It’s official, as of today, Prince Philip, is stepping down from Royal duties. The Duke of Edinburgh announced that he will no longer accompany his wife on regular engagements, after seven decades of working together in public life.
The retirement of the Duke of Edinburgh will mark a new era for the Royal family, as now it will be expected that the younger royals will have to “step up” to support the Queen.
The Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge (his son and grandson) will continue to take on extra duties, as other Royals accompany the Queen on regular engagements. Kensington Palace announced plans for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to move back to London later his year, taking up residence with their family at Kensington Palace, as Prince William over a week or so ago retired from his job as a search and rescue pilot in Norfolk to become a full-time working Royal.
Last year, Her Majesty stepped down as patron of 25 national organisations, with the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry taking over.
For seventy years the Queen and Prince Philip’s support for each other, has been unwavering. Their team effort began before their marriage in 1947, when Prince Philip denounced his Greek and Danish heritage, to become British, with a life dedicated to Royal Duties.
Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born in Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on 10 June 1921, the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. He had four elder sisters, Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie and Sophie.
In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. It was during this tour, that Earl Mountbatten asked a young, strapping Philip to escort the King’s two daughters Princess Elizabeth and younger sister Princess Margaret, Philip’s third cousins through Queen Victoria and second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark.
Thirteen year old Princess Elizabeth was smitten, and both her and Philip began to exchange letters. In the Summer of 1946, Philip asked the King for his daughters hand in marriage. The pending marriage was granted with stipulations. A formal announcement would have to wait until Elizabeth’s 21st birthday, the following April. Philip then abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, and became a naturalised British citizen. He adopted the surname Mountbatten from his mothers family.
The day preceding his wedding, King George VI bestowed him the Title of His Royal Highness and on the morning of the wedding at Westminister Abbey recorded and broadcast by BBC radio to 200 million people around the globe, he was made the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron of Greenwich.
The wedding didn’t go off without controversy. In post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of Edinburgh’s German relations to be invited to the wedding, including Philip’s three surviving sisters, all of whom had married German Princes, some with Nazi connections.
Straight after the honeymoon, Philip returned to the navy.
After the marriage they took up residence at Clarence House, where their first two children were born, Prince Charles (1948) and Princess Anne (1950).
As consort to the Queen, Philip always walking a few paces behind her, supported his wife with her duties as sovereign. Philip knelt before Elizabeth, with her hands enclosing his, and swore to be her “liege man of life and limb”.
It was whilst on tour in Kenya in 1952, Elizabeth’s ailing father passed away and she instantly became Queen. It was Philip her husband who was given the task of breaking the news to her, at Sagana Lodge, and the royal party immediately returned to the UK.
Philip served in WW2 and by age 21, became one of the world’s first Lieutenants in the Royal Navy. He was also involved in the Battle of Crete, and during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, as second in command of HMS Wallace, he saved his ship from a night bomber attack.
Over the years he has donned many hats, whether he is a patron, president or member, he has represented over 800 organizations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport and education, and travelled the world extensively with over 600 solo tours.
The Prince is also known for his cheekiness and fun. He was also known to be a ladies man and over the years has been accused of being unfaithful to Her Majesty regularly. Their have even been reports of him fathering children outside of the marriage, though to date, their has been not one shred of viable evidence to support such claims.
In 1981, Prince Philip wrote to his eldest son Prince Charles, counselling him to either propose to Lady Diana Spencer or break off their courtship and find another suitable future Queen. Feeling pressured, he proposed and the two were married six months later and given the titles, Prince and Princess of Wales, even though he loved another already married woman, Camila Parker Bowles.
From the marriage came two beautiful boys, Prince William and Prince Harry. Also from the marriage came infidelity on both sides and by 1992, the marriage to the Prince and Princess of Wales had broken down. The Queen and the Duke held a meeting with both trying to encourage a reconciliation, but without success. The two separated and later divorced.
In the divorce, the Princess was stripped of all titles and this meant she had to go it alone, without the aid of bodyguards for protection. She had many suitors during the next year, and it was whilst with one of those, she was fatally killed in a car crash in Paris in August of 1997.
For five days after the crash, the Queen and Duke shielded their grandsons from the press, keeping them behind closed doors at Balmoral so they could grieve in private. To the publics dismay, they saw both the Queen and the Duke as completely heartless. Why wasnt their head of state saying anything? Why wasn’t she grieving with her loyal subjects? It was an outpouring of hostility directed at the Royals that forced the Queen to address the situation in a live broadcast on 5th September.
After the funeral, Mohamed Fayed, who also lost his son Dodi who it is believed was having a romantic relationship with Diana at the time, made claims that Prince Philip ordered the death of Diana after finding out she was pregnant and that the accident was staged. This claim was later investigated and there was no evidence to support any type of conspiracy. The coroner said the only evidence that Diana was pregnant, had come from Mr Al Fayed himself.
The Harrods tycoon has claimed that the fatal crash in a Paris tunnel was orchestrated by MI6 agents acting on orders from Prince Philip to prevent the couple marrying and having a Muslim baby.
In summing up the six month hearing into Diana’s death, Lord Justice Scott Baker, told the jury, there is no evidence that the Duke of Edinburgh order Diana’s execution, and there is no evidence that the secret intelligence service or any other government agency organised it.
There are not many men who can still fit into the suit they wore on their wedding day, but it is a measure of the Duke of Edinburgh’s astonishing good health and vitality that he can make such a bold claim.
Like any person his age the Duke has of course had the occasional health scare, but their rarity has only served to highlight his general fitness and longevity. Prince Philip appears to be in remarkably good shape for a man of 96, and his secret appears to be deceptively simple, regular exercise, a moderate diet, and good dose of sheer will power to carry on.
Those who know Prince Philip say he works at keeping fit and, in a reflection of his days serving in the Royal Navy, has remained determined never to let himself go.
The Duke prefers to walk and take the stairs wherever he can, and can still be seen behind the rains of a horse carriage in the grounds of Windsor Great Park.
In May 2014, the Duke had a “minor procedure” carried out on his right hand at Buckingham Palace and in June the previous year he spent two months convalescing after an exploratory operation on his abdomen.
In December 2011 he was fitted with a heart stent and has twice been treated for bladder infections, including during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend in June 2012, when he fell ill after having to stand in the cold on a barge during the Thames pageant.
On leaving hospital, the day before his 91st birthday, the Prince Philip was asked if he was feeling better. He replied, in characteristic style: “Well, I wouldn’t be coming out if I wasn’t.”
Like all families, both Her Majesty and the Duke have gone through the full range of pleasures, and tribulations in bringing up their children. And being somewhat bias, I have to say I think they have done a splendid job, considering their sometimes difficult and demanding circumstances.
I’m sure we all wish The Duke well in his retirement, though I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of the dashing Prince.
