The Crown:
Did Lord Mountbatten really plot to overthrow Harold Wilson in a coup?
Here's what
we know about an alleged plot to overthrow a democratically-elected government
By Eleanor
Bley Griffiths
Sunday,
17th November 2019 at 12:00 pm
The fifth
episode of The Crown season three is titled ‘Coup’ – which is pretty accurate,
as the drama shows newspaper boss and Bank of England director Cecil King
(Rupert Vansittart) trying to woo Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) to lead a
coup d’état against Harold Wilson’s government.
Here’s what
you need to know about the real-life history that inspired this episode of
Netflix’s royal drama:
Was Lord
Mountbatten approached by Cecil King about overthrowing the government?
We still
don’t know everything that went on behind closed doors, but what we do have is
an extraordinary memoir by newspaper editor and publishing boss Hugh Cudlipp.
‘Walking on Water’ recounts a 1968 plot by his colleague, the newspaper magnate
Cecil King, to bring down Harold Wilson and install an unelected government. At
the head of that government would be Lord Louis Mountbatten.
At the
time, Cecil Harmsworth King was Chairman of the International Publishing
Corporation, which was then the biggest publishing empire in the world and
owned the Daily Mirror. He was also a director at the Bank of England, and had
a very high opinion of himself.
King felt
that Britain was heading for total political and economic collapse, and that
Wilson’s administration would either disintegrate or be forcibly removed.
Cudlipp
summarises King’s view like this: “Before, during or after this debacle there
would be violence and bloodshed in the streets, the docks and the factories
beyond the strength or patience of the police to subdue or contain… a new
administration would be urgently required, perhaps a new regime if only for a
limited period, dominated by new men or at any rate not by political hacks.
Parliament, which had dug its own grave, would temporarily lie in it until
national dignity and morale were restored. Parliament would remain the
legislative chamber but it was futile to look solely to Parliament for the
leadership required.
“What would
be the role of the Royal Family, and who among those on or near the throne
would occupy the centre of the stage? Who would be the titular head of the new
regime? What was required was a man of courage and impartiality, widely known
to the public and accepted as a leader; a Royal Connection would clearly be no
disadvantage. Earl Mountbatten?”
Cudlipp
adds: “In an era when the reputation of politicians had sunk so abysmally low,
when nothing short of a revival of national pride led by disinterested men of
power and action would change the course of events, it occurred to King that
this legendary personality int he history of our times was surely the man for
the hour as the titular head of the Emergency Government.”
King was
already considering getting his dream-leader on board in August 1967 when he
noted a conversation in his diary between Cudlipp and Mountbatten. “Hugh asked
him if it had been suggested to him that our present style of government might
be in for a change. He said it had,” King wrote. “Hugh then asked if it had
been suggested that he might have some part to play in such a new regime.
Mountbatten said it had been suggested, but that he was far too old.”
King made
no secret of his distaste for the Wilson government, and others started to
catch hints of his plans – though press reports said he was pushing for a
“coalition government”. King issued a response, which said: “A coalition at
this moment is just not on, and will not become so unless the political
situation deteriorates still further, which it may.”
This
careful wording was very deliberate. King confided in his diary: “Politicians
seem incapable of understanding that when I talk of coalition I am talking of
the future not of the present. The whole episode is interesting as it would not
have been given the prominence it was unless people are thinking in terms of a
National Government.”
King and
Cudlipp met with editors within the IPC publishing group over dinner to discuss
the Wilson question, but it was not a wild success. They were dubious about
supporting what King really wanted: a “Wilson Must Go” campaign and a
newspaper-led plot to unseat the Prime Minister.
Did Lord
Mountbatten consider the coup against Harold Wilson?
As we see
in The Crown, some of the manoeuvring did actually go down at the Burma Star
Association annual reunion – but Cecil King wasn’t the one who made contact.
Instead, when a mutual friend mentioned Cudlipp’s name to him, Lord Mountbatten
issued an invitation to meet him at the Royal Squadron – or at Broadlands in
Romsey, his country house.
Cudlipp
took himself off to see Lord Mountbatten at Broadlands and discuss current
affairs over a glass of sherry. According to Cudlipp’s account, Mountbatten was
concerned about the state of the nation but did not seem inclined to get
involved in politics or economics.
“Political
manoeuvre, in favour of whatever person or persons or faction, however lofty
and disinterested the motives, was none of the business of the man who was
‘Uncle Dickie’ to both the Queen and her husband and personal ADC to Her
Majesty since 1953. What he was hoping for was a massive resurgence of the
British spirit.”
In The
Crown, we see Mountbatten summoned to the Bank of England for a meeting, before
inviting everyone to his Broadlands country home to hear his response to their
plot. If Cudlipp’s account is to be believed, this is a fictionalised version
of events.
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Nevertheless,
a meeting between King and Cudlipp and Mountbatten was arranged for the
afternoon of 8th May 1968 at the Lord’s London residence in Kinnerton Street.
On the day, Mountbatten phoned Cudlipp to say he was also inviting Sir Solly
Zuckerman, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government.
Cudlipp
recalled: “He [King] awaited the arrival of Sir Solly and then at once
expounded his views on the gravity of the national situation, the urgency for
action, and the embarked upon a shopping-list of the Prime Minister’s
shortcomings… He did the talking and I sat aback in my chair to observe the
reactions, detecting an increasing concern on the part of the two listeners.
