The sex, secrets and spy rumours surrounding Prince Philip’s wild Thursday Club, as portrayed in The Crown
THE ‘Thursday Club’ was portrayed in The Crown as Prince Philip’s weekly ‘escape’ from royal life, with scandalous scenes showing him partying with some of Britain’s most powerful men and most beautiful women.
The Netflix show’s portrayal of the a weekly lunch meeting even hints at the sensational and unconfirmed rumours that Philip cheated on the Queen – but just how much of it is a realistic depiction of what actually took place in the 1950s?
A royal source tells the Sun Online: “The club was a gathering of bon viveurs who would meet once a week every Thursday for lunches at Wheeler’s fish restaurant in Soho, although the quality of the food was not crucial to its members’ enjoyment of the proceedings, whereas the quantity of the drink definitely was.
“An endless supply of wine, followed by port and brandy, plus the best cigars, ensured that lunch went on well into the night, with the bibulous guests becoming more louche – and increasingly frisky – as the hours went by.”
In fact, one former member of the club recalled previously: “The atmosphere was raffish and mischievous, not that we set out to be deliberately badly behaved, although often things would get a bit out of hand by the time everyone had downed a bottle or two.
“But basically we were a men’s eating and drinking group who proudly dedicated ourselves to ‘Absolute Inconsequence’.”
The club would take place on a separate floor in the restaurant, away from the general public, with our royal source stating that there would often be six circular tables set up in a lavish dining room.
Philip’s biographer Philip Eade even previously described the gatherings as “rip-roaring stag parties”.
A-list guests, royalty and ‘even criminals’
While some former members of the Thursday Club have openly spoken about their time there, others have never confirmed that they were regulars.
Writer Miles Kington wrote in depth about his time in the club for The Independent in 1996 however.
He described members as “the gang of cronies that the Duke of Edinburgh used to gather round him in the 1950s to have a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace”.
According to our royal source, two of the well-known faces who joined him there were actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov, “plus a handful of establishment figures”.
Despite the royal family’s often difficult relationship with the press, there were also allegedly major figures in the newspaper world in attendance too.
Meanwhile, our source claims Foreign Office employee Kim Philby, (who had yet to be exposed as a Soviet spy), was also seen there.
It’s been widely claimed that Philip was first introduced to the club by his good friend Baron Narhum.
Baron is said to have set the club up himself some time before with the help of actor James Robertson Justice and several others.
Our source says: “Baron was a fast-living photographer, of Italian-Libyan parentage, who had first met Philip on a photo-shoot at Broadlands, the Hampshire home of Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten.
“Baron founded the Thursday Club and often hosted parties in his Mayfair flat, where blue-bloods met showgirls, and introduced Philip to this bohemian circle.”
The source adds: “Philip had also been encouraged to join the club by Michael Parker, with whom he had enjoyed a friendship since 1942, when the two were young lieutenants on destroyers in World War II.
“Five years later, after marrying Princess Elizabeth, Philip appointed the Australian-born Michael to be his equerry. Parker also acted, according to rumours, as Philip’s ‘wingman’ when the prince wanted to be introduced to new female company.
“One of the few photographs in existence of the club’s lunches was one taken by Baron in November 1947 at a gathering of members to toast Philip on his engagement to the future Queen.”
Philip’s best man, his cousin, David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquis of Milford Haven, is also thought to have attended the parties.
The existence of the club was confirmed by Philip’s biographer Eade, who himself named Kim Philby, Peter Ustinov and David Niven as members.
Meanwhile, Kington sensationally claimed previously that one of the Kray brothers would sometimes attend too.
Links to Profumo scandal
Perhaps one of the most controversial claims in The Crown is that Philip was closely linked to Dr Stephen Ward, a society osteopath who was to gain notoriety as the go-between who introduced Christine Keeler to John Profumo.
Profumo was then war minister and the ensuing scandal – in which Ward was prosecuted for acting as a pimp – was portrayed in the recent TV drama, The Trial of Christine Keeler.
While Ward previously sketched a piece of artwork of Philip, there is no evidence to suggest that their friendship went anywhere beyond that.
However, The Crown pushes this link much further and shows scenes where actor Matt Smith, who plays Philip in the series, meets Ward at the Thursday Club before visiting him for help with his back pain.
