| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable | ||||||||
| The Countess Mountbatten of Burma | |||||||||
| Office: | Member of the House of Lords | ||||||||
| Status: | Lord Temporal | ||||||||
| Term Label: | as a Hereditary peer | ||||||||
| Term Start: | 27 August 1979 | ||||||||
| Term End: | 11 November 1999 | ||||||||
| Predecessor: | The 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | ||||||||
| Successor: | Seat abolished | ||||||||
| Birth Date: | 14 February 1924 | ||||||||
| Birth Place: | Westminster, London, England [1] | ||||||||
| Death Place: | Mersham, Kent, England | ||||||||
| Children: | Norton Knatchbull, 3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma Hon. Michael-John Knatchbull Hon. Anthony Knatchbull Lady Joanna Knatchbull Lady Amanda Ellingworth Hon. Philip Knatchbull Hon. Nicholas Knatchbull Hon. Timothy Knatchbull | ||||||||
| Parents: | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Edwina Ashley | ||||||||
| Module: |
| ||||||||
Patricia Edwina Victoria Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Baroness Brabourne, (née Mountbatten; 14 February 1924 – 13 June 2017), was a British peeress and a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. She was the elder daughter of Admiral of the Fleet the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and of heiress Edwina Ashley (a patrilineal descendant of the earls of Shaftesbury, first ennobled in 1661). She was the elder sister of Lady Pamela Hicks, a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the last surviving baptismal sponsor to King Charles III. She was a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
Lady Mountbatten succeeded her father to the Earldom Mountbatten of Burma when he was assassinated in 1979, as his peerages had been created 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.
On 26 October 1946 she married John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne (9 November 1924 – 23 September 2005), at the time an aide to her father in the Far East. They had met after Patricia, having served in the Women's Royal Naval Service, was commissioned in 1945 as a third officer and was serving in the Supreme Allied Headquarters, South East Asia. 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.[2]
Later they became one of the few married couples each of whom held a peerage in their own right, and whose descendants inherited titles through both. They had eight children:
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.[5] Charles wrote to Lady Brabourne (who was also his godmother), about his interest in her daughter, to which she replied approvingly, though suggesting that a courtship was premature.[6] Amanda Knatchbull declined the marriage proposal of Charles in 1980, following the assassination of her grandfather.[7]
Patricia was educated in Malta, England, and at the Hewitt School[8] in New York City. 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, including .[9] She was then commissioned as a third officer in 1945 and serving in the Supreme Allied Headquarters, South East Asia.[10]
In 1973 she was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Kent; she was also a serving magistrate and was involved with numerous service organisations including SOS Children's Villages UK, of which she was a Patron; the Order of St John, of which she was a Dame; and the Countess Mountbatten's Own Legion of Frontiersmen of the Commonwealth, of which she was a Patron.[11]
On 15 June 1974, she succeeded her distant 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.[12]
Patricia was in the boat which was blown up by the IRA off the shores of Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in August 1979, killing her 14-year-old son Nicholas; her father; her mother-in-law, the Dowager Baroness Brabourne; and 15-year-old Paul Maxwell, a boat-boy from County Fermanagh. She, her husband, and their son Timothy were injured but survived the attack.[13] Following the incident the Countess became Patron and, later, President of The Compassionate Friends, a self-help charitable organisation of bereaved parents in the UK.[14]
In June 2012, at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's first visit to the Republic of Ireland, Countess Mountbatten said the Queen had her full support for meeting Martin McGuinness, who had been a high-ranking member of the IRA. "I think it's wonderful ... I'm hugely grateful that we have come to a point where we can behave responsibly and positively", she is reported to have said.[15] In September 2012, she unveiled a memorial to the work of the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties at Hayling Island in Hampshire.[16]
Countess Mountbatten died at her home in Mersham, Kent, aged 93. Her funeral service took place on 27 June 2017 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, and was attended by the Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and other senior members of the royal family. Her casket was borne by a party of pall bearers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, who were in London on public duties. She was buried in the Knatchbull family plot in Mersham churchyard.[17]
1924 - 1946: Miss Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten
1946: The Honorable Patricia Mountbatten
1946 - 1979: The Rt Hon. Lady Brabourne
1979 - 2017: The Rt Hon. Countess Mountbatten of Burma