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| Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke 1937 |
Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, born Prince von Battenberg. The birth of Prince Alexander Albert von Battenberg on November 23, 1886 at Windsor Castle in Berkshire; offered his grandmother Queen Victoria something she desperately needed at the time; a new lease on life. For the first time in many years, there was a baby living in her home, and she took great delight in the knowledge that Drino, as he was called, was sleeping in the nursery right above her private sitting room.
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| Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke; Queen Victoria 1888 |
Apparently, in her later years, Queen Victoria had become more relaxed with babies, and took a close interest in their growth and care. In a taped interview in the 1960’s Miss Dorothy Blake, who was born within days of Alexander on the Osborne Estate where her father was the agent, described how the Queen on her daily visits to the agent’s house, Barton Manor, would ask to see the baby, and she would say; “Prince Alexander is not as heavy as this; now, Mrs. Blake, what is the food?” and my mother would say; “Mellin’s Food, Your Majesty,” and the Queen would say; “I shall have to speak to Prince Alexander’s nurses about this.” At his birth, Alexander was styled His Serene Highness Prince Alexander of Battenberg, since he was the child of his father, Prince Heinrich, who was born of a morganatic marriage; and as a result was ineligible for "Grand-Ducal Highness" status. However, three weeks after his birth, he was styled “His Highness” on December 13, 1886, under a Royal Warrant passed by his doting grandmother Queen Victoria.
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| Alexander and his mother, Princess Beatrice |
The early years of Drino’s childhood were spent happily at Windsor, and the Queen’s other homes. The presence of Drino, and later, his sister and brothers gave the old Queen great pleasure, and these grandchildren soon became her favorites. She enjoyed spoiling them – on Drino’s eleventh birthday she gave him a party that included a film show and performing dogs – and when Drino went away to school at the Stubbington House School and Wellington College he his missed his loving grandmother far more than he did his distant mother.
Drino’s school days at both Stubbington and Wellington were not the happiest of his life. The boys there considered him to be conceited and precious, while he in his turn regarded them as “bloodthirsty hooligans.” Due to the very real reason that he was unaccustomed to handling cash, Drino had great difficulty managing his finances, and on one occasion he was forced to ask his grandmother for money. She wrote back to say that he must learn to live within his allowance. A few days later, Drino wrote to the Queen again to tell her that he was no longer in difficulties; he had sold her letter to another boy.
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| British battleship HMS BRITANNIA. |
From Wellington Drino served in the Royal Navy as a midshipman cadet on the H.M.S. Britannia from 1902 to 1908 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.
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| Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke 1907 |
After leaving the Royal Navy, Drino joined the army. It was in this stage of his life, that his proclivities of a Wildean nature began to surface. As a young soldier based at St. James Palace, he wrote a series of questionable letters to a young Captain of the 1st Life Guards, who was also based in London, but at Knightsbridge Barracks. In one letter, dated 1910, when his friend failed to turn up, Drino expresses great disappointment, ending with “I do want you dear thing and hate turning in after looking forward to meeting all day.” In another short note later that year; he writes: “I am coming in tonight to see you dear thing on my return, this day cannot pass without seeing you.”
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| Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke 1910 |
On November 22, 1911 he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, and was further promoted to Lieutenant on August 15, 1913. He was seconded to the staff to act as an extra aide-de-camp on April 10, 1915 and promoted Captain the same year. Although Drino was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Aisne and mentioned in despatches, his fellow Grenadier, the Prince of Wales, was not at all impressed. “The completest dud I always think,” wrote the future King Edward VIII. He resigned his commission on June 19, 1919 and was placed on the General Reserve of Officers, ranking as a Captain with seniority of July 15, 1915.
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| Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke 1911.. |
Enjoying the Ruritanian side of his position, Drino loved medals. On June 1, 1917 he was authorized to wear the insignia of the Russian Order of St Vladimir, fourth class with Swords, awarded "for distinguished service to the Allied cause". 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). While at home he was Knight Commander and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, and eventually Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Drino was also a member of the Prince of Wales Masonic Lodge No. 259, the lodge most commonly connected with the Royal Family, he served as Master in 1952 and as Grand Steward of the Grand Lodge of England in that year. In 1956, he was Master of the Royal Colonial Institute Lodge, No. 3556. He also served on the board for the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys for several years.
