80 Years Ago Patricia Mountbatten Married With Three Princesses as Bridesmaids: At Her Wedding the Cameras Caught the Look Between Elizabeth and Philip

On 26 October 1946, Britain was still living on ration books. Fourteen months after the end of the Second World War, food and clothing were rationed and the country was counting its wounds. Yet around a thousand guests gathered at Romsey Abbey in Hampshire, among them King George VI, his wife, the future Queen Mother, and Queen Mary. Lady Patricia Mountbatten was getting married.

The bride who drove tanks

Patricia was no ordinary aristocrat. During the war she served in the Royal Navy, she drove tanks until the age of 80, she survived a terrorist attack, and she was godmother to today's King Charles III. Queen Elizabeth II, according to reports, described her as "fierce". The two were very close - and it was Patricia who asked the future queen to be her bridesmaid.

A wedding after a short courtship

The groom was John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne, aide-de-camp to the bride's father, Lord Louis Mountbatten. He arrived in Delhi in January 1946, and by that autumn the two had decided to marry. The ceremony was held in Romsey, near Broadlands, the Mountbatten family home, where the guests carried on celebrating afterwards. Hundreds of onlookers gathered outside the abbey.

Hartnell and the star tiara

The dress was by Norman Hartnell, the most sought-after couturier of the era: a defined waist, a full skirt and a long veil. A year later the same Hartnell would make Elizabeth's wedding dress for her marriage to Philip at Westminster, and in 1953 her coronation gown.

On her head Patricia wore the Mountbatten Star Tiara - stars, pearls and diamonds, a 19th-century piece that came from Princess Victoria of Hesse, the bride's grandmother. Her mother Edwina had inherited it and lent it to her for the wedding. It was later worn by her daughter-in-law Penelope Eastwood in 1979 and her granddaughter Alexandra Knatchbull in 2016. A jewel worn by brides from three generations of one family is a family story, not a fashion item.

Three princesses as bridesmaids

The bridesmaids were three princesses: Elizabeth, her sister Margaret and their cousin Alexandra of Kent. Standing beside them was Lady Pamela Mountbatten, the bride's younger sister.

And then came the moment that makes this wedding remembered 80 years on. At the church door, Elizabeth asked Philip of Greece to hold her coat. The two exchanged a look, and the cameras caught it. The relationship wasn't official yet, but the speculation started immediately. They announced their engagement in July 1947, nine months later.

Bitterness leads nowhere

Patricia and John stayed married until his death in 2005 and had eight children. On 27 August 1979 the IRA bombed a boat in Ireland. Her father, one of her sons and two other people were killed. She survived with severe injuries.

She spoke about the pain without melodrama: "Bitterness gets you nowhere. It eats you up and wears you down." She died on 13 June 2017, aged 93. In the Balkans weddings can be a very big deal, but few carry this much history in a single photograph: war, ration books, a 19th-century tiara, and the look that later became a 73-year marriage.