The Mountbattens

by Andrew Lownie

  35Conditions only improved after one ‘snottie’ broke his back and was permanently crippled when the ropes of his hammock were cut and he crashed onto the steel deck.

  36Morgan, p. 65.

  37Richard Hough, Edwina, p. 46, says January 1919.

  38His friend from Osborne, Kit Bradford, was art director. Copies at MB6/M3, Hartley Library.

  39Mountbatten to his mother, MB6/M/164, Hartley Library.

  40Further stories appeared in Royal Magazine, September 1919 and January 1920.

  41Peter Murphy reminiscences, pp. 36–7, Hartley Library.

  42Its Commander, Geoffrey Layton, later served under Dickie as Commander-in-Chief Ceylon during the Second World War.

  43Mountbatten to his mother, 30 November 1917, MB6/M/60, Hartley Library.

  44Ibid., 22 January 1918.

  45Ibid. Hilda Blackburne, two years younger than Dickie, was like the Queen Mother, the granddaughter of the 13th Earl of Strathmore.

  46MB1/A11, Hartley Library. The girls were: Peggy Peyton, daughter of a retired colonel in the Indian Army, whom he thought he would marry; Poppy Baring, who was to become a close friend; the actress Phyllis Clare.

  47The sister of Nada married to Dickie’s brother George.

  48Morgan, p. 77.

  49Mountbatten to his mother, 16 December 1916, MB6/M/151, Hartley Library.

  50B.B. Cubett to Under Secretary of State at Foreign Office, 22 March 1918, WO 339/55276, TNA.

  51Peter Murphy, ‘Reminiscences and Comments concerning Lord Mountbatten’, BA S319, quoted Ziegler, p. 51.

  52Anon, Demosthenes Demobilised (W. Heffer, 1920), p. 49.

  53Demosthenes, p. 76.

  54Mountbatten to his mother, 20 December 1919, MB6/M/60, Hartley Library.

  55She later became less favourably disposed. ‘Lady Cunard, who is always original, said that Lord Louis Mountbatten was one of the most tedious men she knew; he thought a mask of superficial charm could compensate for never having read a book’, 19 December 1947, John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955 (Hodder, 1985).

  56Mountbatten to his mother, 28 December 1919, MB6/M/60, Hartley Library.

  57Mountbatten to his father, 16 December 1919, MB6/M151, Hartley Library. Her other suitors included the son of the Duke of Marlborough and Peregrine Cust, later 6th Baron Brownlow, a Lockers Park contemporary of Mountbatten, who became a great friend of both him and the future Edward VII. Audrey later also had an affair with Edward.

  58Mountbatten to his mother, 28 December 1919, MB6/M/60, Hartley Library.

  59Ibid., 12 October 1919.

  Chapter 3: First Loves

  60Rupert Godfrey (ed.), Letters from a Prince (Little, Brown, 1998), p. 256.

  61Mountbatten to his mother, 21 March 1920, MB6/M/61, Hartley Library.

  62Ibid.

  63Interview Mike Hutchinson, 2 May 2017.

  64Briefing note ‘Edwina’, A3002/2/1/9, p. 1, Hartley Library.

  65Unofficial diary 8 July 1920 and 5 July 1920, quoted Ziegler, p. 58.

  66Mountbatten to his father, 29 June 1920, MB6/M/151, Hartley Library.

  67Godfrey, Letters, p. 280.

  68For years afterwards Mountbatten was giving Brooks money and telling him to stop pestering him, suggesting some form of blackmail. MB1/C37, Hartley Library.

  69Mountbatten to his mother, 15 July 1920, MB6/M/61, Hartley Library.

  70MB1/A10, Hartley Library. Mountbatten’s inventions of the period can be found at MB1/N11, Hartley Library.

  71He made a point of keeping George V abreast of the tour, for example, writing him a 12-page letter with illustrations after the Royal Train was in an accident in Australia in July, Royal Archives (hereafter RA) PS/PSO/GV/C/O/1548A/48.

