Trooping the Colour: Duke of Kent leaves after parade

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Her Majesty was pivotal in preventing one of her beloved first cousins – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent – from being kidnapped during his deployment as an Army officer with the Royal Scots Greys in Northern Ireland, unearthed correspondence shows. The Duke had been sent to Northern Ireland with his unit in 1971.

However, former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Lord O’Neill had received a warning the IRA was planning to kidnap the Duke upon his arrival in Belfast.

This alarming message was passed on by the peer to the Queen through her private secretary.

The monarch then decided to inform the Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, during a private audience who, in turn, relayed the warning to his ministers.

As shown in a confidential correspondence between Sir Heath’s private secretary, Robert Armstrong, and the Ministry of Defence AW Stephens dated February 11 1971, the “Queen’s wish” not to send her cousin to Belfast had been “carefully noted”.

The letter, found by royal author Robert Hardman at the National Archives in London, also shows Lord Carrington, then the Secretary of Defence, had been made aware of the possible IRA plan.

The letter, sent by Mr Stephens, read: “The Queen’s wish that the Duke should not be sent into Belfast has been carefully noted.

“As I mentioned in my letter of 8th February, the Defence Secretary has already given express instructions that on no account is this to happen without the authority of Ministers, and he does not envisage any circumstances in which such authority should be given.”

The message went on saying Lord Carrington was “keeping under constant review” the question regarding how soon Prince Edward should be told to return from Northern Ireland entirely.

It also stated the Defence Secretary “will certainly take fully into account the danger described by Lord O’Neill – which has of course to be balanced against the different sort of risk that an ill-timed return might cause the Duke (and, indeed, the Palace) severe embarrassment.”

In his new book Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, Mr Hardman described the Queen’s decision to speak to the Prime Minister regarding her cousin’s post in Northern Ireland as a sign she was concerned over the veracity of Lord O’Neill’s warning.

However, he stressed, this intervention should not be seen as a request for a special treatment for the royal.

He wrote: “This was a time when kidnappings were on the up – a British diplomat had been kidnapped by separatists in Quebec months earlier – and the Queen was clearly worried enough about the credibility of this rumour that she intervened with the PM.

“Though she has always been very loyal to her cousins, and they to her, this would not have been a case of special treatment.

“When it came to the Falklands, for example, the Queen was adamant that Prince Andrew should not receive special treatment.

“She would have been more concerned that the Duke of Kent’s presence was a danger to his men.”

The Duke of Kent served in the Army between the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.

Between 1962 and 1963, he served in Hong Kong and, shortly before his Northern Ireland post he commanded a squadron of his regiment serving in the British Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus.

He eventually retired from the Army in 1976.

In 1993, he was promoted to field marshall.

He currently is one of the 11 working royals supporting the Queen by attending events and carrying out duties.

Eight years after the Queen’s relayed to Sir Heath Lord O’Neill’s message regarding a member of the Royal Family possibly being the target of the IRA, the organisation killed Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Lord Mountbatten was the Queen’s second cousin and a great uncle and mentor of Prince Charles.

He was aboard a boat in Cliffoney, County Sligo, when a previously planted bomb was detonated by two Provisional IRA members.

14-year-old Nicholas Bradbourne and 15-year-old Paul Maxwell were also killed by the explosion.

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