“He
explained that in the crisis he foresaw as being just around the corner the
Government would disintegrate, there would be bloodshed in the streets, the
armed forces would be involved. The people would be looking to somebody like
Lord Mountbatten as the titular head of a new administration, somebody renowned
as a leader of men who would be capable, backed by the best brains and
administrators in the land, to restore public confidence. He ended with a
question to Mountbatten – would he agree to be the titular head of a new
administration in such circumstances?”
The
reaction was not as hoped. Mountbatten turned to his friend: “Solly, you
haven’t said a word so far. What do you think of all this?”
According
to Cudlipp, “Sir Solly rose, walked to the door, opened it, and then made this
statement: ‘This is rank treachery. All this talk of machine guns at street
corners is appalling. I am a public servant and will have nothing to do with
it. Nor should you, Dickie.’ Mountbatten expressed his agreement and Sir Solly
departed.
Only a
minute or two elapsed between Zuckerman’s departure and King’s. Lord
Mountbatten was, as always in my experience, courteous by firm: he explained
explicitly but briefly that he entirely agreed with Solly and that sort of
role, so far as he was concerned, was ‘simply not on’.”
 |
| Cecil King in The Crown |
And that
was that. Two days later, Cecil King decided to go ahead even without “the
titular blessing of Lord Mountbatten”, and pushed through a Daily Mirror front
page calling for Wilson’s downfall. He was dismissed as Chairman of the
publishing group 21 days later.
Was the
Queen travelling in America with Porchie during the plot?
No, not
exactly.
All the
event described above unfolded in 1968. The Queen did go on a four-day
fact-finding trip to France and America with Lord “Porchie” Porchester to
investigate various stables and studs, but that wasn’t until May 1969.
Porchie was
then appointed the Queen’s racing manager, a position he held until his death
in 2001. The two of them were old friends and fellow horse enthusiasts, and
working for the Queen made him more prominent in racing than ever.
As for
Harold Wilson’s reaction to the would-be coup, it seems the Prime Minister did
not trust MI5 and thought they were trying to bring him down. In tapes played
in the 2006 BBC documentary The Plot Against Harold Wilson, he actually talked
about two plots: one in the late 1960s involving plans to instal Mountbatten,
and another one in the mid-1970s led by the military. Wilson also worried
constantly about bugging, and about being smeared as a Soviet agent or IRA
sympathiser.
Whether he
ever discussed the Cecil King/Mountbatten plot with the Queen is a question
which may never be answered…
 |
In his 1976
memoir Walking on Water, Hugh Cudlipp recounts a meeting he arranged at the
request of Cecil King, the head of the International Publishing Corporation
(IPC), between King and Lord Mountbatten of Burma. The meeting took place on 8
May 1968. Attending were Mountbatten, King, Cudlipp, and Sir Solly Zuckerman,
the Chief Scientific Adviser to the British government.
According
to Cudlipp:
"[Cecil]
awaited the arrival of Sir Solly and then at once expounded his views on the
gravity of the national situation, the urgency for action, and then embarked
upon a shopping list of the Prime Minister's shortcomings. He explained that in
the crisis he foresaw as being just around the corner, the Government would
disintegrate, there would be bloodshed in the streets and the armed forces
would be involved. The people would be looking to somebody like Lord
Mountbatten as the titular head of a new administration, somebody renowned as a
leader of men, who would be capable, backed by the best brains and
administrators in the land, to restore public confidence. He ended with a
question to Mountbatten—would he agree to be the titular head of a new
administration in such circumstances?”
Mountbatten
asked for the opinion of Zuckerman, who stated that the plan amounted to
treason and left the room. Mountbatten expressed the same opinion, and King and
Cudlipp left. King subsequently decided to override the editorial independence
of the Daily Mirror and wrote and instructed to be published a front-page
article calling on Wilson to be removed by some sort of extra-parliamentary
action. The board of the IPC met and demanded his resignation for this breach
of procedure and the damage to the interests of IPC as a public company. He
refused, so was dismissed by the board on 30 May 1968.
In addition
to Mountbatten's refusal to participate in King's mooted plot, there is no
evidence of any other conspirators. Cudlipp himself appears to see the meeting
as an example of extreme egotism on King's part.
A later
memoir by Harold Evans, former Times and Sunday Times editor, observed that the
Times had egged on King's plans for a coup:
Rees-Mogg's
Times backed the Conservative Party in every general election, but it
periodically expressed yearnings for a coalition of the right-centre. In the
late 1960s it encouraged Cecil King's notion of a coup against Harold Wilson's
Labour Government in favour of a government of business leaders led by Lord
Robens. In the autumn election of 1974, it predicted that economic crisis would
produce a coalition government of national unity well inside five years and
urged one there and then between Conservatives and Liberals.
William
Rees-Mogg called for a coalition in an 8 December 1968 Times editorial entitled
"The Danger to Britain", a day before King visited the Times office.
A BBC
programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast in 2006, reported that, in
tapes recorded soon after his resignation on health grounds, Wilson stated that
for eight months of his premiership he didn't "feel he knew what was going
on, fully, in security". Wilson alleged two plots, in the late 1960s and
mid-1970s respectively. He said that plans had been hatched to install Lord
Mountbatten, Prince Charles's great uncle and mentor, as interim prime
minister. He also claimed that ex-military leaders had been building up private
armies in anticipation of "wholesale domestic liquidation". On a
separate track, elements within MI5 had also, the BBC programme reported,
spread "black propaganda" that Wilson and Marcia Williams (Wilson's
private secretary) were Soviet agents, and that Wilson was an IRA sympathiser,
apparently with the intention of helping the Conservatives win the 1974
election.
|
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| Harold Wilson in The Crown |
