Mountbatten family
The Mountbatten family is a British dynasty that originated as a British branch of the German princely Battenberg family. The name was adopted on 14 July 1917, three days before the British royal family changed its name from "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" to "Windsor", by members of the Battenberg family residing in the United Kingdom, due to rising anti-German sentiment among the British public during World War I. The name is a direct Anglicisation of the German Battenberg, or Batten mountain, the name of a small town in Hesse. The titles of count and later prince of Battenberg had been granted in the mid-19th century to a morganatic branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, itself a cadet branch of the House of Hesse.
| Mountbatten | |
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| German-British noble family | |
Blazon: Quarterly, 1st and 4th: Azure, a Lion rampant double-queued Barry of ten Argent and Gules and ducaly crowned Or, within a Bordure compony of the second and third (Hesse); 2nd and 3rd: Argent, two pallets Sable (Battenberg). | |
| Parent family | Battenberg branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt |
| Place of origin | Grand Duchy of Hesse |
| Founded | 14 July 1917 |
| Current head | George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven |
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The family includes the Marquesses of Milford Haven (and formerly the Marquesses of Carisbrooke), as well as the Earls Mountbatten of Burma. The late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, consort of Queen Elizabeth II, adopted the surname of Mountbatten from his mother's family in 1947, being a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg by patrilineal descent. Lady Louise Mountbatten became Queen consort of Sweden after his husband King Gustaf VI Adolf ascended the Swedish throne 1950.