Lady Glenconner opens up on agony of 50-year marriage

Lady Anne Glenconner, 90, who was the lady-in-waiting and confidante of Princess Margaret for three decades, opened up on the “domestic violence and abuse” she said to have suffered during her marriage with Colin Tennant, who became the 3rd Baron Glenconner in 1983. In an adapted extract from her upcoming book “Whatever Next? Lessons From An Unexpected Life”, Lady Glenconner said her husband, who died in 2010, would spit, shove and throw things at her as well as experience “violent rages and outbursts”.Lady Glenconner claimed that, early on in their marriage, which began in 1956, her husband had told her: “I’m going to break you, Anne.”In the extract published by the Daily Mail, she recalled: “He failed to do so, and he was proud of me for that. He said to me another time: ‘I knew you’d be able to take it’.”Lady Glenconner also said her husband beat her once while they were staying in Mustique, the island in St Vincent & The Grenadines he famously bought in 1958 for £45,000.The horrific incident, Lady Glenconner claimed, happened in the 1970s after he had asked her to talk with some of his clients, something she did for a few minutes before returning to the birthday party of her twin daughters.Her husband, she claimed, marched over her afterwards and pulled her away from the bar where she was marking the special day.  Lady Glenconner is to release a new book next month (Image: GETTY) Lady and Lord Glenconner pictured together in 1955 (Image: GETTY)While he was driving her back to the nearby house, Lady Glenconner said her husband was “shaking with anger”.She wrote: “Drawing up at the house, I got out of the car and before I knew what was happening, he hit me across the head from behind with his shark-bone walking stick. It knocked me straight to the ground. And then he launched in on me.”I lay there, trying to protect my head and begging him to stop.”He didn’t: he was in a frenzy, quite out of his mind. I was utterly terrified, convinced he might actually kill me.”I have no idea how long it lasted, but eventually he tired himself out. I lay there until I heard his car drive off, then crawled into the main house and locked myself into the bedroom.” READ MORE: US backlash against Harry erupts as TV hosts ridicule memoir Lady Glenconner, Lord Glenconner and Princess Margaret in Mustique (Image: GETTY)Lady Glenconner said the beating had long-lasting damage.The morning after the incident she was feeling terrible pain in her ear and, after having called her children’s nanny for help, she was seen by a doctor.She recalled: “Colin slunk off, and the island’s doctor arrived and examined me. He was very concerned, but I didn’t tell him what had happened and he didn’t ask. Perhaps he guessed.”My eardrum had burst, and I have been deaf in that ear ever since.”Lady Glenconner said that after she was seen by the doctor, she chose to isolate herself in her room until she was healed so that her children would not see her bruises.DON’T MISS Mike Tindall’s I’m A Celeb move ‘met with disapproval by King Charles’ [REPORT]Palace ‘on tenterhooks’ as Harry poised to blindside Firm with book [LIVEBLOG]Prince Harry’s staff feared memoir ‘would be disastrous for couple’ [INSIGHT] Princess Margaret was a close friend of Lord and Lady Glenconner (Image: GETTY)Her husband “left a small bunch of flowers” outside of her door while she was healing and, once she appeared again in front of him, she said he meekly apologised to her, saying: “I won’t do it again. I will be good, I promise.”The royal lady-in-waiting confided to her mother – Lady Elizabeth Yorke – what had happened, but decided against divorce as she “still believed in marriage and in the virtue of putting up with things and getting on”.After her mother warned Lord Glenconner not to ever touch her daughter again, he penned a “proper apology” to his wife.Speaking about her husband’s behaviour in the years that followed, Lady Glenconner said: “Colin never hit me again, although he did still push me and spit at me when furious. He knew enough never to go further than that.”And no matter how badly he treated me, he needed me. He used to threaten to kill himself if I left him, and I didn’t see that as an idle threat.  Lady and Lord Glenconner pictured in Mustique in 1973 (Image: GETTY)”I knew I was important to him as a point of stability in his life, and as a mother to his children. In his own strange way, he loved me.”Lady Glenconner recalled how she started getting involved with Erin Pizzey, who established the first domestic-violence shelter in the UK, in the early 1970s, but it never occurred to her this propensity to support victims could come from her own private experience.She also wrote: “It’s only lately, in today’s more open climate, that I’ve felt able to admit what really happened to me. I am very grateful to the friends and family who have recently encouraged me to talk about my experiences.”I have also been inspired by [Camilla] the Queen Consort, who has made the prevention of domestic abuse one of her causes.”