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Lady Pamela Hicks, the daughter of Lord Mountbatten and a first cousin of Prince Philip, has passed away at age 97, her daughter India Hicks announced today.
“My mother died peacefully today,” India wrote on Instagram. “Whilst there is no tragedy in the death of a 97-year-old who has lived a full life I know grief will be unavoidable, lurking around waiting for me, but today I am simply grateful that she was my Mother. And through the prism of a crowded and remarkable past, she made incomparable company, carrying her memories lightly, and always with humour.”
India added, “My mother maintained right up to the end, the impeccable style, sharp mind, and effortless charm that made her not only a cherished institution, but truly the last of her kind.”
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Lady Pamela Mountbatten, right, lady-in-waiting, adjusts Queen Elizabeth’s stole at the Royal Ball in Melbourne, March 1954.
Lady Pamela, born April 19, 1929, spent her entire life in royal circles. She was a bridesmaid at Queen Elizabeth’s royal wedding and a lady-in-waiting for the Queen. She was with then-Princess Elizabeth, soon to be Queen Elizabeth II, on that fateful February 1952 trip to Kenya when King George VI died. “People perhaps see a very privileged life, which indeed it was,” India told T&C about her mother’s life. “But there was a lot of extraordinary moments of darkness in there. We should not ever judge before we have a little further look into the lives of people.”
After Prince Philip died in 2021, Lady Pamela became the last surviving great-grandchild of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, one of Queen Victoria’s daughters.
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David Hicks and Pamela on their wedding day, January 13, 1960.
She wrote memoirs, and in 2024, her daughter India published Lady Pamela, an illustrated biography, aiming to bring her mother’s life out of the shadows. “She was in the shadow of very great parents who were very famous and did a lot of good and did many extraordinary things and also much criticized, but they were always in the limelight,” India said. “She was in the shadow of her older sister, who was a remarkable woman, very hardworking, became a judge. She was very much in the shadow of my father, David Hicks, who was a whirling dervish of design and ideas and a passion for life. And she was, of course, in the shadow of the Queen—as she should have been, as a lady in waiting… the combination of all of that is very remarkable.”
Pamela married interior designer David Hicks in 1960; they had three children, Edwina Hicks (b. 1961) Ashley Hicks (b. 1963), and India Hicks (b. 1967). David passed away in March 1998 of lung cancer. Pamela is survived by her children and numerous grandchildren.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.