The Mountbattens

by Andrew Lownie

  When it appeared that P31 might not take part in the peace celebrations in August 1919 and be either mothballed or sent for scrap, Dickie contrived for Princess Mary, daughter of George V, to tell her father that she wanted to visit a P-boat and persuaded him to come as well. It was great publicity for the young naval officer and it saved the ship. Dickie was already showing that he was very happy to use his royal connections for the benefit of himself and the Navy.

  The names of various women now begin to appear in his letters, but his first love remained the Navy – summed up by this ditty ‘Soliloquy’ (1st Lieutenant P31):

  Peggy was my only joy

  Poppy’s now without alloy

  (Margery still gets a turn)

  Phyllis’s letters I can burn

  Of all the P’s there isn’t one

  Can beat my best love ‘31’46

  In the autumn, P31 was called to help with the intervention in Russia, but the Navy had other plans for Dickie. He was to go to Cambridge.

  * * *

  The same month that Dickie started at Cambridge, Edwina and her cousin Marjorie (accompanied by Sir Ernest and Marjorie’s father) set out for their cultural tour of Europe. Cassell was anxious that his elder daughter should be prepared for her coming out. In Paris, where the party stayed at the Ritz, he bought her a fur coat, ‘mole, with a very smart lining’, gloves, new jewels and hats. After a week he had to leave and was replaced by Miss Cranston, secretary to their family friend, Lady Zia Wernher.47 From Paris, they took the Train de Luxe to Rome.

  Ostensibly, during their sojourn the girls were taking piano and Italian lessons, visiting historic sites, art galleries and museums, and taking tea with the formidable Mrs Strong of the British School in Rome, but there were other distractions:

  Captain Mott, with his cleft chin and neat moustache, or Mr Scott, so sleek that his hair looked like boot polish thinly applied to his perfectly shaped head. Still more attractive were the Italians: Galeazzo Manzi-Fe, olive-skinned, with brooding dark eyes; Folco Malaspira, in his uniform of high-buttoned jacket, well-cut breeches and tight, high boots; and Ricardo, a magnificent duke, by whom Edwina was utterly dazzled.48

  The trip had been more educative than Sir Ernest could ever have realised. Edwina, by nature high-spirited and strong-minded, had blossomed in this new environment where she could reinvent herself. Her adolescent podginess had disappeared and she had turned into a confident, beautiful young woman, who knew how to flirt, dissemble, and that she was highly attractive to men. It was knowledge she never lost.

  * * *

  In October 1919, Dickie started at Christ’s College, Cambridge, part of a scheme for naval high-flying junior officers whose education had been curtailed by the First World War. He was one of 400 officers sent to Cambridge – five to Christ’s – for two terms on a special course covering mathematics, physics, engineering, navigation, naval history, literature, languages and ethnology. This post-war class differed from previous generations as many were war veterans, used to being in command, and considerably older than the usual undergraduate. The experience was to be a formative one for the young naval officer, widening his view of the world and training him to think for himself.

  He quickly threw himself into college and university life. He represented the college against King’s College in 100 yards, 220 and long jump and was elected to the university’s sports club, the Hawks, and its most socially fashionable club, the Pitt, which, as he told his father, ‘consists of all the snobs and little Eaton [sic] boys, but my word it is comfortable and the food is not bad. Also one does meet a lot of really nice fellows there of one’s own class, besides the dreadful snobs.’49

  One of the nice fellows he met was Peter Murphy, who was to become not only a lifelong friend, but a crucial confidant and influence. The biographical details for Murphy – full name James Jeremiah Victor Fitzwilliam Peter Murphy – are hazy. Three years older than Dickie and a talented linguist, he had been a scholar at Harrow, leaving shortly before his sixteenth birthday to spend a year at Frankfurt University.

  At the outbreak of the First World War, he had joined the territorial battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Special Reserve in March 1915, serving later with the Irish Guards and the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He had been injured on the Somme at the end of 1916 with shell shock and ICT (Inflamed Connective Tissue), after losing his boots in the mud.

