Things came especially to a head when, according to the New York Times, an early-twenties Princess Margaret fell in love with a man nearly twice her age, Group Captain Peter Townsend of the Royal Air Force. Townsend and Princess Margaret met when he served as an equerry, or assistant, to her father, King George VI. The problem? Townsend was recently divorced, and, as viewers saw in The Crown, the pain of Edward VIII’s abdication (and marriage to a divorcée, Wallis Simpson) was too raw for the royals to even consider agreeing to let Princess Margaret, then third in line to the throne, marry him. According to History, the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 decreed that all royal marriages needed to be approved by the reigning monarch. Additionally, the Church Of England looked down on divorce, and Queen Elizabeth, though the head of the church, couldn’t make an exception for her sister, or so The Crown said.