Jonathan Aitken is of ‘royal blood’

Jonathan Aitken, the former Tory minister who famously said he was going to "cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism" after claiming he'd been libeled by the Guardian, but who was then convicted of perjury and sentenced to 18 months in jail, appears to be of royal blood.
 
The revelation is made in new book about the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and his wife, Queen Juliana, in which it is claimed that Aitken is Bernhard's unrecognised, illegitimate son. If the book's author, the Dutch historian Cees Fasseur, is correct, it means that 66-year-old Aitken is a half-brother to Holland's current monarch, Queen Beatrix, 70.

Fasseur suggests the future Tory Cabinet minister was the product of a wartime affair between Bernhard and Aitken's mother, Penelope. Penelope later married Lord Beaverbrook's nephew, William (Bill) Aitken, a Canadian journalist, who served as an RAF fighter pilot during World War II and, like Jonathan, became a Tory MP.

The Daily Mail reports a source close to Aitken saying: "The Dutch are very excited about the suggestion that Jonathan may be part of their royal family. The press there have been frantically trying to get in touch with Jonathan to interview him. Understandably he's very reluctant to get involved because he and his family are, as it happens, very close friends with the Dutch royals and really he doesn't want to rock the boat." ·