  After a period of recuperation in London, he was given ‘temporary employment in the Foreign Office . . . he is believed to possess capabilities which suit him for work of a confidential character’.50 He had arrived at a neighbouring college, Magdalene, to read economics that term and Dickie had met him in the rooms of Christopher Tennant, later the 2nd Baron Glenconner. Murphy subsequently remembered Dickie:

  I immediately felt he was different, not only from the other young naval officers, but from the other undergraduates at Cambridge. Physically he was strikingly good-looking, with knock down charm, second only to that popular idol, the Prince of Wales himself . . . I was really astonished to find a member of the Royal Family so free of prejudice and reaction, with such a genuinely receptive, progressive outlook. I helped him to start reading intelligent books and papers. I tried to get him to take an interest in music, which he enjoyed, though his tastes were simple. In art his outlook was hopelessly conventional, but in politics he was certainly no reactionary.51

  Under the influence of the left-wing Murphy, Dickie increasingly began to question his world view, not least the flaws in capitalism. By nature undogmatic and pragmatic, Dickie learnt to challenge the values and codes of his class. One manifestation of this was a growing interest in politics and debating, joining both the college debating society, the Junior Acton, and the university’s Union Society.

  Within weeks of arriving in Cambridge, he was a paper speaker at the Union – i.e., on the programme and not merely contributing from the floor – opposing the motion, ‘That in the opinion of this house, the Ulster Party is principally to blame for the present chaotic conditions of Ireland’. Four days later, he unsuccessfully argued against reducing armaments and, at the end of term, he stood for the committee, coming fourth out of the 15 candidates and being elected. An assessment of his debating noted he has ‘a ready wit and a genius for turning opponents’ arguments. Is always an attractive speaker, especially in the unprepared parts of his speech. When he has nothing to say, he still says it very nicely.’52

  His greatest triumph was perhaps the Inter-Varsity debate against Oxford in February 1920, successfully speaking with Winston Churchill (he later claimed he had persuaded him to appear) against the motion, ‘That this House considers that the Time is ripe for a Labour Government’, though the Union report noted that, ‘He had a difficult task in attacking Labour, because (rumour has it) his sympathies ran strong that way.’53

  At the end of term, Dickie learnt to fly at an aerodrome at King’s Lynn. ‘I’ve looped the loop three times and loved it,’ he wrote to his mother.54 He had been taken under the wing of Lady Cunard and was being invited to lots of dances.55 He explained the reason for his success to his mother:

  I’ve found that very few people seem to take the trouble to dance or even talk with any of the older people. Most extraordinary. They are usually far more interesting than all except a few of the young girls. Not only is it polite to do so but it pays. Because I danced with Lady Ribblesdale the first night I was asked again.56

  Dickie, always attractive to women, and always besotted with someone, had now fallen seriously in love. The object of his affections was Audrey James:

  The most beautiful girl of the season. This everyone admits, but I think she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s nearly 18, I think. The trouble, or perhaps the safeness of it all is that I am no. 9 of her young men, though being the latest, at present apparently the most favoured.57

  Audrey James was the illegitimate granddaughter of Edward VII
and the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. Dickie had first seen her in an October edition of Tatler and, through Peter Murphy, inveigled himself to escort Audrey to a dance. The next day he had ‘got off’ with her at tea with Peter Murphy. He had then been invited with her to an opera ball at Covent Garden – he went as a gondolier – and the romance continued.

  In December he saw her again at a dinner party given by Peter Murphy and Christopher Tennant. He wrote enthusiastically to his mother:

  How any girl can be so pretty and alive at the same time beats me. Mama you simply couldn’t conceive how lovely she is. Beats everything I’ve ever seen to a Frazzle. Keeps 2 houses, a maid, a footman etc of her own and yet she is ‘unspoilt’. Deceitful yes but not spoilt . . . She’s got the wee-est & most perfect eyebrows under marvellous grey eyes and the most kissable mouth that God ever made.58

  But his friends were warning him about her, and the fact that she couldn’t commit to any of her numerous admirers.

