Queen's cousin Lord Ivar Mountbatten opens up about 'royal family's first gay wedding'

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, broke barriers when he tied the knot with partner James Coyle in 2018, reportedly marking the first-ever same-sex marriage in the extended British royal family. Lord Ivar recently opened up about the iconic wedding, and confessed that it was him who pushed his partner to marry even though the latter did not agree initially.

The couple recently made an appearance on ITV's one-off documentary "The Queen and Her Cousins with Alexander Armstrong," and discussed one of the reasons behind their marriage. Lord Ivar explained: "James never really wanted to get married and I pushed him. Only because I wanted to validate him and give him a position as it couldn't have been easy being Ivar Mountbatten's 'boyfriend.'"

His husband James then added that their wedding was the first same-sex marriage "in any royal dynasty... absolutely... I've made history." When asked if he also took his husband's title as is customary in the royalty, James said he would need to change his name by deed poll for that.

"I mean I get called Lady Mountbatten at work a lot," the Glaswegian airline cabin services director joked.

"And I get curtsies and all sorts. Sometimes you're in the mood for it and sometimes you're having a rotten morning and somebody flies out the door and dips with a curtsy and you just want to...," he added.

The couple wed in 2019 in a small private ceremony in a chapel at Lord Ivar's Grade-I listed home, Bridwell, in Devon. The couple has been isolating there during the coronavirus lockdown, along with the aristocrat's ex-wife, Lady Penny and their three adult daughters Ella, Alix, and Luli.

Lord Ivar and Penny have remained best friends even after their divorce ten years ago, and the latter even walked her former husband down the aisle at his wedding to James.

Lord Ivar is the son of the David Mountbatten, the 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, and a great-great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria. He is related to both the Queen and her late husband Prince Philip through his father. When asked if the royal family is a " normal family" behind the scenes, he said: "Yes, absolutely. That's what everyone seems to forget. We all have our ups and downs, everybody has their own internal arguments - it's the same anywhere."

He added that the only custom that has always been different in the royal family is that they address the Queen appropriately as "Your Majesty" and "Ma'am" after that.

"It's like when we went to school you would always call the headmaster "Sir". You wouldn't think anything of it," he explained.