Alex Von Tunzelmann

So it's a really big deal.

This is really the only way that they can kind of get this plan to work is by having this period of dominion status.

And so it's a really difficult thing.

And VP Menon tells us that what happened here is that it was Edwina who persuaded Nehru.

She was young.

She was beautiful.

She was rich.

She was married to someone who wasn't enough for her.

She was probably gadding about a bit.

Yes, even though these are completely different men.

Paul Robeson, really one of the most important distinguished civil rights activists of his day.

Very political, also a communist, also an international activist.

also one of the greatest musical stars of his day and a cinema star.

You can watch him on screen, incredibly charismatic, extraordinary man.

Hutch was a jazz musician, also African-American, also from that sort of background, but not really political in the way Robeson was.

He was much more of an entertainer, a legend in entertainment, hugely famous at the time.

The reason we're speaking of these two men in one breath

they're very different men, is because Edwina was rumoured to have affairs with both of them.

But there was an allegation printed in a newspaper in Britain, which was that basically a sort of royal woman was having an affair with a black entertainer.

And this was so scandalous at the time that Buckingham Palace forced Edwina to bring libel proceedings, which she did not want to do.