The Mountbattens

by Andrew Lownie

  447Morgan, p. 409.

  448Sir Patrick Spens, the resigning Chief Justice of India, had been a unanimous choice by all parties, but for some reason he was never called upon.

  449He had arrived expecting to be given several months.

  450Leonard Mosley, The Last Days of the British Raj (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961), p. 199.

  4519 August 1947, Hamid, p. 222. See also Ziegler, p. 417, for why the awards were not announced before Independence.

  452Ismay to his wife, 5 August 1947, Ismay papers 111/8/13A, quoted Ziegler, p. 365.

  45313 August 1947, Hamid, p. 228.

  454Hamid claims that Mountbatten had actually wanted the drive cancelled or a closed car used. 14 August 1947, Hamid, p. 229.

  455TTOP, vol. XII, p. 773.

  456Ibid., p. 771.

  457Attlee to Mountbatten, 16 August 1947, S 147, quoted Ziegler, p. 427.

  458Supposedly the title was suggested by George VI, Mountbatten to King George VI, 19 August 1947, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/24/160.

  459Mountbatten to Edwina, 18 August 1947, S 147, quoted Ziegler, p. 427 and Morgan, p. 412.

  460Radcliffe destroyed all his notes and drafts in connection with the Boundary Commissions before he left India.

  Chapter 19: Governor-General

  461It consisted of three separate reports and maps – the Punjab, Bengal and Sylhet/Assam.

  462Chittagong was completely cut off from India by East Pakistan, so though the population was predominantly Buddhist and Hindu, it made logical sense.

  463Kanwar Singh, Reminiscences of an Engineer (Young Asia Publications, 1978), p. 90 and Hamid, p. 234. Radcliffe, aware of the complexities of the irrigation system, had hoped the two states might exercise joint control in certain areas, but this never happened.

  464This role should have been taken by someone independent, probably from Britain.

  465Hamid, p. 222.

  466P28 Stephens box 45/59, South East Asia Studies Centre and India Office Library, Mss Eur F 180/79, British Library.

  4672 April 1948, Ismay Mss, 111/7/24a, Mountbatten told Ismay to burn the letter. Von Tunzelmann argues that Chittagong was already a compensation for the loss of Calcutta, p. 234.

  468The full story is in Christopher Beaumont, ‘The Truth of the Partition of the Punjab in August 1947’ (privately distributed, 1992). By kind permission of Robert Beaumont.

  469Christie, 10 Mss Eur D 718/3 Part 2, India Office Library.

  470Noel Baker to Attlee, 26 February 1948, PREM 8/821, TNA.

  471TTOP, vol. XII, pp. 131–7.

  472Ibid., p. 267.

  473Robin Neillands, A Fighting Retreat (Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), p. 77.

  474Philip Ziegler, ‘Mountbatten Revisited’ (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre, 1995), p. 22.

  475Philip Ziegler, ‘Mountbatten Revisited’ in Wm Roger Louis (ed.), More Adventures with Britannia (University of Texas Press, 1998), p. 199.

  476For more background see Robin Jeffrey, ‘The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947’, Modern Asian Studies, 8.4 (1974), pp. 491–520.

  477Mountbatten to King George VI, 2 September 1947, RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/052/098B.

  478Lawrence James, The Raj (Abacus, 1997), p. 636.

  479Khalid Sayeed, Pakistan: The Formative Phase (1968), pp. 168–9.

  480Mountbatten to George VI, 11 September 1947, BA D86.

  481Stephens, pp. 109–10 and Stephens box 41/47, South East Asia Centre, Cambridge University.

  Chapter 20: A Deeper Attachment

  482Ismay papers, 111/8/20 H, King’s College London.

  483RA GVI/PRIV/DIARY/1945: 14 October.

  484The forms and Mountbatten’s instructions can be found at RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/270/25 and 26.

  485M to Chuter Ede, 27 January 1947, RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/270/30.

  486Philip to Mountbatten, 29 February 1947, BA S 176, cited Ziegler, p. 457.

