• Season five of "The Crown" shows Princess Margaret reuniting with her first love, Peter Townsend.
• The royal made plans to marry her father's former equerry in the 1950s after his divorce.
• However, the two called off their engagement and married other people, but did reunite in the 1990s.

Season five of "The Crown" reintroduces viewers to Peter Townsend, Princess Margaret's first love.

Played by Lesley Manville and Timothy Dalton, the couple is shown reuniting at a reception at London's Caledonian Club in episode four of season five of "The Crown."

The two catch up and eventually decide to return the love letters that they wrote to each other years earlier.

The pair really did reunite in the 1990s — almost 40 years after their romance hit the headlines.

The princess and Townsend "corresponded from time to time" but did not see each other again until "they met by chance at an official function" in the early 1990s, according to the New York Times.

At 61 and 77, respectively, they then arranged to meet up again and had lunch at Kensington Palace in the summer of 1992. 

According to Tim Heald's "Princess Margaret: A Life Unraveled," per Vanity Fair, the two were joined by two other old friends at the meal, one of whom "recalled that it was a strange and mildly embarrassing meal as the princess and Townsend talked quietly and intimately together while the other guests conversed among themselves and pretended that the effectively private conversation taking place in their midst was the most natural thing in the world."

After the lunch was over, Heald added that Margaret "turned to her private secretary and said words to the effect that he was just as she remembered him except that his hair had turned grey."

It was the last time they saw one another before Townsend passed away from cancer three years later in 1995.

Townsend was 80 when he died from stomach cancer. He lived out his final years in Saint-Leger-en-Yvelines outside Paris with his second wife, Marie-Luce Jamagne, a Belgian national he had married in 1959 after his marriage to Margaret was called off.

According to Associated Press, following his death, the Queen sent a message of condolence, but Margaret did not attend his funeral.

In the years after Townsend's death, Margaret's own health declined. After a series of strokes left the princess wheelchair-bound, she died in her sleep on February 9, 2002.

The roles were previously played by Vanessa Kirby and Ben Miles in the first two seasons of the historical drama.

Viewers saw Margaret fall in love with Townsend shortly after the royal family was left devastated by the premature death of her father, King George VI, in 1952. 

Townsend — also known as Captain Peter Townsend — was a Royal Air Force officer who served as an equerry to the late king. He became a Comptroller of the Queen Mother's household and spent a great deal of time with Margaret following her father's death, and before long, the two fell in love. 

He was 16 years older than Margaret, but it wasn't the age gap that kept them apart.

When their relationship began, Margaret was 22 years old, and Townsend was nearly 40. However, he had known the princess for at least eight years already, having taken up the position of equerry to the king in 1944 after serving in World War II.

Instead, the fact that Townsend had already been married was the problem.

Townsend wed his first wife, Cecil Rosemary Pawle, in 1941 upon returning to Britain after serving in the Indian Civil Service. The couple had two sons, Giles, born in 1942, and Hugo, born in 1945, and lived at Adelaide Cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle.

It was actually Townsend's wife's own affair that spurred the two to separate after 11 years of marriage. After Townsend discovered his spouse's infidelity, he filed for divorce in November 1952. 

According to Townsend, he and Margaret confessed their feelings to one another after he and his wife separated.

In his memoir "Time and Chance," Townsend wrote: "It was then that we made the mutual discovery of how much we meant to one another. She listened, without uttering a word, as I told her, very quietly, of my feelings. Then she simply said: 'That is exactly how I feel, too.'"

However, the Church of England and parliament were firmly against the match.

The Queen, as the Church's supreme governor, was forced to oppose the union too. At that time in England, divorces were still frowned upon, and it would have been unthinkable for the Queen's sister — who at the time was third in line to the throne — to marry a divorced commoner.

Additionally, under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, Margaret required her sister's permission to marry before the age of 25. After then, she needed parliament's approval.

As a result, the Queen asked Margaret to pause her nuptials for a few years so that it was not her who got in the way of Margaret's happiness.

In the meantime, Townsend was sent away to Brussels to serve as an air attaché in Belgium for a two-year term, per his obituary.

Despite the separation, Margaret and Townsend continued their correspondence, and when his service ended in 1955, he returned to London, and the couple reunited.

The romance between Towsend and Margaret captured the public's attention.

When it came to light that the two were hoping to marry, British newspapers mounted pressure on the Queen to approve the union.

As a result, it was agreed that the two could marry, but there was a catch: Margaret would have to renounce her status as a royal and give up all her rights and privileges. 

The British tabloids played a pivotal role in the couple's relationship. Had it not been for a reporter covering the Queen's coronation in June 1953, who noticed the princess flick a piece of fluff off Group Captain Townsend's jacket, their romance might have stayed a secret for much longer.

However, the two never made it down the aisle. The relationship came to a heartbreaking end in 1955 when they called off the engagement.

Townsend and Margaret officially separated in 1955, just three years after their romance became public. The news of their official separation was shared in a brief statement from the princess that was read out on the BBC. 

It read: "I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage.

"But, mindful of the Church's teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others."

She continued: "I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend."

In 1959, four years after their breakup, Townsend found love again with a woman he had met during his stay in Belgium.

At the age of 59, he married his secretary, a 19-year-old named Marie-Luce Jamagne. 

The two had two daughters and a son together. One of their daughters, Isabelle, became known in the 1980s and 1990s for being a Ralph Lauren model. According to The Times of London, she also renovated Le Moulin de la Tuilerie in Gif-sur-Yvette, a property that once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Five years later, Margaret married fashion photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones. The couple's royal wedding was the first to be televised in the UK.

After 20 years together, they announced they would separate in 1978 after they both reportedly had affairs — the first divorce in the royal family since Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon in the 16th century, but certainly not the last.

In her final two decades, Margaret had several high-profile relationships but never married again.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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