  72Hough, Edwina, p. 51.

  73He was later a Conservative MP and 8th Baron Dynevor.

  74Morgan, p. 85.

  75Mountbatten to his mother, 3 January 1921, MB6/M/61, Hartley Library.

  76Ibid., 30 January 1921.

  77Ibid., 31 January 1921.

  78Ibid., 30 June 1921. In March 1922 she married Dudley Coats, heir to a textile fortune, or as the wags put it, swopping coats of arms for the arms of Coats.

  79They were married in April 1923.

  80Their children, Charles and Poppy, were friendly with Edwina and Poppy was an ex-girlfriend of Dickie and the Prince of Wales.

  81Mountbatten to his mother, 8 August 1921, MB6/M/61, Hartley Library.

  82‘Edwina’, MS350 A3002/2/1/9, Hartley Library.

  83Morgan, p. 90.

  84‘Edwina’, p. 3, MS350 A3002/2/1/9, Hartley Library.

  85Ibid., p. 4.

  86Hough, Edwina, p. 65.

  87‘Edwina’, MS350 A3002/2/1/9, Hartley Library.

  88Mountbatten later claimed he had not proposed, one of many examples of his rewriting the truth. ‘Edwina’, p. 6, MS 350 A3002/2/1/9, Hartley Library.

  Chapter 4: Duty

  89Mountbatten to Edwina, 26 October 1921, BA S131, quoted Ziegler, p. 68.

  90Michael Torby to Zia Werner, 11 November 1921, quoted Raleigh Trevelyan, Grand Dukes and Diamonds: The Wernhers of Luton Hoo (Secker & Warburg, 1991), p. 293.

  91She was the great-grandmother of TV presenter and historian Dan Snow.

  92Olwen Carey Evans, Lloyd George Was My Father (Gomer Press, 1985), p. 121.

  93Carey Evans, Lloyd George, p. 122. Evans was cross Edwina never thanked for the silver trinket box given as a wedding present.

  94Mountbatten unofficial diary, 13 January 1922.

  95Morgan, p. 108.

  96Lady Reading to Wilfrid Ashley, 20 February 1921, Reading Papers, quoted Philip Ziegler (ed.), The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten 1920–1922 (Collins, 1987), p. 254.

  97Mountbatten to his mother, 14 February 1921, MB6/M/63, Hartley Library.

  98Dickie’s school and naval friend Kip Bradford had thought he would be best man. Ziegler says 14th, p. 69 and Smith the 13th, p. 41 and Morgan, 10 February, p. 112.

  99Richard Thorpe, Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden 1897–1977 (Chatto, 2003), p. 52.

  100Ziegler, 1920–1922, p. 255.

  101Margaret Greville to Lord Reading, 20 February 21922, Reading MSS Eur E 238, F 118, British Library.

  102Ziegler, 1920–1922, p. 257 and Ziegler, p. 69.

  103Ibid., pp. 257–8.

  104Mountbatten to his mother, 21 February 1921, MB6/M/63, Hartley Library.

  105Ibid.

  106Morgan, p. 124.

  107His report to Admiral Halsey is at MB1/A16, Hartley Library.

  108Hough, Edwina, p. 78 incorrectly claims Edwina met him at Plymouth.

  109It included 700 hand-painted dinner place cards.

  Chapter 5: Honeymoon

  110Thorogood the valet had gone ahead by rail with most of the luggage.

  111Mountbatten to his mother, 30 July 1922, MB6/M/63, Hartley Library.

  112Mountbatten to his mother, MB1/A107 folder 2, Hartley Library. According to Hough, Edwina, p. 91, Edwina made a pass at Chaplin.

  113https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/films/1-The-Kid/articles/300-Nice-and-Friendly. Together with the film of his wedding, it remained amongst Dickie’s favourite viewing pleasures.

  114The World, 5 October 1922.