  487In fact, under the 1705 Act of Parliament, all descendants of the Electress Sophie of Hanover were British subjects, which Philip was through Queen Victoria, as Dilhorne, a former Lord Chancellor, subsequently pointed out to Mountbatten. Dilhorne to Mountbatten, 22 November 1972, MB1/K200, Hartley Library.

  488Mountbatten to Driberg, 3 August 1947, MB1/E49, Hartley Library.

  489Morgan, p. 419.

  490Ibid., pp. 423–4.

  491Edwina to Sargent, 23 January 1948, MS Mus 1784/1/12, British Library.

  492Eighty Years, p. 184

  493Fortunately, it turned out to be a member of the extremist group Hindu Mahasabha.

  494Edwina to Nehru, 28 September 1947, Nehru papers by kind permission of Susan Williams.

  495Edwina to Nehru, 3 October 1947, Nehru papers, Susan Williams papers.

  496Nehru to Edwina, 14 April 1948, quoted Ziegler, p. 473 and Morgan, p. 428.

  497Mountbatten to King George VI, 14 May 1948, RA C 052/1148.

  498Morgan, p. 428.

  499Daughter of Empire, p. 173.

  500Morgan, p. 428.

  501Ibid., p. 429.

  502Nehru to Edwina, 12 March 1957, Broadlands un-catalogued Archives, quoted Ziegler, p. 473.

  503Daughter of Empire, pp. 174–5.

  504Morgan, p. 430.

  505Ibid.

  506Ibid.

  507Ziegler, p. 479.

  508Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten (Robert Hale, 1951), p. 351.

  509Stanley Wolpert, Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny (OUP, 1996), p. 436.

  510India Remembered, p. 228.

  511Daughter of Empire, p. 177. Nehru recovered fast. Within a few days he was seeing a former lover, the diplomat Clare Boothe Luce. Wolpert, Nehru, p. 436.

  Chapter 21: Malta Again

  512Daughter of Empire, p. 178.

  513Morgan, p. 433.

  514Ibid., p. 434.

  515Ibid.

  516Mountbatten to Duke of Windsor, 14 September 1948, RA EDW/PRIV/MAIN/A/7302.

  517Morgan, p. 434.

  518MB1/J51, Hartley Library.

  519The options to the Prime Minister are given in ADM 1/22697, TNA.

  520Mountbatten interviewed May 1972, MB6/M/151, Hartley Library.

  521Morgan, p. 437.

  522Daughter of Empire, p. 185.

  523Manley Power, unpublished memoir, MANP 1, Churchill College Archives, pp. 93–6.

  524Interview Ron Perks, 19 May 2018.

  525Ibid.

  526Ibid.

  527Morgan, p. 439.

  528Mountbatten to his mother, 30 November 1948, MB6/M/68, Hartley Library.

  529Morgan, p. 440.

  530The guest in between was Malcolm Sargent.

  531Morgan, p. 450.

  532Mountbatten to Edwina, 17 June 1949, BA S147, quoted Ziegler, pp. 483–4 and Morgan, p. 442.

  533Morgan, p. 443.

  534Mountbatten to Edwina, 17 June 1949, BA S147, quoted Ziegler, p. 484 and Morgan, p. 443.

  535Mountbatten to his mother, 12 July 1949, MB6/M/68, Hartley Library.

  536Morgan, p. 448.

  537Ibid.

  538Daughter of Empire, pp. 187–8.

  539Mountbatten to Edwina, 11 July 1949, BA S147, quoted Ziegler, p. 489 and Morgan, p. 445.

  540Beaverbrook to Driberg, 1 August 1952, Beaverbrook papers c/122, quoted Ziegler, p. 489.

  541Ruling Passions, p. 225.

  542Martin Dillon to the author, 4 April 2018.

  543MB1/H39, Hartley Library. cf. MB1/C20/1 on Mountbatten’s account of the feud.

  544Wardell to Mountbatten, 7 June 1972, MB1/K25, Hartley Library.

