Word: battenbergs
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...when Britain went to war with Germany, its traditional first line of defense-the British navy-was under the command of a German-born prince named Louis of Battenberg. For all that he was a close relative of the royal family and a veteran of 45 years' devoted naval service, Prince Louis' name and ancestry were a sight too much for many patriotic Britons to bear. "I have lately been driven to the painful conclusion," wrote Britain's First Sea Lord in a letter of resignation as a raging sea of slurs rose about his ears, "that...
...whom it fell to accept Prince Louis Battenberg's resignation in 1914 was Winston Churchill. Last week Sir Winston made fitting restitution by appointing his son to the same post. The son, as a 14-year-old naval cadet, had vowed one day to right the injustice...
Handsome and dashing Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, first Earl Mountbatten of Burma,* had known many triumphs since his father's downfall. The stigma of his German ancestry had long since been erased in the process of anglicizing Battenberg to Mountbatten. Though once dismissed as a mere playboy, he had had the satisfaction in World War II of seeing his superiors seethe as he was plucked from beneath them to be made first an acting admiral and later Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia...
...public, he is not universally beloved by England's bluebloods. They mistrust him: his politics are comparatively liberal; he plays loose with some of the stuffier conventions of the palace; he is a foreigner-a Greek prince naturalized as a British citizen; but above all, he is a Battenberg, and a nephew of the dashing, controversial Admiral the Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his equally controversial wife Edwina...
...Queen Mother's reported distaste for Edwina has produced a notable coolness between the Mountbattens and Buckingham Palace. Philip, though still fond of Uncle Louis and Aunt Edwina, is reportedly well aware that his kinship may now become more hindrance than help. But he remains a Battenberg, and so does his son, the next King of England. In 100 years, the blood of the Battenbergs has risen from obscurity on the banks of the Rhine to the threshold of the highest throneroom on earth...