  115Meriden Daily Journal, 16 October 1922.

  116Edward certainly took credit. He wrote ‘it was my intervention with my papa that saved your neck from the Navy axe in 1922!’ Windsor to Mountbatten, 7 October 1966, RA EDW/PRIV/MAIN/A/11349. He had invested in a business producing gramophones with the Prince of Wales and Duke of York.

  117Richard Baker, The Terror of Tobermory (W.H. Allen, 1972), p. 85.

  118Len Wincott, MB1/N100, Hartley Library.

  119Morgan, p. 154.

  120He celebrated by racing down from the island’s summit in basket toboggans and then gambling in the casino, buying a tiny rocking chair with his winnings.

  121Mountbatten to Edwina, 14 February 1924, BA S138, quot
ed Ziegler, pp. 106–17.

  122She later married P.G. Wodehouse’s co-librettist Guy Bolton, most famous for Three Blind Mice.

  Source Notes Chapter 6: A Marriage Under Threat

  123The notes of his lectures can be found at MB5/8.

  124Joan Alexander, Mabel Strickland (Progress Press, 1996), p. 86.

  125Davis later married the actress Louise Brooks.

  126It may have lasted longer. Kate Meyrick, whose Regent Street club the ‘Silver Slipper’ opened in 1927, writes in her memoirs of Sefton and ‘Lady Louis Mountbatten with her priceless jewellery, her arms covered with diamond bracelets’ sharing a table. Kate Meyrick, Secrets of the 43 (John Long, 1933), p. 160.

  127She was also the lover of Randolph Churchill and allegedly, his father, Winston. She married Lord Castlerosse in 1928 but divorced him in 1938 – the co-respondent was the homosexual Robert Heber-Percy, whom she was claiming to ‘cure’. See Lyndsy Spence, The Mistress of Mayfair (The History Press, 2016).

  128Mountbatten diary, 3 December 1925, quoted Morgan, p. 191 and Ziegler, p. 111.

  129San Francisco Chronicle, 3 October 1926.

  130Mountbatten to Edwina, 12 January 1927, BA S139, quoted Ziegler, pp. 112–13.

  131Mountbatten to Andrew Yates, 13 October 1926, quoted Ziegler, p. 80.

  132Hough, Mountbatten, p. 77.

  133Hugh Molyneux and Laddie Sandford were amongst the guests. For footage, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjIsneWNXoo.

  134Morgan, p. 204.

  135Beaverbrook to Paul Cravath, 20 January 1928, BBK/C/255, House of Lords Record Office.

  136Edwina to Mountbatten, 3 September 1928, BA S52, quoted Ziegler, p. 113.

  137Mountbatten to his mother, 18 August 1928, MB6/M/65, Hartley Library.

  138Ibid., 15 September 1928.

  139New York Mirror, 15 September 1928.

  140New York News, 15 September 1928.

  141Troy Budget, 16 September 1928.

  Chapter 7: Divergent Paths

  142Mountbatten to his mother, 25 April 1929, MB6/M/65, Hartley Library. However, Hough claims the lack of a male heir ‘became a subject of much bitterness between them.’ Edwina, p. 119.

  143Edwina to Mountbatten, 29 April 1929, BA S55, quoted Ziegler, p. 114.

  144Mountbatten to his mother, 30 June 1929, MB6/M/65, Hartley Library.

  145J77/2681/3249, TNA.

  146His record can be found at ADM 196/145/516 and service in SOE at HS 9/1364/4, TNA. Details of the case are at MB1/A89, Hartley Library.

  147An assessment of Mountbatten as a signal officer can be found in ‘Mountbatten – Signal Officer Supreme’ by Captain Gordon Wilson, a paper given at the September 1990 conference ‘Aspects of British Defence and Naval Policy in the Mountbatten Era’ kindly supplied by Captain Wilson.

  148Vice Admiral Sir Peter Dawnay, MB1/N99, Hartley Library.

