Moment the Queen stepped in to thwart the kidnapping of her cousin by the IRA
THE QUEEN intervened to prevent the Duke of Kent from being kidnapped by the IRA in the 1970s, a book has revealed.
A new biography of the monarch unearths correspondence showing how the Queen was instrumental in foiling a kidnap plot against her cousin.
In 1971, the then 35-year-old Duke, an Army officer with the Royal Scots Greys, was sent to Northern Ireland with his unit.
The former Northern Ireland prime minister, Lord O’neill, had received a warning that the IRA were planning to kidnap the Duke when he entered Belfast.
The peer passed the message on to the Queen via her private secretary. She alerted prime minister Edward Heath during her private audience and he relayed a warning to his ministers.
Commanding officers were then told that the Duke was not to be sent to Belfast without special orders. A few weeks later, the Duke was posted back to the mainland.
The revelation appears in Robert Hardman’s book Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, after he found the secret correspondence in the National Archives.
He quotes AW Stephens, the ministry of defence official who informed Robert Armstrong, the prime minister’s private secretary, on February 11: “The Queen’s wish that the Duke should not be sent into Belfast has been carefully noted.”
Mr Hardman said: “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 Royal family – including the Queen – have been targeted by the IRA.
The organisation claimed responsibility for the 1979 murder of Lord Mountbatten, 79, second cousin of the Queen and great-uncle of Prince Charles.
The IRA were also said to be behind a failed bomb attempt to assassinate the Queen in 1981, when she opened an oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland.
The book also contains revelations on the Queen and Prince Charles’s feelings about Scottish independence, suggesting that they feel “viscerally Scottish”, and feel “liberated” in Scotland.
The revelation over the Duke of Kent coincides with the announcement that the Duke has become the latest member of the Royal Family to write his memoirs.
The forthcoming book has been written by the Duke alongside the historian Hugo Vickers.
It includes his memories of his father’s death during the Second World War, of being bullied at prep school and of his nerves at taking part in the Coronation.
‘Though she has always been very loyal to her cousins – this would not have been a case of special treatment’