  545Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 225.

  546Anne Chisholm and Michael Davie, Lord Beaverbrook: A Life (Hutchinson, 1992), pp. 493–4. Mountbatten told Richard Hough that the vendetta was because of his suspected affair with Jean Norton but denied it. Hough, Mountbatten, pp. 141–2.

  547Philip Eade, Young Philip (Collins, 2011), p. 186 and Janet Aitken, The Beaverbrook Girl: An Autobiography (Collins, 1987), p. 133.

/>   548Morgan, p. 444.

  549Ziegler, p. 513.

  550Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (Heinemann, 1996), p. 158.

  551Mountbatten to his mother, 20 December 1949, MB6/M/68, Hartley Library.

  552Ziegler, p. 495.

  553Ibid.

  554MB1/O5, Hartley Library.

  555Mountbatten to Patricia, 12 August 1949, Ziegler, p. 497.

  556Morgan, p. 457.

  557After Queen Mary’s death, it was agreed just before the birth of Prince Andrew in 1960 that all descendants not entitled to be called Royal Highness would take the name Mountbatten-Windsor. Mountbatten in his lineage tables stated the House of Mountbatten reigned from 8 February to 9 April 1952.

  558John Gordon to Beaverbrook, May 1952, BBK H/121, House of Lords.

  559Michael Bloch, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor (Bantam Press, 1988), pp. 257, 265.

  560Mountbatten to Edwina, 28 February 1952, BA S149, Ziegler, p. 501 and Morgan, p. 466.

  56128 February and 5 March 1952, Guy Liddell Diary, KV 4/474 TNA. I am grateful to Nigel West for the reference.

  562James Thomas to Mountbatten, 4 September 1952, MB1/H260, Hartley Library.

  56319 September 1944, Chips Channon, p. 394.

  564Interview Lady Pamela Hicks, 26 April 2017.

  565The correspondence can be found at CHAN 4/8-4/9 Churchill College Archive, Cambridge. In 1954 the FBI opened a file on her, concerned about her relationship with Krishna Menon, who was suspected of being anti-American.

  The Mountbattens Chapter 22: Separate Lives

  566Daughter of Empire, p. 207.

  567Lt Commander Brian Smith, email to author, 21 May 2019.

  568Ibid.

  569An account of the cruise and Sargent’s chasing of teenage girls can be found in Masha Williams’ In the Bey’s Palace (Book Guild, 1990), pp. 139–57.

  570Barratt, p. 62. This may be the relationship with the wife of a junior officer where Mountbatten was required to pay off the press. Private information.

  571Philip to Mountbatten, 10 February 1953, BA S180, Ziegler, p. 514. Asked who saluted whom when they met, Philip replied, ‘We both salute, but only one of us means it.’

  572Morgan, p. 475. John Barratt claims they had also discussed divorce so Edwina could marry Bunny Phillips, Barratt, p. 61, and that they had contemplated divorce in 1946. Private information.

  573She had initially thought of giving them to Paula Long. Morgan, p. 475.

  574Edwina to Mountbatten, 8 February 1952, BA S72 quoted Ziegler, p. 474 & Morgan, p. 476.

  575BA S149, quoted Ziegler, p. 474 & Morgan, p. 476.

  576Morgan, p. 438.

  577Ibid., p. 447.

  578A.N. Wilson, After the Victorians (Hutchinson, 2005), p. 494.

  579Interview Karan Tharpar, Outlook, 7 October 2009.

  580Ziegler, p. 473.

  581Ashley Hicks, 1 February 2017, Daily Telegraph. Pandit is also supposed to have said, when asked if her brother had an affair with Edwina, ‘If the relationship did become intimate . . . I’m glad.’ Los Angeles Times, 2 January 1988.

  582Edwina to Mountbatten, 8 February 1952, BA S72, quoted Ziegler, p. 474 & Morgan, p. 476.

  583Hough, Edwina, p. 185.

  584Ibid.

  585Hamid, p. 172.