  1491 January 1930, MB1/O5, Hartley Library.

  150Stefan Buczacki, My Darling Mr Asquith (Cato Clark), p. 293 and John Carswell, The Exile: A Life of Ivy Litvinov (Faber, 1983), p. 124.

  151John Foster Dulles was another passenger.

  152Morgan, p. 212.

  153Ibid., p. 214.

  154Ibid., p. 216.

  155Mountbatten diary, March 1931, quoted Morgan, p. 217.

  156Morgan, p. 218.

  157Ibid., p. 219.

  158May 1931, BA S 139, quoted Ziegler, p. 112.

  159Morgan, p. 220.

  160Ibid.

  161Ibid.

  Chapter 8: A Terrible Scandal

  162His later girlfriends included Barbara Hutton and Beaverbrook’s daughter Janet.

  163Morgan, p. 221.

  164The Cassell will settlement can be found at J84/161, TNA.

  165Morgan, p. 223.

  166Ibid., p. 224.

  167Mountbatten to his mother, 22 September 1931, MB6/M/65, Hartley Library.

  168Charlotte Breese, Hutch (Bloomsbury, 1999), pp. 105–6. Ziegler says 20 May.

  169Mountbatten to his mother, 27 June 1932, MB6/M/65, Hartley Library.

  170Ibid.

  171The deposition for the case J54/2101 is one of the few cases of the period missing from the National Archives, nor is there any material lodged in the Mountbatten papers at Southampton.

  172Edwina’s diary, 3 July 1932, quoted Ziegler, p. 114.

  173Ziegler, p. 114.

  174Morgan, p. 225.

  175Ibid., p. 227.

  176Ibid., p. 238.

  177Duberman, pp. 160–1. Certainly, according to the producer, John Krimsky, Edwina knew Robeson in 1933 because he met her and Dickie then in Robeson’s suite at The Dorchester. Duberman, p. 618.

  178Breese, p. 109.

  179Ibid., p. 108.

  180Hough, Edwina, p. 128.

  181Pamela Hicks interview, 28 April 2017.

  182Breese, pp. 111–12, lists various occurrences of them being seen together intimately.

  183Lesley Blanch, On the Wilder Shores of Love: A Bohemian Life (Virago, 2015), p. 152.

  184Charlotte Breese to the author, 28 December 2016.

  185Breese, p. 56.

  186Ibid., p. 106. ‘Rosemary d’Avigdor Goldsmid was the original source of this story, and in the author’s hearing she rang three contemporaries who confirmed that “everyone knew it was true”.’ Breese, p. 314.

  187Ibid., p. 111.

  188Ibid., p. 113.

  189In 1969, on Hutch’s death, Mountbatten offered to pay for the costs of his grave.

  190Time, 7 January 1929.

  191Ziegler, who mentions her only once, says 1926, p. 113.

  192Morgan, p. 228.

  193Ibid.

  Chapter 9: Playing to Win

  194Mountbatten diary, 17 December 1932, quoted Ziegler, p. 111.

  195Imprisoned during the Second World War in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Szapary was saved by the intervention of the future King Gustav VI of Sweden and Dickie’s brother-in-law. Szapary emigrated to America and married Gladys Vanderbilt’s daughter in 1949.

  196Morgan, p. 229.

  197Daily News, 4 July 1933.

  198His notes can be found at MB1/I4, Hartley Library.

  199Morgan, p. 232.

  200Ibid.

  201Pamela Hicks, Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten (Weidenfeld, 2012), pp. 25–6.

  202‘South American Trip’, Marjorie Brecknock diary, p. 37, by kind permission of 6th Marquess Camden.

  203Brecknock, p. 50.

  204Ibid., p. 52.

  205Captain E.G. Roper, MB1/N100A, Hartley Library.

  206MB1/A48, Hartley Library.

  207The press sometimes reported that her secretary Major Phillips accompanied her.

