Andrew Lownie - The Mountbattens

ANDREW LOWNIE

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An abundance of vivid detail a matchless and splendidly exciting read The Times

An astonishing piece of research Sunday Times

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A remarkable and definitive portrait Frederick Forsyth

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An affectionate, admirably well-researched study from an intelligent biographer. Well worth reading Daily Mail

Andrew Lownie has brought this most extraordinary man to life in a way no previous writer has Independent

ANDREW LOWNIE

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No biography has any value unless it is written with warts and all.
LORD MOUNTBATTEN

Writing to Richard Hough about how he would like to be acknowledged in Houghs book, Louis and Victoria, Dickie Mountbatten suggested: Naval officer who became First Sea Lord after being Supreme Allied Commander and Viceroy of India and thus the best-known figure the Navy has produced since Nelson, as well as being the President of the Society of Genealogists.

The entry reveals much Mountbattens achievements, what he valued and his pomposity. No figure has a longer entry in Whos Who, apart from Winston Churchill, partly because every minor organisation is mentioned, but also because Dickie Mountbatten had a remarkable life.

As one obituary noted, It seemed almost unbelievable that one human being could have touched the history of our century at so many points.Chief of the Defence Staff, member of the Royal Family and mentor of Prince Philip and Prince Charles: his life, which covered the first 80 years of the 20th century, also provides an opportunity to look at some of the most important and controversial issues of the period, from the 1942 Dieppe Raid to Indian independence. His biography cannot be told without also considering the life of his wife, Edwina, the richest heiress in the world when they married, whose reputation for her global humanitarian work endures.

Philip Zieglers magisterial official life of Dickie was published in 1985 and Janet Morgans deft authorised life of Edwina came out six years later. What is missing is a shorter, joint biography of these two remarkable figures, a book which is also a portrait of an unusual marriage one that was loving and mutually supportive, but also beset with infidelities. As Dickie would later claim, Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other peoples beds.

With the Mountbattens, the private life did intrude into the public life, not least in the question over the nature of the relationship between Edwina and the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and how far it affected the perception of the impartiality of the Mountbattens during Independence.

Even after countless books on the couple, the questions remain. Was Mountbatten one of the outstanding leaders of his generation, or a man over-promoted because of his royal birth, high-level connections, film-star looks and ruthless self-promotion? What is the true story behind controversies such as the Dieppe Raid and Indian Partition and the love affair between Edwina and Nehru? The authorised biographies had certain subjects they had to cover and to avoid. Now 30 years later, with many of those involved in the story dead, with new papers released and different sensitivities, there is a case for a new book.

The interesting biography will be the one that is published in 30 or 40 years time when the dust has settled, wrote Mountbattens military assistant Pat MacLellan to Brian Kimmins, a wartime member of Dickies staff, in 1980.

This book is that attempt.

TUESDAY, 18 JULY 1922

In spite of the rain, by breakfast, 600 people had gathered outside St Margarets, the 12th-century church in the shadow of Westminster Abbey and a favourite for society weddings. By lunchtime the crowd would swell to 8,000. For the Daily Telegraph, this was to be the Wedding of the Year the Star thought it the Wedding of the Century between the beautiful Edwina Ashley, the richest girl in the world, and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the handsome naval officer and member of the extended Royal Family. King George V and Queen Mary and most members of the Royal Family were attending, with the Prince of Wales as best man.

At exactly 2.15 p.m., Edwina entered the church to Wagners Lohengrin. The service was conducted by Dickies former school tutor, Frederic Lawrence Long. The Lord is my Shepherd was followed by the hymns Thine for Ever and May the Grace of God our Saviour, whilst Beethovens Hallelujah was sung during the signing of the register.

The couple Dickie at six foot two dwarfing his wife emerged from the church to Mendelssohns Wedding March just as the sun Edwina, blue-eyed and fair-haired, was in a simple, ankle-length frosted silver dress, with a wreath of orange blossom on her head, and a four-foot train of silver cloth covered with 15th-century lace.

They climbed into the bridal car, a Rolls-Royce a wedding gift from Edwina bought from the Prince of Wales which was then drawn by a naval gun crew around Parliament Square. Around the corner, a flag-draped lorry took over, towing the car past Buckingham Palace to the reception at the brides home, Brook House in Park Lane. There, at the entrance to the two groundfloor reception rooms, where a narrow dividing room had been made into an avenue of ten-foot orange trees, the couple received their 800 guests. So large was the wedding cake, with its top tier shaped like a crown, plus miniature anchors, sails and hawsers, and tiny lifeboats hanging from silver davits, that it took four men to lift it.