Patricia Edwina Victoria Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Dowager
Lady Brabourne CBE JP DL is a British peer and the third cousin of Queen
Elizabeth II. She is the elder daughter of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl
Mountbatten of Burma and his wife, the heiress Edwina Ashley, a patrilineal
descendant of the Earls of Shaftesbury, first ennobled in 1661. She is the elder
sister of Lady Pamela Hicks, and first cousin to Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh. Mountbatten succeeded her father when he
was assassinated in 1979, as his peerages had been created by the Crown
with special remainder to his daughters and their heirs male. This inheritance
accorded her the title of countess and a seat in the House of Lords, where she
remained until 1999, when the House of Lords Act 1999 removed most hereditary
peers from the House. Marriage and children
On 26 October 1946 she married John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne, at the
time an aide to her father in the Far East. The wedding took place at Romsey
Abbey in the presence of members of the Royal Family. Her bridesmaids were
Princess Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, Lady Pamela Mountbatten, the bride's
younger sister, and Princess Alexandra, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of
Kent. Later they became one of the few married
couples each of whom held a peerage in their own right, and whose descendants
are slated to inherit titles through both. They had eight children:
Norton Louis Philip Knatchbull, 8th Baron Brabourne, married Penelope
Eastwood and have three children. The Hon. Michael-John Ulick Knatchbull,
married Melissa Clare Owen on 1 June 1985 and had one daughter Kelly, who is
a god-daughter of Princess Anne, The Princess Royal; they divorced in 1997.
Married Susan Penelope Jane Coates on 6 March 1999 and had one daughter
Savannah. Divorced 13 February 2006 The Hon. Anthony Knatchbull
Lady Joanna Edwina Doreen Knatchbull, married Baron Hubert Pernot du Breuil on
3 November 1984 and had one daughter; divorced in 1995; married Azriel
Zuckerman on 19 November 1995 and had one son.
Lady Amanda Patricia Victoria Knatchbull, married Charles Vincent
Ellingworth on 31 October 1987 and has three sons.
The Hon. Philip Wyndham Ashley Knatchbull, married Atalanta Cowan,
daughter of John Cowan, on 16 March 1991 and had one daughter; married Wendy
Amanda Leach on 29 June 2002 and had two sons.
The Hon. Nicholas Timothy Charles Knatchbull, murdered, aged 14, by an IRA
bomb. The Hon. Timothy Nicholas Sean
Knatchbull, married Isabella Julia Norman, a great-great-granddaughter of
the 4th Earl of Bradford, on 11 July 1998 and had two sons and three
daughters. Activities
Mountbatten was educated in Malta, England, and New York. In 1943, at age
19, she entered the Women's Royal Naval Service as a Signal Rating and served in
Combined Operations bases in Britain until being commissioned as a third
officer in 1945 and serving in the Supreme Allied Headquarters, South East
Asia. This is where she met Lord Brabourne, who was an aide to her
father. In 1973 was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Kent; she
is also a serving magistrate and is involved with numerous service
organisations including SOS Children's Villages UK, of which she is Patron; the
Order of St John, of which she is a Dame; and the Countess Mountbatten's Own
Legion of Frontiersmen of the Commonwealth, of which she is Patron.
On 15 June 1974, she succeeded her cousin Lady Patricia Ramsay, formerly
HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught, as Colonel-in-Chief of Princess Patricia's
Canadian Light Infantry, for whom the regiment was named when Princess
Patricia's father, the Duke of Connaught, was Governor General of
Canada during the First World War. Despite her succeeding to an earldom in
her own right as Countess Mountbatten of Burma on the death of her father in
1979, she preferred that the officers and men of her regiment address her as
Lady Patricia. She was succeeded by The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson on 17
March 2007. On 28 August 2007, the Governor General of Canada presented her
with the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross for her services as
Colonel-in-Chief of Princess Patricia's Light Infantry.
Brabourne was in the boat which was blown up by the IRA off the shores of
Sligo in August 1979, killing her fourteen-year-old son Nicholas; her
father; her mother-in-law, the Dowager Baroness Brabourne; and fifteen-year-old
Paul Maxwell, a boat-boy from County Fermanagh. She, her husband, and their
son Timothy were injured but survived the attack. Following this loss the
Countess became Patron and later, President of The Compassionate Friends,
a self-help charitable organisation of bereaved parents in the UK.
In June 2012, at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's first visit to the
Republic of Ireland, Mountbatten said the Queen had her full support for
meeting Mr. McGuinness, a former IRA commander who was allegedly part of the
terrorist group at the time of Lord Mountbatten's murder. "I think it's
wonderful," she said. "I'm hugely grateful that we have come to a point
where we can behave responsibly and positively." In September 2012
Mountbatten unveiled a memorial to the work of the Combined Operations Pilotage
Parties at Hayling Island in Hampshire. Daughter's involvement with Prince
Charles As Lady Brabourne during her father's
lifetime, her immediate family became closely involved in the consideration of
a future consort for her first cousin once-removed, Charles, Prince of Wales.
In early 1974, Lord Mountbatten began corresponding with the eldest son of
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip about a potential marriage to Lady
Brabourne's daughter, Amanda. Charles wrote to Lady Brabourne, about his
interest in her daughter, to which she replied approvingly, though suggesting
that a courtship was premature. Amanda Knatchbull declined the marriage
proposal of Charles in 1980, following the assassination of her grandfather.
Portrait In October 2009 TCF Canada Inc.
presented the Countess with a portrait of herself by the noted Canadian artist
Christian Cardell Corbet of which the oil sketch resides in the Canadian
Portrait Academy Permanent Collection. Titles and honours
= Titles and styles= 14 February 1924 – 23 August 1946: Miss
Patricia Mountbatten 23 August – 26 October 1946: The
Honourable Patricia Mountbatten 26 October 1946 – 27 August 1979: The
Right Honourable The Lady Brabourne 27 August 1979 – present: The Right
Honourable The Countess Mountbatten of Burma
Mountbatten was born the daughter of a younger son of a marquess and thus had
no courtesy title. She became the daughter of a peer, and thus obtained
the courtesy prefix Honourable. When she married a baron, she obtained her
husband's precedence, which happened to be higher than that of a viscount's
daughter. When her father was raised to an earldom, however, her precedence
remained the same, because the higher courtesy rank of an earl's daughter
cannot be claimed by the wife of a man who ranks as a peer in his own right.
When her father died and she succeeded him as countess by special remainder,
Patricia Mountbatten became a peeress in her own right. Since her peerage was
higher than her husband's, she was entitled to enjoy its higher title and
precedence. By contrast, her younger sister's rank as an earl's daughter
outranked her husband's status as a commoner from August 1946 to August 1979
because when a peer's daughter marries a commoner rather than a peer, she is
allowed to retain the rank derived from her parent.
= Honours= Dame of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem Commander of the Order of the British
Empire Meritorious Service Cross
Canadian Forces Decoration = Colonelcies-in-chief=
The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Countess Mountbatten's Own Legion of
Frontiersmen of the Commonwealth Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
Infantry Ancestry
Bibliography Dimbleby, Jonathan. The Prince of Wales:
A Biography. New York: William Morrow and Company.
References External links
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Countess Mountbatten
of Burma Regiments.org on Princess Patricia's
Canadian Light Infantry mountbattenofburma.com - Tribute &
Memorial web-site to Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
About Us - Patrons of The Compassionate Friends