Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent during the annual Trooping the Colour Ceremony on June 15, 2013. Photo / Getty Images
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent during the annual Trooping the Colour Ceremony on June 15, 2013. Photo / Getty Images
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 has unearthed correspondence showing that she was instrumental in foiling a kidnap plot against her cousin after alerting the prime minister to the threat.
In 1971, the then 35-year-old Duke, an Army officer with the Royal Scots Greys, was sent to Northern Ireland with his unit.
But Lord O'Neill, the former Northern Ireland prime minister, had received a warning that the IRA was planning to kidnap the Duke when he entered Belfast.
The peer passed the message to the Queen via her private secretary. She alerted Edward Heath, the Prime Minister, during her private audience, and he relayed a warning to his ministers.
Commanding officers were told the Duke was not to be sent to Belfast without special orders. A few weeks later, he was posted back to the mainland.
The revelation appears in Robert Hardman's new 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 the Prime Minister's private secretary, Robert Armstrong, on Feb 11: "The Queen's wish that the Duke should not be sent into Belfast has been carefully noted."
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 have been targets for the IRA. The organisation claimed responsibility for the 1979 murder of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the second cousin of the Queen and great uncle of Prince Charles.
The IRA was also said to be behind a failed bomb attempt to assassinate the Queen in 1981 when she opened a giant new oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland.
The book also contains revelations about the Queen and Prince Charles's feelings about Scottish independence, suggesting they feel "viscerally Scottish" and "liberated" in Scotland.
The revelation over the Duke of Kent coincides with the announcement that he has become the latest member of the Royal family to write his memoirs.
The forthcoming book, A Royal Life, has been written alongside Hugo Vickers, the historian. It includes his memories of his father's death during the Second World War, of being bullied at prep school and his nerves at taking part in the Coronation.
