THE PRINCESS’S BRIDESMAIDS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25346, 20 November 1947, Page 3

THE PRINCESS’S BRIDESMAIDS

Eight bridesmaids, in accordance with Royal custom, will attend Princess Elizabeth to-day. The chief bridesmaid is her sister, Princess Margaret who holds almost an equal place’ in the affections of the British people, and the youngest is her cousin. Princess Alexandra, daughter of the Duchess of Kent, who will be 11 next month. Two five-year-old Royal pages. Prince William of Gloucester, and Prince Michael of Kent, will also be in attendance.

Lady Caroline Montagu-Douglas-Scott, who is 20, is the younger daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, who is a brother of the Duchess •of Gloucester. Miss Diana Bowes-Lyons is a niece of the

Queen, and daughter of the late Hon. John Herbert Bowes-Lyon. Lady Elizabeth Lambart, who is 23, is the elder daughter of the late FieldMarshal the Earl of Cavan. Lady Mary Cambridge, who is 23, is the only child of the Marquess of Cambridge, who is Queen Mary’s nephew. She was a bridesmaid at the weddings of the Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Gloucester. One of Princess Elizabeth’s closest friends is the Hon. Margaret Elphinstone, the 22-year-old daughter of the Queen’s sister, Lady Elphinstone, formerly Lady Mary Bowes-Lyon. Lady Pamela Mountbatten, who is 18, is the younger daughter of Earl and Countess Mountbatten, and has come from India with her parents for the wedding. She is a first cousin of the bridegroom. The Best Man Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten’s best man is his cousin and fellow naval

officer, the 28-year-old Marquess of Milford Haven, 0.8. E., D.S.C. Both are nephews of Earl Mountbatten, and both hold the same rank in the Navy. The Marquess of Milford Haven was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1937.' Lieutenant David Michael Mountbatten, third Marquess of Milford Haven, is a great-grandson of Queen Victoria. The Marquess of Milford Haven served first in the cruiser London, and was a sub-lieutenant in the destroyer Kandahar from 1939 to 1941. He was a lieutenant in H.M.S. Earham in 1942, and attended a signal course in H.M.S. Victory in 1943. He won the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry while serving in a Malta convoy, and was awarded the Order of the British Empire for leadership and devotion to duty when the Kandahar was sunk in a minefield in 1942. He is nqw stationed in Cornwall.