‘Trying to make the Mountbatten diaries public cost me my inheritance’, says historian

A royal biographer who fought the Government to make the Mountbatten diaries public has revealed that the crusade has cost him his inheritance, after a legal appeal failed.

The University of Southampton used £2.8 million of taxpayers’ money to buy Lord and Lady Mountbatten’s diaries, with the promise of making them publicly available, but the archive remained sealed and the Cabinet Office blocked their release despite repeated requests for access from royal biographer Andrew Lownie.

Mr Lownie spent £350,000 on a four-year legal battle against “censorship” to ensure the diaries of the Queen’s cousin were made public, and now his application to claim costs from the university and the Cabinet Office has now been refused, leaving his inheritance “completely cleaned out”.

The royal biographer said the funds left by his mother had been exhausted in the struggle for access to the diaries, adding: “It took me, a private citizen, over four years and £350,000 to demolish this.

“That is the scandal: that I have paid out of my own pocket to procure access to what the nation had already bought.”

He added: “No private citizen should be financially penalised seeking material which should be publicly available.”

No more funds to appeal

Mr Lownie applied for costs from the Cabinet Office and the university, who he claimed had acted “unreasonably” in opposing the release of the documents, but the application was refused on June 2 , and the author no longer has the funds to appeal the decision

The University of Southampton received public funding, including from the Tax in Lieu scheme, to secure a collection of Mountbatten in 2010 with the promise to “preserve the collection in its entirety for future generations to use and enjoy” and “ensure public access”.

Mr Lownie, who wrote the 2019 biography The Mountbattens: The Lives and Loves of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten, was nevertheless denied access to the documents by the university, before the Information Commissioner insisted they be made public.

But the University of Southampton and the Cabinet Office then appealed against this decision, with the Cabinet Office believed to have spent thousands on legal fees to block the public access to the Mountbattens’ personal papers.

The vast majority of the documents were made public as a tribunal loomed, but a judge ruled that a small number of the papers should remain redacted.

The Cabinet Office had feared that the “dignity” of the Queen could be compromised by the writings of Lord Mountbatten, who was the maternal uncle of Prince Philip and a second cousin of Her Majesty.

The University of Southampton has been contacted for comment, and the Cabinet Office has stated: “The Tribunal accepted that the University of Southampton acted lawfully in withholding the material and Dr Lownie’s appeal for costs was dismissed.”