The very down-to-earth royal: How Princess Margaret’s ‘unassuming’ and artistic daughter Lady Sarah Chatto is her total opposite – and was ‘adored’ by Queen Elizabeth
- Lady Sarah Chatto is the only daughter of the late Princess Margaret
- The Queen was described as a ‘surrogate mother’ to Sarah and her brother
- READ MORE: Prince Harry’s godmother makes appearance at Kate’s carol service
Lady Sarah Chatto, the only daughter of the glamorous Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, is famed for her down-to-earth nature and her close relationship with the late Queen.
Lady Sarah, who turns 59 today, was born at Kensington Palace three years after the arrival of her brother, David Armstrong-Jones.
She was the last royal to be born in a palace rather than a hospital.
The late Queen was described as a ‘surrogate mother’ to Margaret’s children and was particularly close to Lady Sarah, who is believed to have reminded her of her late sister.
With only a three-year age gap, Lady Sarah Chatto and Diana were already friendly before Diana’s engagement to Charles. They are pictured together at Guards Polo Club in 1983
The Wedding Of Lady Sarah Armstrong-jones To Daniel Chatto At St Stephen Walbrook
The Queen was described as a ‘surrogate mother’ to Princess Margaret’s children and was particularly close to Lady Sarah, who is understood to have reminded her of her late sister
One royal insider previously revealed: ‘The Queen adores Sarah and seeks out her company as often as possible. She is her absolute favourite younger Royal.
‘They are hugely at ease in each other’s company. Much giggling can be heard when they are together. They share a sense of loyalty, fun, duty and the ridiculous.’
One acquaintance said: ‘Sarah is very unassuming; shy and almost embarrassed with no grandeur at all. Take royal events — she’ll be on the balcony, but she never pushes herself to the middle or the front, like some.’
At the time, her parents, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, were the toast of swinging London, their Kensington Palace apartment the scene of hedonistic parties.
But the marriage, a rebound affair after Margaret decided not to marry divorced equerry Peter Townsend, was notoriously tempestuous.
Fuelled by alcohol and affairs on both sides, their 18-year union was once described as a 16-year break-up.
At just 13, her parents’ divorce was ‘terribly upsetting’ for Sarah.
As Margaret was granted custody, the children stayed in Kensington Palace. Sarah was sent to Francis Holland School in Chelsea, a smart all-girls’ day school, followed by Bedales with her brother.
Sarah had grown up knowing that her mother had little time or patience for babies and small children (pictured together leaving Buckingham Palace to watch Trooping the Colour in 1974)
Sarah’s father doted on her and it is from him she is said to have inherited her ‘immense charm’. Here she is held by Princess Margaret with brother David (centre)
Sarah is pictured with her parents, the Queen and Prince Philip at The Badminton Horse Trials
The mixed boarding school in rural Hampshire — alma mater of actors Daniel Day-Lewis and Minnie Driver — was a fashionable, arty, bohemian choice.
It had no uniform and nurtured artistic expression above all else. It was what both parents wanted — and it ensured Sarah inherited a love of art.
This ‘progressive’ institution was the polar opposite to the starchiness of a royal upbringing.
One contemporary said that when Lady Sarah turned up ‘she was practically in a velvet-collar coat and tweeds although everyone else was hanging out in their kickers’.
However it was quite possibly this school — with its warm, nurturing atmosphere — that made her the woman she is now.
Sarah had grown up knowing that her mother had little time or patience for babies and small children.
Despite Snowdon’s reluctance, nannies and housemaids were in charge and the children were instructed never to wake their mother before 11am — a rule that was keenly enforced by Nanny Sumner, whose old-fashioned methods were in direct conflict to the modern ideas of Snowdon.
Her father, however, doted on her and it is from him she is said to have inherited her ‘immense charm’.
Both her parents passed on their artistic eye to their children as Sarah, now a painter, and her brother David, a world-famous furniture designer, were taken around galleries in their youth. Today, David, who was formerly Lord Linley, has inherited his late father’s title and is the Earl of Snowdon.
Princess Anne chose nine-year-old Sarah to be the only bridesmaid at her wedding to Mark Phillips in 1973
Sarah was also a bridesmaid for the wedding of Charles and Diana at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981
Sarah met Daniel Chatto whilst working as a wardrobe assistant on Heat and Dust, in which dashing actor Daniel had a small role (pictured after their wedding in 1994)
On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, David said that his mother was ‘very good at taking me to see just one object, so we would go to the National Gallery to see the Leonardo, or we would go to see the Vermeer – but only that.
‘So she would constantly be dragged away by us, saying: “Well, can’t we just go and see that?” And she would say: “Well, you can come back again if you want.” So one actually became very keen to go back.’
