David Mountbatten was born in 1919. He was only son of George Mountbatten and Russian Countess Nadejda (Nada) Torby who wed in 1916. His paternal grandparents were Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Therefore, he was a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria. His maternal grandparents were Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich Romanov and Sophie of Merenberg. He is also a descendant of the Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin as well as Peter the Great’s African protégé, General Abram Petrovich Gannibal. He grew up at the family home in Holyport, Berkshire and enjoyed a close friendship with his first cousin Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later the Duke of Edinburgh. They both attended Dartmouth Naval College. He served as best man to the prince at Prince Philip’s marriage in November 1947 to the Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II.

During the Second World War Milford Haven served in the Royal Navy. In 1942 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for taking the destroyer Kandahar through a minefield in an attempt to rescue the cruiser Neptune. In 1943 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his work on Malta convoy operations. He retired from the Navy in 1948. He subsequently joined The Castaways’ Club, which enabled him to keep in close contact with many of his naval contemporaries. David Mountbatten then played a prominent part in the London demi-monde of the 1950s, which brought together a colourful mix of aristocrats and shadowy social climbers like osteopath Stephen Ward. This hard-partying set formed the nucleus for the Profumo Affair. David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven died, aged 50, on 14 April 1970 in London.