UK Government 'trying to cover up Prince Philip affair' in secret diary row, claims historian
31.07.2022 - 13:23
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Ministers waging a bitter battle over royal diaries and letters may be trying to cover up an affair of Prince Philip’s, a historian claims. Author Andrew Lownie estimates the Government has spent around £2 million trying to stop him seeing all the archive left by Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten and his wife.
Mr Lownie says he has already spent £460,000 in legal fees since trying to prise secrets concealed in the 30,000 pages. The Mountbatten family sold the papers to Southampton University in 2011 for £2.8million, most of which came from lottery funding.
Dr Lownie, 60, used freedom of information laws to try to get access to them for a book on the Mountbattens, backed by the information commissioner. The Cabinet Office and Southampton University appealed and he estimates the bill to try to stop him has now reached more than four times the money he has spent.
Dr Lownie is furious that, during his three-year legal battle, more than 99% of the papers were dumped on the internet without warning. But there were 100 redactions in letters between Mountbatten and his wife Edwina, who had an open marriage.
Her many lovers famously included India’s first prime minister Pandit Nehru. Their letters remain locked because the university has mysteriously never triggered its £100 right to buy them from the Mountbatten estate.
Dr Lownie said: “The only reason I can think of is that there is a reference to a lover of Prince Philip. The relationship between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru is well known.” The Government argued that any new revelation might damage relations with India and Pakistan because Lord Mountbatten, as Viceroy of India, oversaw its independence in 1947.
The division of the country – once part of the British Empire – into