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Legacy
Opposite Lord Mountbatten This page Mountbatten playing polo in Malta, 1954
Mountbatten: a polo legend
on the turf, as in his public service, lord louis Mountbatten’s outstanding contribution to the polo game led to a remarkable legacy, says clare Milford haven
When I won the Mountbatten Cup at Guards in June 2010, one of my many polo ambitions was finally realised. Some players might feel disappointed at not winning the main prize, the coveted 15-goal Royal Windsor Cup, but for me, The Mountbatten Cup, despite being the subsidiary trophy, is one that I have always wanted to win. And, it was the second time the cup had come ‘home’ – my husband, George, having won it a few years earlier.
My reasons were purely sentimental. The trophy was presented to Guards in 1980, in memory of George’s beloved Uncle ‘Dickie’ (Lord Louis Mountbatten), who had lost his life to IRA assassins the previous summer. It replaced the existing Smith’s Lawn Cup and was commissioned from gold and silversmith Gerald Benney, bearing the inscription: ‘Presented by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in memory of The Earl Mountbatten of Burma’. The cup is a fitting tribute to a man whose legacy to the game is immense.
He was born Prince Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George of Battenberg at Frogmore House, Windsor, in 1900, son of Prince Louis of Battenberg – later to become the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven – and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.
In 1917, King George V – himself a keen polo player as a young naval officer – had changed the name of the Royal family from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor; and at the same time asked those relatives who were British subjects but known by German surnames, to relinquish them. Thus, the Tecks (also involved in polo) became Cambridge, and Louis of Battenberg adopted the anglicised version of Mountbatten, receiving a peerage in addition. Now being the son of a Marquess, the 17-year-old Louis Francis became known as Lord Louis Mountbatten, although to family and friends he was always ‘Dickie’.
Although not a natural horseman as a young man, the future Lord Mountbatten fell in love with polo in 1921 whilst accompanying his cousin the Prince of Wales on a tour of India. In December of that year, he recounted enthusiastically in his diary ‘one of the best mornings I have ever spent anywhere’:
‘This day is a red letter one for me, as besides getting my first pig, I played my first game of polo. I played in two chukkas, the eighth and the 11th. The average handicap of the other players must have worked out at something over five, and there was certainly some of the best polo in India being played here this afternoon, which considerably added to my bewilderment. I spent the whole of the first chukka trying to learn my place in the field and never really go near the ball. I was playing on the Maharaja’s side against David [the Prince of Wales], and, of course, it was due to the latter that I was playing at all. In the last chukka, to my own intense surprise, I actually hit the ball three or four times. Anyway I loved it and hope to get lots more.’
During this trip that it was suggested to the very earnest beginner, somewhat mischievously, that the correct way to mount a pony was to approach from the rear, take a flying leap and vault over its tail into the saddle. The technique met with predictable disaster but nonetheless, Mountbatten’s initial encounter with polo sowed the seeds of a lifelong passion. He wrote to his mother a couple of months later: ‘I have for the first time in my life become keen about a game. I’d sooner be playing polo than anything.’
His cousin the Prince of Wales, also recorded, many years later, Lord
it was suggested to the keen Mountbatten that the correct way to mount a pony was to vault over its tail into the saddle
Mountbatten’s new-found passion for the sport of polo:
Mountbatten’s name was to be linked indelibly with the game and, by encouraging his nephew, Prince Philip and then later, his great-nephew, the Prince of Wales, to take it up, he helped to foster a lasting public interest in the game.
In 1922 he married the Hon Edwina Ashley, in the wedding of the year at St Margaret’s, Westminster. Following their marriage, they lived at Adsdean, a country home near Chichester, and not far from Cowdray Park. Mountbatten’s Adsdean team became regular competitors there, and in 1939 he ran the club while Lord Cowdray was in the USA for the Westchester Cup tour of that year. Photographs of Mountbatten’s Sealyham terrier, Topsail, guarding his master’s sticks, appeared in many national newspapers.