  George V’s sons Bertie, the future King George V1, and Henry, the future Duke of Gloucester, were also at Cambridge as part of their education, but living outside the city and being taught by tutors. ‘Bertie & Harry are very nice & asked me to come to their house whenever I like as they know nobody & feel lonely,’ wrote Dickie to his mother. ‘I am getting up a dinner party for them here.’59

  The three young royals became friendly, seeing each other in Cambridge but also at country house weekends, such as Philip Sassoon’s home, Trent Park, north of London. Never one to miss an opportunity and hearing that the Prince of Wales was due to go on a world tour the following year, Dickie had asked Bertie to request his brother if Dickie could join him. At a dance at Lady Ribblesdale’s in December, to which Mountbatten had engineered an invitation, the Prince of Wales approached him, asking if he would accompany him. In March, Dickie was about to set out on a new adventure in his life.

  CHAPTER 3

  First Loves

  David, Prince of Wales, was six years older than Dickie and had also been educated at Osborne and Dartmouth. He had briefly served in the Navy before some educational travel in Europe and a brief stint at Oxford. During the First World War, he had held a staff job at Army HQ, but he had never got close to the fighting. After the war it was decided that, as part of his training to be king, he should conduct a series of world tours to demonstrate Britain’s gratitude for the contribution of the Empire to victory. In 1919 he had visited Canada and the United States and the trip had been a great success. This new tour would take in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and West Indies.

  Dickie’s role on the trip was officially as flag-lieutenant to the Prince’s chief of staff, Rear-Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey, but more practically, it was to act as a sort of minder, to provide the future king with company of his own age, to keep him amused, occupied and in a happy state of mind. David was deep in his affair with Freda Dudley Ward, the wife of a Liberal MP – it would last until he met Wallis Simpson in 1934 – and he had no wish to be parted from her.

  In mid-March 1920, the party set off. The Prince of Wales immediately wrote to Freda:

  Dickie is keen & cheery about everything although of course he is such a baby!! But he’s a vewy [sic] clever boy & goes out of his way to be nice & kind & sympathetic & attentive to me as I think he guesses a little how I’m feeling. I’m so glad I’ve got him with me & I think we are going to be great friends, or as much so as our different ages will allow as of course he is terribly young. But he’s been such a help to me today angel & I’m grateful to him.60

  ‘David I like more and more, the more I see of him,’ Dickie wrote to his mother:

  We have long talks before he finally goes to bed at night in his sleeping cabin and exchange various confidences, mainly affairs de coeurs. Poor chap, with all these hundreds of people round him, he’s as lonely & homesick as he can be and is (at present) HATING this trip! He says he’ll cheer up later. But then he is very, very badly smitten I think.61

  Mountbatten, meanwhile, kept his mother abreast of his own love life:

  But please, please keep this secret. Nada has come to the amazing conclusion that Catherine now loves me. This I still don’t really believe her but I am terribly afraid I’m falling in love with her. If I see Audrey at Panama it may change things though on the whole (as far as guts are concerned) I am heart free and shall keep a list of girls I meet on the trip.62

  There were many, in his parlance, with whom he ‘got off’ as, apart from girls met at official functions, others were brought out to them on ship or at remote beaches.63 They included: the daughter of the Mayor of San Diego, Lucia Wilde; a general’s daughter who later married a prominent Australian politician, Gwenda Grimwade; and Mollee Little, a friend of Bertie’s mistress Sheila Loughborough. In June, Peter Murphy wrote to Dickie to keep him abreast of the news, mentioning that ‘there is a new debutante whom all the young men are mad about. Huge blue eyes, attractive hair, a gorgeous figure and lovely legs; just your cup of tea. Her name is Edwina Ashley and everybody tells me she is very sweet.’64

  The men passed their time playing deck hockey, clay pigeon shooting, jumping on pongo sticks, posing for nude photographs and playing juvenile pranks in-between the official programme of teas, garden parties, dances, banquets, parades, meeting ex-servicemen, naval and troop reviews. The Prince of Wales was depressed, bored and petulant, and only briefly cheered up when the train from Sydney to Perth was derailed, leaving the local Minister of Works trapped in the lavatory. The Prince himself was found ‘reclining amid the wreck of the costly compartment, smiling and smoking a cigar’, later remarking that ‘at last we have done something which was not on the official programme’.65