  208Quoted https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a8013/gloria-vanderbilt-custody-trial/.

  209She quickly lost interest in her young charge, who went on to marry four times, including the conductor Leopold Stokowski and film director Sidney Lumet.

  210The Milford Haven visitors book shows her staying almost continuously between mid-August to the end of October 1929, ten weeks during the last six months of 1930 and from April to June 1931. MB2/J5, Hartley Library.

  211Mountbatten, Eighty Years, p. 117.

  212Brian Hoey, Mountbatten: The Private Story (Sidgwick, 1994), p. 171.

  213Morgan, p. 243.

  214Ibid., p. 245.

  215Ibid., p. 245.

  216Ibid., p. 246.

  217Ibid., p. 248.

  218Edwina to Mountbatten, 1 January 1936, BA S62, quoted Ziegler, p. 117.

  219Hicks, Daughter of Empire, p. 40.

  220Ibid., p. 29.

  221MB1/A38, Hartley Library, for further details. Chapter 10: Problems in the Family

  222Mountbatten diary, 25 January 1936, quoted Ziegler, p. 93.

  223Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956), pp. 250, 252.

  224Charles Higham, Mrs Simpson: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor (Sidgwick, 1988), pp. 195–6.r />
  2257 December 1937, RA EDW/PRIV/MAIN/A/3050.

  226Edwina diary, 10 December 1936.

  227Edwina diary, 9 February 1937, quoted Morgan, p. 256.

  228Morgan, p. 256.

  229Mountbatten diary, 12 March 1937, quoted Anne de Courcy, The Viceroy’s Daughters (Weidenfeld, 2000), p. 252.

  230Morgan, p. 256.

  231Mountbatten to Edward, 15 March 1937, RA EDW/PRIV/MAIN/A/3172.

  232Mountbatten to Edward, 5 May 1937, RA EDW/PRIV/MAIN/A/3206.

  233Ibid.

  234Hicks, Daughter of Empire, p. 44.

  235Mountbatten to his mother, 12 February 1938, MB6/M/66, Hartley Library.

  236Mountbatten, Eighty Years, p. 127.

  237Part of the collection is at the British Library and part at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. For example, the Paris Catalogue 1901–2, has ‘of the latest Photographic Novelties’ the Square Game ‘a splendid ensemble of rakes in rut enlightened by the charming novelty and the sketched forms of a virgin of eleven’, CUP 364 G 48 Album 7, British Library.

  238Hough, Mountbatten, p. 85.

  239Mountbatten to Edwina, 16 March 1938, Lady Mountbatten papers, quoted Ziegler, p. 102.

  240Mountbatten to Duff Cooper, 1 October 1938, DUFC 2/14, Churchill College, Cambridge.

  241Morgan, p. 266.

  242Ibid., p. 268.

  243Ibid., p. 269.

  244Ibid., p. 271.

  245Michael Cunningham-Reid (1928–2014), a hotelier in Kenya and the first non-national to be granted a Republic of Kenya passport, and Noel Cunningham-Reid (1930–2017), later a racing driver.

  246The films can be seen at https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/real-country-house/.

  247According to a family story, ‘Bobby hired the actor, Henri Garat, to have an affair with Mary . . .’, Fiona Cunningham-Reid, his granddaughter, email to the author, 30 March 2018.

  Chapter 11: At War

  248Michael Wardell, ‘With Mountbatten in the Kelly’ in The Atlantic Advocate, November 1957, vol. 48, no. 3.

  249It was repainted in the more orthodox Admiralty Dark Grey almost immediately afterwards.

  250Morgan, p. 274.

  251Richard Hough, Bless Our Ship: Mountbatten and the Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), p. 68.

  252Ray Murphy, The Last Viceroy (Jarrolds, 1948), p. 93.

  253Daily Mirror, 7 December 1940.

  254Morgan, p. 275.

  255Ibid.

  256Mountbatten to his mother, 13 September 1940, MB6/M/66, Hartley Library.