In one of the episodes of The Crown, Lord Mountbatten's character tells Elizabeth that she, like him, had married a wild spirit. "Trying to tame them is no use," he says solemnly. Through most of the show's second season, 'Dickie' Mountbatten's character looms large over the plot, even though he's never its central player. He's Philip's favourite uncle, a grandfather Charles never had and a mentor to Elizabeth. The show tends to give the impression of Mountbatten as a puppet-master pulling the strings, affecting global events, even a figure to sympathise with as the cuckolded husband of the wild Edwina. Indeed, it's how one imagines he saw himself too.

Yet, as Andrew Lownie points out in his latest book, The Mountbattens, Dickie was far from 'an important player on the world stage who changed nations' even if he liked to portray himself as that and would take credit for events to which he wasn't fully entitled. The book published by Harper Collins India deals with the glamorous couple's private and public lives and investigates their numerous dalliances outside of their marriage. It also points out that Edwina wasn't the only 'wild spirit' in that relationship.