Louis mountbatten

The scion of an Anglo-German princely house, Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Mountbatten was the great-grandson of Queen Victoria. An officer in the Royal Navy, he was a close confidant of Edward VIII and he introduced his nephew, Philip Mountbatten, to the future Queen Elizabeth in 1939. He served in high profile roles during the Second World War, then as the last Viceroy of India, before becoming the head of the British armed forces.

Upon retirement from official public life, he played the role of advisor to the British royal family and mentor to the young Prince Charles. Throughout most of this storied career, and while mixing at the very top of elite British society, Mountbatten maintained not one but two discrete lives. He was a bisexual man, who had many affairs at a time when homosexuality was illegal and could result in dismissal from the armed forces. And he was a paedophile, who, according to his FBI file made public many year after his death, had a “perversion for young boys.”

He was assassinated in August 1979, blown up on his boat while sailing off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. While the Provisional IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, there are many questions about the bombing, which also killed three other people. Was Mountbatten simply targeted because he was a member of the British royal family, even though the IRA had seemingly previously rejected killing him? Did his abuse of children in Northern Ireland play a role in his demise? Why did the British and Irish authorities reduce his level of security? And what was his connection to other wealthy and powerful paedophiles, at a time when a major child abuse scandal was about to come into the open?

We explore this case and look at these complex questions, with help from biographer Andrew Lownie, who Niall interviews for this episode.

Recommended Reading:

Check out Andrew’s biography of Lord Mountbatten and his wife Edwina — a link is available in our bookshop.