaret’s father had determined to cease paying his payments, he had gained entry to her Queen Anne home on Upper Grosvenor Street whereas she was overseas, and known as in a locksmith to crack the locks of the personal drawers and cabinets containing her memorabilia. He’d been delighted to search out Polaroids of bare males, with solely the torsos seen, being loomed over by a lady, her face hidden from view. Margaret was identifiable by the diamond clasps of her trademark three-strand pearls and distinctive coiffure.
In these days, one episode of adultery was sufficient to justify a divorce. The duke named three suspects – Sigismund von Braun, John Cohane and Peter Combe – not to mention the 88 doable lovers he cited in his petition. As indeniable proof of the duchess’s misadventure, nonetheless, the Polaroids have been the clincher. Society speculated about whom the torsos would possibly belong to – the names of Tory cupboard minister Duncan Sandys and Douglas Fairbanks Jr (‘Young Doug’, a conflict hero and Hollywood actor) have been bandied about and since Margaret had claimed it was the duke’s personal impressively sized organ in the Polaroids, Argyll needed to endure a medical inspection to see if the dimensions measured up. They didn’t.
In his summing up earlier than granting the divorce to the duke, the Scottish choose pronounced that Margaret was a ‘highly sexed woman who had ceased to be satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in what I can only describe as disgusting sexual activities to gratify a basic sexual appetite’.
The identification of the ‘Headless Man’ was by no means revealed throughout her lifetime. The thriller was solely not too long ago put to mattress by Lady Colin Campbell, who disclosed in 2013 that the man was the American government Bill Lyons. Nonetheless, after the divorce, that was all anybody ever talked about in reference to Margaret. Of the 88 males she had been seen having dinner with, a considerable quantity have been homosexual however, as the malicious duke knew, Margaret might by no means testify this was so, since in these days it was unlawful to be gay. The duke’s popularity suffered considerably much less, however he was requested to withdraw his membership of White’s.
