Some of the world’s media are in a flap this morning with the news that The Queen of England has discovered that she is not the only queen in the British Royal Family.  It’s all be caused by the revelation that 53 year-old Lord Ivar Mountbatten her cousin has not just come out of the closet as gay but also introduced his ex flight attendant partner James Coyle to the world. 

Lord Mountbatten is the great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria, and he inherited his title from Earl Mountbatten of Burma (his great-uncle) who was murdered by the IRA in Ireland in 1979.  

The divorced father of three told the Daily Mail ‘Being a Mountbatten was never the problem, it was the generation into which I was born. When I was growing up, it was known as ‘the love that dare not speak its name’, but what’s amazing now is how far we have all come in terms of acceptance.’

And then the Earl went ski-ing in Switzerland last March and fell in love with Mr Coyle and is now set to live happily ever after.

He and H.M. are not naive enough to think that he is ‘the only gay in the extended (Royal) village’ but he is for the moment the only official one.