Mountbatten has been dead for 43 years and therefore can no longer defend himself, but that doesn’t make the shocking allegations against the British royal family any less serious.
Uncle Dickie
King Charles in particular will be deeply affected by Smyth’s allegations, who, 45 years later, will be tried and soon to be heard in the Belfast High Court. After all, Lord Mountbatten was a key figure in Charles’s young life. Affectionately known as “Uncle Dickie” to Charles and family, Mountbatten was the brother of Alice Battenberg, the mother of Prince Philip. After Philip’s parents separated, Louis took part in Philip’s education. Officially, Louis was Charles’s great-uncle, but at times he was more of a father figure to the then-young Crown Prince than his stern father Philip.
Hidden for years
Uncle Dickie had much influence on the sensitive Charles and would have been the one to strongly advise the prince against marrying Camilla in the 1970s – she was a woman with sexual experience and Mountbatten did not think it appropriate for a future Princess of Wales. Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed in an IRA attack in 1979, leaving behind a divided royal family. The attack was front-page news for days. It wasn’t until then, two years after the alleged abuse, that then 13-year-old Arthur Smyth realized from all the publicity that she had been abusing him. “You don’t forget who attacked you,” Smyth now says. ‘Believe me. You repress it, but you don’t forget it. I hid it for years. I was ashamed of what had happened, but now I want peace.’ Smyth’s attorney added that his client thought long and hard before taking this step. “He knows this will make him extremely unpopular with many people, especially as the allegations come so soon after Queen Elizabeth’s death. However, lawsuits dealing with mental, physical and sexual abuse are never intended to deliberately overcome sensitivities.’
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