Ministers waging a bitter battle over royal diaries and letters may be trying to cover up an affair of Prince Philip’s, a historian claims. Author Andrew Lownie estimates the Government has spent around £2 million trying to stop him seeing all the archive left by Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten and his wife.
Mr Lownie says he has already spent £460,000 in legal fees since trying to prise secrets concealed in the 30,000 pages. The Mountbatten family sold the papers to Southampton University in 2011 for £2.8million, most of which came from lottery funding.
Dr Lownie, 60, used freedom of information laws to try to get access to them for a book on the Mountbattens, backed by the information commissioner. The Cabinet Office and Southampton University appealed and he estimates the bill to try to stop him has now reached more than four times the money he has spent.
Dr Lownie is furious that, during his three-year legal battle, more than 99% of the papers were dumped on the internet without warning. But there were 100 redactions in letters between Mountbatten and his wife Edwina, who had an open marriage.
Her many lovers famously included India’s first prime minister Pandit Nehru. Their letters remain locked because the university has mysteriously never triggered its £100 right to buy them from the Mountbatten estate.
Dr Lownie said: “The only reason I can think of is that there is a reference to a lover of Prince Philip. The relationship between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru is well known.” The Government argued that any new revelation might damage relations with India and Pakistan because Lord Mountbatten, as Viceroy of India, oversaw its independence in 1947.
The division of the country – once part of the British Empire – into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan is seen by many as a disaster that led to over a million killed in massacres. But Dr Lownie said: “It is hard to believe that references in a private diary 75 years ago would damage relations with other countries.
“What I do know is that members of the royal household have been in on meetings and copied in on correspondence about the case.” He has been backed by MPs and ex-Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, who has written to demand Dr Lownie is repaid his costs.
But the Cabinet Office replied: “As a former Foreign Secretary you will appreciate that some matters of international relations can remain sensitive for very long periods of time.” Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: “Andrew Lownie ‘s costs are unbelievable while the public is paying the bills for the university and the Cabinet Office.”
Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb aged 79 in 1979. Prince Philip died in April last year aged 99. The Cabinet Office said its costs will be published in due course, adding: “The small amount of information not released includes personal data relating to living individuals.”
Southampton University said: “We have always aimed to make public as much of the archive as possible and we are very happy with the tribunal’s decision which substantially found that the university made the right decisions in balancing its legal obligations.
“More than 99.8% of the archive, which consists of some 4,500 boxes, is publicly available and accessed regularly by researchers globally as an invaluable historic resource.” The university says its legal bill ran into five figures, with the rest paid by the Cabinet Office.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “This is a matter for the Cabinet Office.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The Cabinet Office reviewed the diaries and letters during the pandemic and more than 99% of the material was released before the tribunal hearing in November 2021.The small amount of information which has not been released includes personal data relating to living individuals.
‘‘The Tribunal accepted that the University of Southampton acted lawfully in withholding the material and Dr Lownie’s appeal for costs was dismissed.”
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