Sarah went on to complete a foundation course at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, followed by a printed textiles course at Middlesex Polytechnic, paving the way for her training at the Royal Academy Schools.
Working as a painter under the professional name Sarah Armstrong-Jones, she has since exhibited at galleries including The Redfern Gallery in London.
She has also continued her parents’ love of nurturing the arts, acting as Vice President of the Royal Drawing School and of the Royal Ballet School.
The young Sarah never felt herself to be above her art school contemporaries and while she may have shared her 21st birthday with Prince Edward, Lady Helen Windsor and James Ogilvy at Windsor Castle, she also included all of her friends from art school.
‘Sarah’s art college and Bedales friends — people with Rasta hair — were the most varied and exciting people there,’ recalls one guest.
She had various good-looking, arty boyfriends. But it was when she met Daniel Chatto whilst working as a wardrobe assistant on Heat and Dust, in which dashing actor Daniel had a small role, that her love life became serious.
Husband Daniel Chatto and Sarah set up home in Kensington while still unmarried — a fact that is said to have angered Princess Margaret
Sarah was particularly close to the Queen and was the only guest who would accompany the Queen to Craigowan Lodge. Pictured with her brother at The Queen’s funeral
Siblings Sarah, a painter, and David (pictured right), a furniture designer, inherited their parents’ artistic eye (pictured at the Linley 30th anniversary party in 2016)
The son of actor Tom Chatto, and theatrical agent Ros Chatto (who was the mistress of another theatrical agent, Robin Fox), Daniel appeared in around a dozen films and TV programmes, often period dramas based on the novels of W. Somerset Maugham or Charles Dickens.
He soon gave up his acting career, however, to focus on painting, a passion shared with Sarah.
Together he and Sarah set up home in Kensington while still unmarried — a fact that is said to have angered Princess Margaret — where they still live in a small, pretty, Grade II listed terrace house.
They also have a Georgian country farmhouse near Midhurst in Sussex, given to Sarah by her godfather, the late art-loving philanthropist Simon Sainsbury.
The informal country life of dogs, horses and annual sheepdog trials — which she judges — is the essence of Sarah, a royal who has never been lured by pomp and ceremony.
Indeed her wedding to Chatto in July 1994 was such a short, simple affair that chauffeurs were caught by surprise: the Queen, Prince Philip and Diana had to wait at the City church of St Stephen’s Walbrook after the service for their cars to come back.
Her veil was anchored by the Snowdon Floral Tiara, created from brooches given to Princess Margaret by her husband, and the wedding portraits show the newlyweds flanked by the Queen and the Queen Mother.
Although her childhood lacked the stability she has created for her own family — according to royal insiders, she found her mother’s early indiscretions ‘almost unbearable’ — Sarah remained a loving, dutiful daughter until the end.
Her two sons, Samuel (left) and Arthur (centre), accompany their parents to royal events. They are pictured at the National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral last year
Samuel, pictured right attending the Christmas Day church service in Sandringham with his mother, is pursuing a career in pottery
Arthur Chatto has joined the Royal Marines after working as a personal trainer
Her mother’s death in 2002 — after a series of strokes and four years of suffering — saw her children by her side.
Sarah, says a royal source, had been ‘selfless and often left her own family overnight to drive to KP to care for her mother’.
Margaret’s death brought the Queen even closer to her only niece, in her new role as something of a surrogate mother.
Sarah was the only guest who would accompany the Queen to Craigowan Lodge — a relatively modest stone building a mile from Balmoral Castle.
The Queen would retire to the secluded seven-bedroom house several times a year to read, write letters, walk and ride with Sarah for company.
King Charles also loved his cousin and the pair were often found sketching and doing water colours on the Balmoral estate, chatting easily or ‘hunched over their easels in harmonious silence, as they have been for years’.
Sarah served as a bridesmaid at Charles and Diana’s wedding and was friends with her even before their engagement, having only a three year age gap.
The Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was also a fan of Sarah’s, writing that after the infamous ‘toe-sucking’ pictures were published in 1992, Sarah was ‘absolutely charming’.
Lady Sarah Chatto is praised for her down-to-earth nature
Often the first choice for godmother, Sarah counts Prince Harry, Prince Edward’s daughter, Louise, and the Duke of Gloucester’s daughter, Rose, among her godchildren.
She now has two sons, Samuel and Arthur, who are seen with Sarah at royal events including during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and the Queen’s funeral.
After attending Eton College, Samuel studied History of Art of Edinburgh University and is now pursuing a career in pottery.
While also studying at Eton and reading History of Art in Edinburgh, his younger brother Arthur joined the Royal Marines after working as a personal trainer, arriving in uniform at Prince Philip’s memorial service in March 2021.
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