  586https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/if-i-werent-a-sanyasin-he-would-have-married-me/223036.

  587Dr Zareer Masani to the author, 12 February 2017.

  588Ahmed, p. 147 and M.J. Akbar, Nehru: The Making of India (Viking, 1988), p. 391.

  589Ahmed, pp. 146–147.

  590Wolpert, Nehru, p. viii.

  591Breese, pp. 307–8.

  592Hamid, p. 153.

  593Ahmed, pp. 132–3.

  594Morgan, pp. 477–8.

  Chapter 23: Sea Lord

  595Edwina to Ismay, 5 August 1954, Ismay papers IV/Mou/43b, King’s College London.

  596McGrigor to Mountbatten, 15 September 1954, MB1/H266, Hartley Library.

  597Manley Power unpublished memoir, p. 106, Churchill College Archive, Cambridge.

  598Ziegler, p. 528.

  599Morgan, p. 459.

  600Barratt, p. 36.

  601Ibid., p. 37, for the rest of the story.

  602Ibid., pp. 37–8.

  603See Mike and Jacqui Welham, The Crabb Enigma (Matador, 2010) and Don Hale, The Final Dive (Sutton, 2007).

  604Vice Admiral Sir Norman Denning, 11 April 1972. The document is retained under section 3(4) but was supplied to the author on 16 June 2018.

  605Sydney Knowles, A Diver in the Dark (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009), pp. 92, 132.

  606Dick White to Mountbatten, 20 July 1965, MB1/J327a, Hartley Library.

  607Personal and Confidential Note, 7 or 8 September 1956, MB1/N106, Hartley Library.

  608Draft, 20 August 1956, MB1/N106, Hartley Library.

  609Mountbatten to Eden, 2 November 1956, MB1/N106, Hartley Library, cf. PREM 11/1090, TNA.

  610Mountbatten interviewed May 1972, MB6/M/151, Hartley Library.

  611The couple had been introduced by Chips Channon. Hicks ‘unwisely boasted his “grand” engagement to Tony Armstrong-Jones. “Oh, I don’t call that grand,” was Tony’s testy reply. A few days later Tony announced his own engagement to Princess Margaret.’ Nicky Haslam, Redeeming Features (Knopf, 2009), pp. 98–9. Film of the wedding can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohtsWIXdZZA.

  612William Evans, My Mountbatten Years (Headline, 1989), p. 48.

  613Edwina to Mountbatten, 7 January 1960, BA S75, quoted Ziegler, p. 569.

  614Robert Turner, ‘From the Depths of my Memory’, pp. 89–90, GB 0162 Mss Brit Emp. S 454, Bodleian Library. There are also copies at MB1/J332 and MB1/R674, Hartley Library.

  615Turner, p. 89.

  616Ibid., p. 90.

  617Robin Bryans claimed she committed suicide ‘rather than face further violent quarrels with her husband’, Robin Bryans, Blackmail and Whitewash (Honeyford Press, 1996), p. 397 and argued she was buried at sea because suicides cannot be buried in consecrated ground, Robin Bryans, Checkmate (Honeyford Press, 1994), p. 437. Another rumour circulated that she had been murdered by her lover’s family after being caught in bed with a servant. Private information.

  618Hough, Edwina, p. 219.

  619Interview Lady Pamela Hicks, 26 April 2017.

  620Ziegler, p. 570.

  621Barratt, p. 47.

  622The condolence letters can be found at MB1/R598-MB1/R641, Hartley Library.

  623Charles Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten (Sidgwick, 1980), p. 125.

  624Ronald Brooke to Mountbatten, 22 February 1960, MB1/R601, Hartley Library.

  625Smith, p. 129.

  626Terry Cattermole, ‘The Last Salute’, email to author, 9 May 2017. Chapter 24: After Edwina

  627E.H. Cookridge, From Battenberg to Mountbatten (Arthur Barker, 1965), pp. 226–7.

  628Nehru to Mountbatten, 18 March 1960, MB1/J303, Hartley Library.

