The acts of the British royal family to commemorate what would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s centenary have had as an unexpected protagonist Lady Sarah Chatto. At 66, the sole daughter of Princess Margaret and David Armstrong-Jones attended alongside King Charles and Queen Camilla to view the final design of the national monument in memory of the late monarch at the British Museum in London.
Lady Sarah, 62, is not an active member of the Windsors and only appears in public on marked occasions. The last time she was seen alongside the royal family was on Easter Sunday, when she attended a religious service with her family. She is also frequently seen at the equestrian event Royal Ascot, since she shared with Queen Elizabeth II her great passion for horses.
The cousin of Charles III, who is president of the Royal Ballet School, had Queen Elizabeth II as something of a surrogate mother while her own mother traveled the world from party to party. “They feel very comfortable with each other. There is a lot of laughter when they are together. They share a sense of loyalty, fun, duty, and humor,” said at one time by a close confidant about the aunt and niece.
With a shy and reserved character, Lady Sarah Chatto starred in her own Megxit years before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the Crown. In her case, she chose to set aside the royal family’s schedule to devote herself to her passion for art. However, British media say she could be an important asset for the Windsors from now on, especially in the context of the fall from grace of Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his daughters, the Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice.
Lady Sarah Chatto: the discreet artist
In her heyday, Princess Margaret was known for her beauty and arrogance. The press headlines described her as “the most insufferable guest in the world,” capable of delaying dinner for hours to catch up with her exhausting schedule of drinks and cigarettes. Her only daughter, by contrast, could not be farther from that image. Lady Sarah Chatto was born in 1964 and was the last royal girl to be born in a palace rather than a hospital. She was the second daughter of the marriage between Princess Margaret, Elizabeth II’s sister, and her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon.
After finishing school, with her parents already separated, Lady Sarah took a two-year hiatus to accompany her father on a long work trip to India. It was there that she met her future husband, Daniel Chatto, in the early 1980s. An actor and filmmaker, Daniel was in the country filming the period romance Heat and Dust. The couple married on July 14, 1994, at the London church of St Stephen’s Walbrook. Zara Phillips was one of their bridesmaids.
Lady Sarah Chatto, junto a su marido y su hijo Arthur.
In the professional field, Lady Sarah Chatto has been exhibiting her paintings since 1995, always under the name Sarah Armstrong-Jones. Her work has been recognized with several awards, such as the Winsor & Newton Prize or the Creswick Landscape Prize. Speaking about art with Country Life magazine, she chose as her all-time favorite painting The Baptism of Christ by Piero della Francesca: “I love the progression of the drawing, from the pebbles and plants in the foreground to the figures and, then, the tree-covered hills and the city visible beyond.”
Samuel and Arthur Chatto, Lady Sarah’s sons
Lady Sarah Chatto and her husband Daniel have two sons, both male, who form part of the Windsor generation. The elder is Samuel David Benedict Chatto or simply Sam for friends. He sits 29th in the line of succession to the throne, just behind his mother, and has inherited from her his passion for art. Specifically, he is a ceramic craftsman and makes and sells his clay creations from his studio in West Sussex.
His younger brother is Arthur Chatto. He studied at the University of Edinburgh before becoming a personal trainer for the BoundFitness gym and later enlisted in the Royal Marines. It is said he trained for the demanding entry tests while visiting Queen Elizabeth II at her Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The young man can boast two Guinness World Records: one for being the youngest person to row around Great Britain and another for being part of the youngest team to complete the same feat.