Smith later admitted some of Philip’s scenes were exaggerated for drama, telling the LA Times: “All the conflicts in his [Philip’s] marriage are always quite satisfying to play because it’s quite a rich tapestry emotionally.
“It’s [writer] Peter Morgan’s version of what happens. There wasn’t a camera in there recording these things. It’s impressionistic, but it’s based on as much fact as we can gather.”
Clive Irving, who was working at the Sunday Times during the Profumo Affair, previously confirmed to the Daily Beast that Ward was indeed a member of the Thursday Club.
A wild stag party
One of the only photos in existence of Philip with his friends – many of whom were later rumoured to be part of the Thursday Club – was taken on his stag night.
Our source says: “The group dined on foie gras, turtle soup, mixed grill and crepes suzette.
“On the menu was also printed a verse by Dr Samuel Johnson — ‘Marriage is the best state for a man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state…’
“It was rumoured that after Philip’s stag dinner had reached the pudding stage, the all-male gathering was joined by a party of ten alluringly-dressed women who draped themselves around he prince and his guests, one of whom was Philip’s uncle, Earl Mountbatten.
“Another guest later recalled saying to Mountbatten that he was puzzled by the presence of what were euphemistically called ‘showgirls’.”
Our source says the guest later wrote of the moment, and recalled Lord Louis saying: “Don’t knock these girls… These girls are all great ladies in their own right. The Duchess of Northumberland, the Percy, the Lady Devonshire …”
The guest asked: “These are their titles?” to which he claimed Lord Louis replied: “No. They’re the pubs they work at.”
Affair claims
In 1948, when Elizabeth was pregnant with Charles, papers ran a story about Philip’s alleged fling with actress Pat Kirkwood, with whom he danced “until dawn” at a nightclub.
She was forced to deny stories of an affair for the rest of her life.
Although the Queen never spoke about her marriage in public, the Palace was eventually forced to issue a statement that said: “It is quite untrue that there is a rift between the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. It is a lie.”
While the entire Thursday Club has long been haunted by rumours of wild affairs and romances, Parker himself previously denied the allegations.
According to the Telegraph’s obituary for him, the commander was once quoted as saying: “We enjoyed fun and going round with people who knew what was going on.
“The Thursday Club was a great sounding base, and the idea that it was a drunken orgy was absolute rubbish.
“People got very merry, but never drunk. As far as being wild, not guilty. As far as hanging around women, not guilty.”
Philip’s certainty his ‘dark secrets’ would be exposed
Among his shocking revelations, Kington also recalled hearing Philip air his fears that the antics of the top secret Thursday Club would one day be revealed.
He recalled a time when Philip asked for no photos to be taken, telling his friends: “It is very important that these occasions should look innocent when the time comes.”
When asked what time he was referring to, he allegedly said: “When they write my life story.”
Kington claimed one member – John Betjeman, who allegedly dropped in from time to time – then joked that no-one would want to write Philip’s story, to which the duke apparently replied: “One day in the future biographers will peer into the Royal Family’s history looking for dirt. They will say, did Prince Philip ever have a wild life? Are there dark secrets? And they will discover the existence of the Thursday Club!”
Kington claimed that one woman – named as Flo – argued nothing interesting happened at the club anyway, saying: “Nobody ever gets out of line! It is all as safe as houses. We have a drink and we put a Joe Loss record on, but it is all as boring as hell.”
To which he claimed that Philip replied: “That is the whole point… They will say that, and they will be right and they will not investigate further. This will be a cover-up for…”
At this point, it’s claimed Philip looked at his watch, stated he needed to leave for a “meeting”, and disappeared.
The scandals continued without Philip
The Crown stepped away from portraying Philip as somewhat of a party animal after series two, instead showing him as a doting husband and pillar of support for the Queen.
But our source claims: “While his marriage meant Philip was less available for carousing, David Milford Haven simply continued partying.
“By the mid-1950s, he was hosting sex parties at his Mayfair flat for carefully chosen male guests. Evenings began with card games called ‘Chase The B***h’ and ‘Find The Lady’.
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“Winners paired off with the women for sex in the bedrooms.”
While there are plenty of rumours about the notorious Thursday Club – only fuelled further by The Crown’s scandalous depiction of it – Prince Philip has always kept a dignified silence over exactly what went on.
And with many of the rumoured guests now having passed away, it may in fact always remain somewhat of a mystery.