Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke

Alexander Mountbatten
Marquess of Carisbrooke
Tenure	7 November 1917 – 23 February 1960
Spouse	Lady Irene Denison
Issue
Lady Iris Mountbatten
Full name
Alexander Albert Mountbatten
Family	Battenberg
Father	Prince Henry of Battenberg
Mother	Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom
Born	23 November 1886(1886-11-23) Windsor Castle, Berkshire
Died	23 February 1960(1960-02-23) (aged 73) Kensington Palace, London
Burial	Whippingham Church, Isle of Wight

Coat of arms of Alexander Mountbatten

Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, GCB, GCVO, GJStJ (born Prince Alexander Albert of Battenberg; 23 November 1886 – 23 February 1960) was a member of the Hessian princely Battenberg family and the extended British Royal Family, a grandson of Queen Victoria. He was a Prince of Battenberg from his birth until 1917, when the British Royal Family relinquished their German titles during the First World War and he was created Marquess of Carisbrooke by King George V.

Early life

Prince Alexander was born in 1886 at Windsor Castle in Berkshire and was educated at Wellington College. His father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, the son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julie Therese née Countess of Hauke. His mother was Princess Henry of Battenberg (née The Princess Beatrice), the fifth daughter and the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Prince Henry of Battenberg was the product of a morganatic marriage, and took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, Julia von Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in her own right. At his birth, Alexander, was styled His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg, because the child of a morganatic marriage is ineligible for "Grand-Ducal Highness" status. However, three weeks after his birth, on 13 December 1886, he was styled His Highness under a Royal Warrant passed by his grandmother Queen Victoria.

Prince Henry was also the brother-in-law to King Alfonso XIII of Spain; Henry's sister, Princess Victoria Eugenia, married the King of Spain in 1906.

Military service and honours

Prince Alexander served in the Royal Navy from 1902 to 1908^[1] and in 1910, became one of the earliest members of The Castaways' Club, an exclusive dining club for Naval officers who resigned whilst still junior, but who wished to keep in touch with their former service. Several of his Mountbatten cousins were also subsequently members including David Mountbatten and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In 1911 he joined the British Army, being appointed Second Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 22 November 1911,^[2] and was promoted to Lieutenant on 15 August 1913.^[3] He was seconded to the staff to act as an extra aide-de-camp on 10 April 1915^[4][5] and promoted Captain the same year.^[1] On 1 June 1917 he was authorised to wear the insignia of the Russian Order of St Vladimir, fourth class with Swords, awarded "for distinguished service to the Allied cause".^[6] He resigned his commission on 19 June 1919^[7] and was placed on the General Reserve of Officers, ranking as a Captain with seniority of 15 July 1915.^[8] He held several other foreign orders and decorations: Grand Cross of Order of Charles III (Spain), Order of Leopold, with swords (Belgium), Order of Alexander Nevsky (Russia), Order of Naval Merit, fourth class (Spain), Order of the Nile (Egypt), Order of the Crown (Romania), and Croix de guerre, with palms (France).

Marquess of Carisbrooke

Anti-German feeling during the First World War led King George V to change the name of the Royal House in July 1917 from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor. He also relinquished, on behalf of his various relatives who were British subjects, the use of all German titles and styles.

The Battenberg family relinquished their titles of Prince and Princess of Battenberg and the styles of Highness and Serene Highness. Under Royal Warrant, they instead took the surname Mountbatten, an Anglicised form of Battenberg. As such, Prince Alexander became Sir Alexander Mountbatten.^[9] On 7 November 1917, he was created Marquess of Carisbrooke, Earl of Berkhampsted and Viscount Launceston.^[10]

In the 1930s, author E.F. Benson dedicated two of his famous novels "Mapp and Lucia" and "Lucia's Progress" to the Marquess of Carisbrooke.

Marriage

On 19 July 1917, he married Lady Irene Francis Adza Denison, GBE (4 July 1890 – 16 July 1956), the only daughter of the 2nd Earl of Londesborough and Lady Grace Adelaide Fane, at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace.

Lord and Lady Carisbrooke had one child, a daughter:

• Lady Iris Mountbatten (13 January 1920 – 1 September 1982)

Lady Iris Mountbatten, ca. 1952

According to the published diaries of Cecil Beaton, in his later years Lord Carisbrooke had a longtime male lover, Simon Fleet.^[11] More is written about Lord Carisbrooke and his wife in the published diaries of James Lees-Milne.

Death

Lord Carisbrooke died in 1960, aged seventy-three, at Kensington Palace, and was buried at the Battenberg Chapel in St. Mildred's Church, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight. The title 'Marquess of Carisbrooke' became extinct upon his death.

Titles, styles and honours

• 23 November 1886 – 13 December 1886: His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg
• 13 December 1886 – 1910: His Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg/His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg
  • Via Royal Warrant issued by Queen Victoria (effective in the United Kingdom, not in Germany)
• 1910–1911: His Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg KCVO/His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg, KCVO
• 1911–1917: His Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg GCVO/His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg, GCVO
• 1917: Sir Alexander Mountbatten, GCVO
• 1917–1927: The Most Hon The Marquess of Carisbrooke, GCVO
• 1927–1960: The Most Hon The Marquess of Carisbrooke, GCB, GCVO

Ancestry

References