Featured Image Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Topics: Royal Family, Prince Charles, Prince William
Mia Williams
Topics: Royal Family, Prince Charles, Prince William
Prince Louis' name actually has a little known meaning, and it's down to the 'secret weapon' of the royal family.
After a thousand years of royal history, there are a lot of notable figures who have made a great impact on the family’s influence.
From Queen Victoria, to Queen Elizabeth II, who became the longest reigning monarch, there has been some powerful individuals as the Head of State.
However, there is another royal that deserves recognition, who was known as the family’s ‘secret weapon’.
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This was Lord Louis Mountbatten, born as Prince Louis of Battenberg, who was the grandson of Queen Victoria.
He also served as a mentor to his godson, King Charles.
The royal family have since paid tribute to the ‘secret weapon’, by including the name in their children’s as a tradition.
It is an attempt to reflect on the close bond that Charles shared with Lord Mountbatten.
King Charles included 'Louis' as one of Prince William's middle names, while the Prince and Princess of Wales honoured it in the naming of their two sons, George Alexander Louis and Louis Arthur Charles.
Prior to WWI, he was known as Prince Louis of Battenberg.
However, following King George V's decision to change the royal family's surname to Windsor amid anti-German sentiment, his German relatives followed suit.
The Battenbergs decided on the more Anglo-sounding 'Mountbatten' as their new surname.
Louis dedicated his royal duties to a career in the Royal Navy, where he held the titles of First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral of the Fleet, and Chief of the Defence Staff.
In 1922, he got married to a wealthy socialite named Edwina Ashley and went on to have two daughters - Patricia Knatchbull and Lady Pamela Hicks.
On August 27, 1979, Lord Mountbatten, along with his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, Lady Brabourne, and a local teenager, Paul Maxwell, tragically died.
They were out on his boat lobster potting, when an IRA radio-controlled bomb that had been planted the night before exploded.
Prince Edward, Princess Anne, Lady Louise Windsor, and several other relatives in the family, also carry this meaningful connection to Lord Louis Mountbatten.