Melanie Cable-Alexander was thrown into the spotlight after she began a relationship with Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret’s ex-husband.
Prince Harry was issued a heartfelt plea about his children Lilibet ‘Lili’ Diana and Archie Harrison by an ex-partner of late Antony Armstrong-Armstrong, the first Lord Snowdon. Melanie Cable-Alexander shared how she was thrown under the spotlight after her relationship with the former husband of Princess Margaret became public knowledge. Nevertheless, she said she always refused to take money to speak about her high-profile relationship, realising “the more I said, the more I would fan the flames, and the longer the story would linger”. Her concern, she added, was focused on the son born from the four-year relationship with Lord Snowdon, Jasper, and the effect reading her mother’s words in the press could have on him once he was old enough to understand them.
Ms Cable-Alexander, who was a feature editor at Country Life magazine when she met Lord Snowdon in 1997, wrote in the Daily Mail: “Each time I read or hear another word by him about his rift with the royals or the misery of his life pre-Meghan, I wince for his two young children. With so much dirty linen being washed in public, so many accusations flung, how on earth is it going to affect Archie, aged three, and one-year-old Lilibet, in future? At this rate, I fear Harry is perpetuating for his own children those same feelings of vulnerability, insecurity and ‘spareness’ that he himself so palpably possesses.” While she acknowledged her “public storm” is not comparable in size to the public attention the Duke of Sussex had to deal with his whole life, the writer said it took her “stoicism and guts” to weather the storm she found herself into in the late 1990s. And as a result of her stance, her son has created a “thriving relationship” with both sides of the family. She added: “Will Harry’s children be able to say the same of their relationship with their cousins, Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte? Or, more likely, has Harry’s behaviour wrecked the potential bond between them?”