  629Sargent to Mountbatten, 22 November 1960, MB1/J391, Hartley Library.

  630Fairbanks to Mountbatten, 20 March 1960, MB1/J161, Hartley Library.

  631Mountbatten to Fairbanks, 31 March 1960, MB1/J161, Hartley Library.

  632Interview William Evans, 2 February 2017.

  633Ibid.

  634Ibid.

  635Mountbatten to Patricia, Lady Mountbatten papers, quoted Ziegler, p. 572.

  636Mountbatten to Grace Stevens, 29 September 1961, MB1/J428, Hartley Library.

  637MB1/J95, Hartley Library.

  638The Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 73, issue 1, 1987, p. 78.

  639Philip Ziegler (ed.), From Shore to Shore: The Final Years, The Diaries of Earl Mountbatten of Burma 1953–1979 (Collins, 1989), p. 572. According to John Barratt, his employer although ‘he had quite a number of sexual liaisons, he seemed to be quite happy, even during the years he was married, with long periods of celibacy’, Barratt, p. 56.

  640Mountbatten
to Sibilla O’Donnell, 24 November 1962, by kind permission of Sibilla Tomacelli.

  641Tour Diary 1953–1979, p. 6 and MB8/10, Hartley Library.

  642Mountbatten to Sibilla O’Donnell, 5 March 1963, by kind permission of Sibilla Tomacelli.

  643Ibid., 28 March 1963.

  644Sibilla O’Donnell to Mountbatten, 17 January 1964, by kind permission of Sibilla Tomacelli.

  645Barratt, p. 68.

  646Hoey, pp. 83, 86.

  647Ibid., p. 87.

  648Ibid., p. 88.

  649Ibid., p. 88.

  650Ibid., p. 89.

  651Ibid., p. 90.

  652Ibid., p. 89.

  653Ibid., p. 83.

  654Barratt, p. 66.

  655Interview William Evans, 2 February 2017.

  656Barratt, pp. 56, 63. Writing to a friend in 1949, Mountbatten had requested pictures of women riding in a rodeo ‘from the side and back’. Mountbatten to Jock Lawrence, 24 July 1949, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Archives.

  657William Evans, quoted Hoey, p. 96.

  658Barratt, p. 64.

  659Interview Mary Lou Emery, 13 June 2017.

  660Barratt, pp. 64–5.

  661Philippa de Pass to the author, 4 May 2019.

  662Private information.

  663William Stadiem, Madame Claude (St Martin’s Press, 2018), p. 269. Mountbatten knew de Rothschild on the polo circuit.

  664Mountbatten Diaries 1953–1979, p. 117.

  665Christopher Plummer, In Spite of Myself (Knopf, 2008), p. 415. The film was released in 1963.

  666Mountbatten Diaries 1953–1979, 20 March 1965, quoted Ziegler, p. 606.

  667Interview William Evans, 27 March 2018, and phone call William Evans to author, 7 February 2017. Sibilla Tomacelli also thought they had an affair. Interview Sibilla Tomacelli, 21 April 2017.

  668According to John Barratt, she had an affair with Prince Philip, quoted Davies, p. 181. When she divorced Ford in 1976, he accused her of being the lover of Imelda Marcos.

  669Mountbatten to Sibilla Tomacelli, 13 January 1969, by kind permission of Sibilla Tomacelli.

  670Richard Hough, Other Days Around Me (Hodder, 1992), p. 198.

  671Evans, p. 76.

  672Mountbatten to Barbara Cartland, 7 December 1961, MB1/J277, Hartley Library.

  673Ibid., 13 December 1962.

  674Tim Heald, Barbara Cartland (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), p. 181. A 2006 BBC4 drama In Love with Barbara suggested they had an affair. According to her son, ‘she destroyed her letters from him before she died’, Ian McCorquodale email to the author, 24 October 2016. According to the Daily Mail, 18 March 2017, she claimed Mountbatten had told her that Prince Philip had an illegitimate daughter in Australia.