During World War II, Prince Hamid Qajar, who died in 1988, fought in the British Royal Navy under the pseudonym David Drummond, serving on H.M.S. Duke of York at the Battle of North Cape. One evening the Ukrainian pianist, Lev Pouishnov, stayed on board during a concert visit to Scapa Flow. After dinner in the wardroom, Pouishnov showed the officers a gold cigarette case. Pouishnov dropped to his knee and kissed his hand. His father gave me my cigarette case years ago after a concert.
Tobacco figures in another royal coincidence.
Corporal Augustin Fernando Mu oz y Sanchez was the son of a tobacconist, but left that trade to become a royal guard. During an afternoon drive in 1833, Maria Cristina, Queen Regent of Spain as mother of King Fernando III, had a nosebleed. The corporal gave her a handkerchief. Months later, he was again in attendance when the her carriage skidded off the road in the Guadarrama mountains, and again he offered the queen a handkerchief. Soon they secretly married, and he was made a Grandee of the First Order and Duke of Riansares.