Lady Iris was born in 1920 at Kensington Palace. Her father was born a prince and raised under the watchful eye of his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Her mother was the daughter of an earl and married her husband the day after King George V removed royal titles from fringe members of the royal family during World War One. They became known as the Marquess and Marchioness of Carisbrooke. Lady Carisbrooke took being a semi-royal seriously and loved royal duties. Lord Carisbrooke loved men. Lady Iris was a first cousin to Lord Louis Mountbatten, to a Queen of Sweden, to Prince Philip's mother, and her aunt was Queen Ena of Spain.
She caused a minor scandal when she married a Catholic commoner in 1941. Two ceremonies were performed, a Catholic one and later one by the Church of England. Her husband was an abusive drunk, so they soon separated and Lady Iris began a string of affairs with black jazz musicians. (Kind of a no-no at the time.) When her grandmother, Princess Beatrice (last surviving child of Queen Victoria) died, Lady Iris was banned from the funeral. A divorce from her Catholic husband was obtained by him on the grounds of her desertion. (Another huge scandal.) And her family all but disowned her, so she moved to the USA where she began trading in on her royal blood and name by appearing on television shows and being a model/spokeswoman for commercial products such as make-up and chewing gum.
While in America she married for the second time and her only child, a son was born. That marriage also ended in divorce. She was later arrested for writing rubber checks, and finally ended up being detained as it was discovered she was in America illegally because her visa had expired. She and her son moved to Canada (sound familiar?) where Lady Iris married her third husband. When she died in Toronto in 1982, no one from the royal family was represented at her funeral. A decade later, her first cousin once removed, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma arranged for Lady Iris' ashes to be brought back to Britain to be interred with her parents.