When his cousin, King George V, abolished German titles as a part of the anglicizing of the Royal Family on July 14, 1917, Drino reluctantly lost his Princely title and style of “Highness.” Two days later, now deprived of his coveted Princely rank, Drino, now technically known simply as Mister Alexander Mountbatten married on July 19, 1917, Lady Irene Francis Adza Denison, the only daughter of the 2nd Earl of Londesborough and Lady Grace Adelaide Fane, at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace. The New York Times reported; “. . . as an example of the effect war is having on social affairs in England, a London newspaper remarks on the absence of bridesmaids and wedding cake at the recent wedding of the Marquess of Carisbrooke, to Lady Irene Denison. The account of the wedding also points out that, in place of a bouquet, the bride carried a silver bound prayer book, the gift of her mother.
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| Lady Irene Denison |
King George V and Queen Mary, together with most of the members of the Royal Family, were present a the simple ceremony. For the accommodation of the distinguished guests, gold chairs were arranged close to the altar steps, and as the bride left the church with her solider husband, she curtsied gracefully to the King and Queen, now her relatives by marriage. The little chapel, which Holbein designed for Henry VIII, will seat no more than a hundred persons, and society was unable to attend in any great numbers.”
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| Alexander Albert Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke 1920 |
On November 7, 1917, the eldest son of Princess Beatrice, was created by letters patent Marquess of Carisbrooke, Earl of Berkhamsted and Viscount Launceston. Having lived at the Court of his grandmother, Queen Victoria, until he was aged fourteen, he had developed an inflated view of his position within the family, and as would have been expected, Drino, whose hauteur and self-importance made him a figure of fun for many of his family, was predictably resentful of the demotion. “I shriek with laughter when I think of Drino, losing his title” wrote his cousin, Princess Louise of Battenberg, the future Queen of Sweden.
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| Irene Mountbatten, Marchioness of Carisbrooke |
Not long after their marriage, when the Carisbrooke’s were expecting their child, the Prince of Wales had a further acerbic comment to make about his distant cousin. “I hear that Irene Carisbrooke has signs of a baby and that Drino has retired to bed for a month’s rest cure!” The baby was to be Drino’s only child, Lady Iris Mountbatten. Clearly there was no love lost between Drino and his cousin, the Prince of Wales thinking him pompous and effeminate. Drino's views on the Prince were not recorded.
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| Lady Iris Mountbatten |
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| Lady Iris Mountbatten |
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| Lady Iris Mountbatten |
After the war, and receiving no state allowance, Drino became the first member of the Royal Family to enter the world of commerce. Although he had no practical experience, Lord Carisbrooke was accepted at age thirty-three into the banking house of Lazard Brothers as a junior clerk. After returning from a trip in April of 1921 to America visiting the Alfred Vanderbilts, he announced that he was well and truly taking an active place in the commercial world as a member of the Board of Directors of the British shipping firm of Lamport and Holt. Later be became a Director of Lever Brothers and other major concerns. When Drino later became the Director of an Oxford Street drapery store in 1936, he announced his intention of doing his day’s work in the store as well as his Director’s duties. HIs duties were then described “an adviser to buyers of decorative fabrics,” he also became Senior Steward of the Greyhound Racing Club. Before that he had worked for a time with the Metropolitan Housing Corporation which controlled many housing estates for artisans, and he eventually took full charge of the social work connected with the estates
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| Irene, Marchioness of Carisbrooke |
Though Drino was considered the “Businessman of the Royal Family,” he did support his wife’s; who worked tirelessly for the House of Windsor, charitable endeavors. Following his retirement, and his wife’s death in 1956, less than a fortnight after her sixty-sixth birthday, he took on some of her patronages. Throughout their married life, Drino and Irene led a less than ideal concept of connubial bliss, hence her determination to dedicate her life to working for the Royal Firm! She suffered her husband's indiscretions with the male gender lightly, turning a blind eye an devoting her energies to many good causes. She was a member of dozens of committees and frequently hosted charity balls and dinners.
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