Pain etched on the face of Penny, a confidante and keeper of Windsor secrets for four decades
ASHEN-faced, Prince Philip’s close friend, Countess Mountbatt en of Burma, l ooked ‘heartbroken’ as she arrived for the funeral yesterday.
Penelope Knatchbull – known as ‘Penny’ – sat quietly at the back of St George’s Chapel.
In many ways, Penny, who turned 68 on Friday, was the second-most important woman in the Duke of Edinburgh’s life – a constant confidante, loyal companion and ‘keeper of secrets’.
‘Penny was one of the few friends that Philip continued to see regularly after 2017 and his withdrawal from Royal duties,’ said one aide.
‘They were brought together by tragedy but were there for each other through thick and thin. He trusted her implicitly and she adored him. She never betrayed him.
‘She was a keeper of not only his secrets but those of the entire family.
‘Theirs was a deep and lasting friendship. Penny was always jokingly referred to as “and also” because whenever a list was being drawn up for a family event, be it private or public, it would be “let’s invite X and Y” and then Philip would insist “and also Penny…”
‘No Royal event, major or minor, was complete without her.’
While much has been made of their shared passion for the sport of carriage driving, their ties were deep and went back decades.
Penny is thought to have met Philip in 1974 when she was dating Norton Knatchbull, now the 3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma, one of Prince Charles’s closest friends at Gordonstoun School in Scotland.
The only daughter of Reginald Eastwood, a butcher-turned-businessman, she was educated in Switzerland before taking a business degree at the London School of Economics.
Penny met her husband at a party thrown by mutual friends in London and was described by one acquaintance as ‘one of the most natural young women I have ever met, outgoing but not brash or flirty. Utterly delightful’.
They added: ‘ She was also very bright, engaged and clever. Well read. She’s easy company and lovely to be around’.
Earl Mountbatten, 73, whose family seat is Broadlands in Hampshire, where the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh spent their honeymoon, is the grandson of Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s beloved uncle.
When he married Penny in 1979 – with Prince Charles as best man – it was just two months after Lord Mountbatten had been murdered by the IRA. The Earl also lost his brother Nicholas and grandmother, Lady Brabourne, when a bomb, planted on the family’s fishing boat, exploded in County Sligo.
Until 2005, the Countess was known as Lady Romsey and later Lady Brabourne until assuming her current title on the death of her husband’s mother in 2017.
The Knatchbulls were always close members of the Royal circle but tragedy bonded Penny and Philip when, in 1991, her youngest daughter Leonora died of kidney cancer at the age of five.
‘He was a tremendous support for her during a time of unimaginable grief,’ a source said.
‘Despite their 30-year age difference, they had a lot of things in common. Penny has always been utterly discreet, totally loyal and always gave her honest opinion on things, good and bad, as best pals are supposed to do.
‘But the friendship was a two-way street. Philip was always there for her.
‘She looked heartbroken when she arrived at
‘She was utterly discreet, totally loyal and always gave her honest opinion’
the funeral and she is heartbroken. She’s lost her best friend.’
After Leonora’s death, Philip began to invite Penny on carriage rides and she became passionate about carriage driving, a sport one aide described as ‘one of the big loves of his life after the Queen’.
The Duke and Penny were often together at events such as the Royal Windsor Horse Show, sometimes on matching mini-motorbikes as they rode around the course they would later follow in their carriages.
Indeed, two black Fell ponies and a carriage designed by Philip stood at Windsor Castle yesterday as his coffin made its way to St George’s Chapel. The dark green fourwheeled aluminium and steel carriage, accompanied by two of his grooms, is one he designed and began using at the age of 91. With it in Windsor Castle’s Quadrangle were his two beloved Fell ponies – Balmoral Nevis and Notlaw Storm – both born in 2008.
In 2010, Earl Mountbatten left Penny to live with his mistress in the Bahamas, but within a couple of years had returned to a cottage on the Broadlands estate.
Penny took over the running of the 18th Century, 60-room mansion during her husband’s absence and continues to run the house and estate today. She allowed her errant husband to move back into the ‘big house’ after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The Earl has not been seen in public for several years.
Their daughter Leonora is buried within the 86- acre grounds of Broadlands and Penny has devoted her life to raising money for a charity in her name. Seven years ago, the Leonora Children’s Charity Cancer Fund was merged with The Edwina Mountbatten Trust, a charity founded by Leonora’s greatgrandmother.
‘Her life of service and charity is something which bonded her to the Duke,’ the source said.
‘There was a great mutual admiration between them.’
While many will miss Philip, the pain etched so clearly on Penny’s face yesterday suggests few people outside his immediate family will miss his company more than her.