The King’s goddaughter has shared the final words her grandfather said to her before his assassination.
India Hicks, the granddaughter of the late Lord Louis Mountbatten, appeared on this week’s episode of The Royal Record podcast.
GB News’s Royal Correspondent, Cameron Walker, asked Hicks if she could remember her grandfather’s final words before his assassination in 1979.
She said: “I do, and rather lovely. He said, ‘Look after my dog for me’.
King’s goddaughter shares the final words her grandfather said to her before his assassination
GB News / PA
“Three days later, the Queen very generously sent a helicopter to take my sister, brother and I out of it, leaving my mother there to cope with the aftermath.
“We took off the helicopter, and I remember I had my grandfather’s dog, and of course, I’d taken the words so seriously – this order that I was to look after his dog.
“I took the headphones off my own ears, and I put them over the head of the Labrador.
“I was an 11-year-old girl, deeply confused. I’d never heard the words ‘political assassination’ before.
Lord Mountbatten and Queen Elizabeth II stood on the Buckingham Palace balcony in 1977
PA
“But I did know that I needed to look after my grandfather’s dog.”
Lord Mountbatten was assassinated by the (Irish Republican Army) IRA in August 1979.
He was an uncle to Prince Philip and a distant cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
Lord Mountbatten was known to have a particularly close relationship with King Charles, becoming a mentor to him and offering him guidance throughout his life.
India Hicks recounted the final words said to her by her late grandfather, Lord Mountbatten
GB News
India Hicks (second from the left) as a bridesmaid at Princess Diana’s wedding to King Charles
PA
King Charles, as the Prince of Wales, was later made India Hicks’s godfather, one of Lord Mountbatten’s grandchildren.
Hicks later acted as a bridesmaid aged 13 at Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981.
The nuptials were held at St Paul’s Cathedral with a staggering 3,500 guests in attendance.