Mountbatten’s Royal Navy squad, Bluejackets, also achieved some prominence before the Second World War, notably in highgoal tournaments at Hurlingham, Ranelagh and Roehampton: the London clubs at which all major tournaments took place in those days. Victories included the Ranelagh Invitation Cup in 1930 and 1931, after which Mountbatten and his teammates donated the Bluejackets Cup, to be presented to the winning team. It was recorded by his fellow teammate Robert Neville that their success
was the fruit of many hours of discussion, practice and leadership:
He was also a prime mover in advocating a set of international rules for polo, an idea sidelined with the outbreak of World War II and in which he strongly recommended having a standard international rating for all polo players.
In his early days, Mountbatten had partaken of a few chukkas in Malta, as well as Gibraltar and China, and it is amusing to compare his comments on grooms in the three stations, as recorded in the pages of An Introduction to Polo, which he wrote under the nom de plume of ‘Marco’ in 1931:
‘In Malta, the groom can be very good, as he is fond of horses and enthusiastic. But he is inclined to be lazy and unreliable, and is often noisy in the stable. In Gibraltar, generally speaking, grooms are not very good, even the best requiring a great deal of supervision; while in China, the mafoo or groom needed constant supervision to prevent him from being definitely cruel to the ponies in his charge.’
The book was long regarded as the definitive work on the mechanics of polo, and it was typical of Mountbatten’s generosity that he vested the copyright in the Royal Naval Polo Association. Between 1931 and 1982, it went into seven editions.
Malta had particularly close associations for Lord Mountbatten. Not only had he served
He brought as many Maltese players into the game as he could, and in his spare time he gave lessons to anyone who showed promise
Opposite With Prince Charles This page George Milford Haven fishing in Ireland with his great uncle ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten, 1979 Below The Jaeger-LeCoultre team winning the Mountbatten Cup, and captain Clare Milford Haven reciving the trophy from HM The Queen, Guards, June 2010
there as a midshipman but it was where his beloved father had taken up polo while stationed with the Royal Navy in the 1870s. Years later, the link was revived again when Mountbatten presented Malta Polo Club with the Prince Louis Cup. It is still a coveted trophy every season on the Marsa, Malta’s principal polo ground.
He also presented Malta with what is now its most prized polo trophy, the elegant Cawnpore Cup, first played at Cawnpore Polo Club in India in 1901. He had persuaded the club, which had been dormant since 1939, to pass all its historic silverware to Malta after the last world war.
To this day, Mountbatten is remembered with affection in Malta. He did everything possible to bring as many Maltese players as he could into the game and, in his spare time, gave lessons to anyone he noticed who showed signs of promise. The grooms adored him and one of his favourite ponies was named ‘Maltese Cat’ in deference to Kipling’s famous story and the country of which he had grown so fond.
Lord Mountbatten reached a 5-goal handicap rating at the height of his polo playing career – an achievement, incidentally, shared by his nephew, Prince Philip – and even after his active playing days were over, he maintained a close interest in the game. He was always a familiar figure in the Royal Box at Guards, especially on the Queen’s Cup and International days, and was an active patron of the New Forest Polo Club, not far from his home at Broadlands. It was to the New Forest club that he presented the Bluejackets Cup, played today as their premier tournament.
In July 1979, Mountbatten made what were to be his last appearances on the polo scene. He presented the Gold Cup to Amadu Yakubu’s Songhai, at Cowdray Park and, a few days later, the Rundle Cup to the Prince of Wales and his Royal Navy team at Tidworth. Soon afterwards, on 27 August, he was murdered while holidaying at his Irish home. He was buried at Romsey Abbey, not far from the gates of Broadlands, following a televised state funeral in Westminster Abbey: a service that he had planned in every detail.
The polo tradition is continued, too, by Lord Mountbatten’s great-grandnephews, Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as by George, and his legacy can be seen, too, in the distinctive oval-shaped head he designed, and in 1935 received a patent for, which gives ‘loft and length’ to polo sticks.
