One of Prince Philip's sisters was married to Gottfried, Eighth Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who was dismissed from the Wehrmacht for his role in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on 20th July 1944, although it is worth reiterating that he had been in it up to that point. But another was married to Prince Christoph of Hesse, who was a director in the Third Reich's Ministry of Air Forces, a Commander of the Air Reserves, and an Oberführer in the SS. And that is before looking into the very strange case of her second marriage.
Yet in Athens in 1941, so his diary records, Chips Channon met the future Duke of Edinburgh, great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria. In their reduced circumstances, the sisters of the young Prince of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (how Greek does that sound to you?) had made some very interesting marriages indeed. But, records Channon quite matter-of-factly, "He is to be our Prince Consort, and that is why he is serving in our navy." At that time, the then Princess Elizabeth was 15 years old.
Fascinating anecdote but nothing to do with what goes on in the Pakistani community, where female genital mutilation, domestic abuse and 'honour killings' are rife.
ReplyDeleteDisabled British Pakistani men being forced to marry people without their consent-which would be a crime if any other community did it- is a classic example of multiculturalism creating second-class citizens, denied the same protections as the rest of us.
We can all see how is off topic. But since we are here, British Pakistani marital practices are a weak spot for the more dedicated devotees, if such they truly be, of the British monarchy. It is very difficult to square that devotion with opposition to imported cousin marriage per se, to such marriage in order to rescue the imported cousin from poverty, or to the conscious and even intentional importation of foreign political difficulties along with the cousins to be married.
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