  Dickie’s natural enthusiasm and self-confidence had a calming effect on the highly temperamental Prince, but his close friendship – he was the only one allowed to call him David – also created some envy; Joey Legh, another courtier, in his letters home referred to Dickie as ‘Dirty Dick’ and ‘the Hun’ or ‘The Boy’. Dickie wrote to his father in June after they had arrived in Australia:

  This is very private but he hates his father & mother – both of them – and misses a father & mother so much . . . David felt rather sick so he has joined me in my cabin & never leaves it, save to go on Deck. I sleep in his cabin. He loves mine.66

  ‘As I’ve told you Dickie & I have become very close friends & after all we are relations & he knows YOU & so means a great deal to me away from you,’ wrote the Prince to Freda:

  The result is that we are more or less inseparable & are in & out of each other’s cabins all day (he’s generally in mine) & when we sleep on deck our beds are always next to each other! Well, would you believe it sweetie, the rest of the staff have for this reason become jealous of him & object to him & have gone to the Admiral with a long list of what they consider his misdeeds!! Of course they don’t mention a word about me & our being so intime but I’ve just had a long yarn with the Admiral who has just had a long talk to Dickie.67

  But it was also realised that Dickie’s closeness could be a useful way of persuading the Prince to carry out tasks he didn’t want to do.

  Halsey had asked Dickie to keep an unofficial record of the trip designed for an inner circle of courtiers. Dickie tried to keep it light-hearted and felt able to share it with his mother, brother and the Prince’s brother Bertie, but there was a brief furore when the official photographer, Ernest Brooks, disappeared with a copy and was tracked down to a London restaurant, Kettners, where he was caught trying to sell it to an American journalist for £5,000.68

  Dickie had usurped the Prince of Wales’s younger brother Bertie as confidant. In a letter to his mother, Mountbatten wrote:

  He told me that before he came out his best friend was Bertie but what a useless fellow as a true friend. He’s a dear good stupid pompous & faithful old soul – as David himself describes him, but as for his having a good effect on David. It’s all the good that’s going ou
t of David into him. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you before exactly what friends David & I are. I’ve told him more about myself & he has told me more about himself than either of us ever have told anyone in our life before.69

  On the final stretch of the trip, Dickie produced a film of manoeuvres at sea, which could be used ‘to facilitate the teaching of fleet manoeuvres by means of a kinematograph film’, and which Halsey forwarded to the Admiralty, who adopted it. It became known as the Mountbatten System Manoeuvre Tuition and became a mainstay of naval training.70

  HMS Renown returned on 11 October. The seven-month trip had been a formative experience for the young naval officer. Not only had he forged a close friendship with his future king, but he had met a whole range of people and made connections that he would usefully later exploit.71 He had seen the world and had matured, learnt how to meet and engage with crowds. Now all set for a sublieutenant’s course at Portsmouth, he felt ready to settle down.

  * * *

  Back from her travels, no one knew what to do with Edwina. Cassell, aware of the difficult relationship with Molly and lonely himself, suggested Edwina come and live at Brook House and act as his hostess. With the end of the war, he had begun to entertain more and Edwina took on the role not only of companion but, working with his secretary, Stella Underhill, social secretary responsible for table plans, invitations and supervising the staff; not just at Brook House, but at Six Mile Bottom and Moulton Paddocks, his shooting and racing estates outside Newmarket.

  She was a natural, but it was an unexciting life for a teenager living alone with a man almost 50 years older. Much as he loved her, seeing in her all the lost promise of his dead wife and daughter, he could be very controlling – checking her post and forbidding any meetings outside the house without a chaperone. Charles (later Sir) Baring, three years her senior, often saw her when both were staying in the South of France during the winter of 1920. ‘She talked very openly to me about life, and what she wanted from it,’ he later remembered. ‘She knew nothing at that time, but she did know that she was going to play some significant part in the world. She really had a great sense of destiny, but didn’t know what it was.’72