Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma

The Countess Mountbatten of Burma

Edwina and her husband, early 1920s
Born Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley
(1901-11-28)28 November 1901
Broadlands, Romsey Extra, Hampshire, England, UK
Died 21 February 1960(1960-02-21) (aged 58)
Jesselton, British North Borneo
Spouse(s) Louis Mountbatten
(m. 1922)
Issue Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma
Lady Pamela Hicks
Parents Wilfred William Ashley
Amalia Mary Maud Cassel

Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, CI GBE DCVO GCStJ (née Ashley; 28 November 1901 – 21 February 1960)[1] was an English heiress, socialite, relief worker and the last Vicereine of India as wife of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

Lineage and wealth

She was born in 1901, the elder daughter of Wilfred William Ashley, later 1st Baron Mount Temple (of the 1932 creation), who was a Conservative Member of Parliament.

Edwina Ashley was patrilineally descended from the Earls of Shaftesbury who had been ranked as baronets since 1622 and ennobled as barons in 1661. She was a great-granddaughter of the reformist 7th Earl of Shaftesbury through his younger son, The Hon. Evelyn Melbourne Ashley (1836–1907) and his wife, Sybella Farquhar (d. 1886), a granddaughter of the 6th Duke of Beaufort. From this cadet branch, the Ashley-Cooper peers would inherit the estates of Broadlands and Classiebawn Castle in Sligo, Ireland.

Ashley's mother was Amalia Mary Maud Cassel (1879–1911), daughter of the international magnate Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, friend and private financier to the future King Edward VII. Cassel was one of the richest and most powerful men in Europe. He lost his beloved wife (Annette Mary Maud Maxwell), for whom he had converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. He also lost his only child, Amalia. He was then to leave the bulk of his vast fortune to Edwina, his elder granddaughter.

After Ashley's father's remarriage in 1914 to Molly Forbes-Sempill, she was sent away to boarding schools, first to the Links in Eastbourne, then to Alde House in Suffolk, at neither of which was she a willing pupil. Her grandfather, Sir Ernest, solved the domestic dilemma by inviting her to live with him and, eventually, to act as hostess at his London residence, Brook House. Later, his other mansions, Moulton Paddocks and Branksome Dene, would become part of her Cassel inheritance.

Marriage and children

Louis and Edwina Mountbatten early in marriage.

By the time Lord Louis Mountbatten first met Edwina in 1920, she was a leading member of London society. Her maternal grandfather died in 1921, leaving her £2 million (£80 million in today's pounds), and his palatial London townhouse, Brook House, at a time when her future husband's naval salary was £610 per annum (£20 thousand in today's pounds). Later, she would inherit the country seat of Broadlands, Hampshire, from her father, Wilfred William Ashley, 1st Baron Mount Temple.

She and Mountbatten married on 18 July 1922 at St. Margaret's Church. The wedding attracted crowds of more than 8,000 people, and was attended by many members of the royal family, including Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra, David the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) and Prince Philip, and dubbed "wedding of the year". The reception was held in Brook House after which the couple rode a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to the bride's family's country house.[2]

Edwina was known to be wildly promiscuous throughout the marriage, doing little to hide such indiscretions from her husband. He became aware of her numerous lovers, accepted them and even developed friendships with some of them - making them "part of the family". Towards the end of Edwina's life, her daughter Pamela Mountbatten wrote a memoir of her mother in which she describes her mother as "a man eater" and her mother's many lovers as a succession of "uncles" throughout her childhood.

Louis Mountbatten eventually gained a long-time French mistress and the couple settled into a type of "ménage à quatre". Edwina's affair with Prime Minister Nehru of India both during and after their post WWII service has been widely documented. In addition to their lifetime of heterosexual excesses, both Louis and Edwina were often described as being bisexual, providing an unending source of gossip among the wealthy, titled society set of their day.[3]

The Mountbattens had two daughters, Patricia (born 14 February 1924) and Pamela (born 19 April 1929).[4] In her memoir daughter Pamela describes Edwina as a detached, rarely seen mother who preferred traveling the world with her current lover to mothering her children.[5]

Vicereine of India

Mountbattens with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder and first Governor General of Pakistan

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Lady Mountbatten acquired a new purpose in life and devoted her considerable intelligence and energy to the service of others. She is especially remembered for her service in the post-Partition period of India, when five provinces were partitioned off as Pakistan as a result of a movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Lady Mountbatten at Police Hospital, Delhi

Lord and Lady Mountbatten served as the last Viceroy and Vicereine of pre-Partition India, after the British government gave him plenipotentiary power to arrange the independence of British India. After Partition, Lord Mountbatten remained briefly as the first of the two Governors-General of India. In 1950 the link with the monarchy was severed and India's governor general was replaced with a non-executive president.

Lady Mountbatten, in all accounts of the violent disruption that followed the Partition of India, is universally praised for her heroic efforts in relieving the misery. She continued to lead a life of service after her viceroyalty in India, including service for the St John Ambulance Brigade. She was a governor of The Peckham Experiment in 1949.[6]

Death

Lady Mountbatten died in her sleep at age 58 of unknown causes in 1960 in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu), British North Borneo (now Sabah) while on an inspection tour for the St John Ambulance Brigade.[7] In accordance with her wishes, Lord Mountbatten buried her at sea off the coast of Portsmouth from HMS Wakeful on 25 February 1960; Nehru sent two Indian destroyers to accompany her body; Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated.[8]

Lady Mountbatten will be portrayed by Gillian Anderson in Gurinder Chadha's upcoming historical drama film Viceroy's House (2017).[9]

Titles and honours

Shorthand titles

Honours

Ancestry

References

Notes

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Edwina Mountbatten.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.