LONDON (NewsNation Now) — Prince Philip, the irascible and tough-minded husband of Queen Elizabeth II who spent greater than seven a long time supporting his spouse in a job that each outlined and constricted his life, has died, Buckingham Palace mentioned Friday. He was 99.
His life spanned practically a century of European historical past, beginning together with his delivery as a member of the Greek royal household and ending as Britain’s longest serving consort throughout a turbulent reign through which the thousand-year-old monarchy was pressured to reinvent itself for the twenty first century.
Philip spent a month in hospital earlier this 12 months earlier than being launched on March 16 to return to Windsor Fort.
“It’s with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has introduced the loss of life of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” the palace mentioned. “His Royal Highness handed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Fort.”
Philip, who was given the title Duke of Edinburgh on his wedding ceremony day, noticed his sole function as offering assist for his spouse, who started her reign as Britain retreated from empire and steered the monarchy via a long time of declining social deference and U.Ok. energy into a contemporary world the place individuals demand intimacy from their icons.
Within the Seventies, Michael Parker, an previous navy good friend and former personal secretary of the prince, mentioned of him: “He instructed me the primary day he supplied me my job, that his job – first, second and final – was by no means to let her down.”
The queen, a really personal individual not given to extravagant shows of affection, as soon as known as him “her rock” in public.
In personal, Philip known as his spouse Lilibet; however he referred to her in dialog with others as “The Queen.”
Over the a long time, Philip’s picture modified from that of good-looking, dashing athlete to smug and insensitive curmudgeon. In his later years, the picture lastly settled into that of droll and philosophical observer of the occasions, an aged, craggy-faced man who maintained his navy bearing regardless of illnesses.
The favored Netflix sequence “The Crown” gave Philip a central function, with a barely racy, swashbuckling picture. He by no means commented on it in public, however the portrayal struck a chord with many Britons, together with youthful viewers who had solely recognized him as an aged man.
Philip’s place was a difficult one – there isn’t any official function for the husband of a sovereign queen – and his life was marked by extraordinary contradictions between his private and non-private duties. He at all times walked three paces behind his spouse in public, in a present of deference to the monarch, however he was the pinnacle of the household in personal. Nonetheless, his son Charles, as inheritor to the throne, had a bigger revenue, in addition to entry to the high-level authorities papers Philip was not permitted to see.
Philip usually took a wry strategy to his uncommon place on the royal desk.
“Constitutionally, I don’t exist,” mentioned Philip, who in 2009 grew to become the longest-serving consort in British historical past, surpassing Queen Charlotte, who married King George III in the18th century.
He incessantly struggled to seek out his place – a friction that may later be echoed in his grandson Prince Harry’s resolution to surrender royal duties.
“There was no precedent,” he mentioned in a uncommon interview with the BBC to mark his ninetieth birthday. “If I requested someone, ‘What do you count on me to do?’ all of them seemed clean.”
However having given up a promising naval profession to develop into consort when Elizabeth grew to become queen at age 25, Philip was not content material to remain on the sidelines and revel in a lifetime of ease and wealth. He promoted British trade and science, espoused environmental preservation lengthy earlier than it grew to become modern, and traveled extensively and incessantly in assist of his many charities.
In these frequent public appearances, Philip developed a fame for being impatient and demanding and was typically blunt to the purpose of rudeness.
Many Britons appreciated what they noticed as his propensity to talk his thoughts, whereas others criticized conduct they labeled offensive and out of contact.
In 1995, for instance, he requested a Scottish driving teacher, “How do you retain the natives off the booze lengthy sufficient to cross the check?” Seven years later in Australia, when visiting Aboriginal individuals with the queen, he requested: “Do you continue to throw spears at one another?”
Many consider his propensity to talk his thoughts meant he supplied wanted, unvarnished recommendation to the queen.
“The way in which that he survived within the British monarchy system was to be his personal man, and that was a supply of assist to the queen,” mentioned royal historian Robert Lacey. “All her life she was surrounded by males who mentioned, ‘sure ma’am’ and he was one man who at all times instructed her the way it actually was, or a minimum of how he noticed it.”
Lacey mentioned on the time of the royal household’s tough relations with Princess Diana after her marriage to Charles broke down, Philip spoke for the household with authority, exhibiting that he didn’t routinely defer to the queen.
Philip’s relationship with Diana grew to become sophisticated as her separation from Charles and their eventual divorce performed out in a sequence of public battles that broken the monarchy’s standing.
It was extensively assumed that he was important of Diana’s use of broadcast interviews, together with one through which she accused Charles of infidelity. However letters between Philip and Diana launched after her loss of life confirmed that the older man was at occasions supportive of his daughter-in-law.
After Diana’s loss of life in a automobile crash in Paris in 1997, Philip needed to endure allegations by former Harrods proprietor Mohamed Al Fayed that he had plotted the princess’s loss of life. Al Fayed’s son, Dodi, additionally died within the crash.
Throughout a prolonged inquest into their deaths, a senior decide performing as coroner instructed the jury that there was no proof to assist the allegations towards Philip, who didn’t publicly reply to Al Fayed’s expenses.
Philip’s ultimate years have been clouded by controversy and fissures within the royal household.
His third baby, Prince Andrew, was embroiled in scandal over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier who died in a New York jail in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses.
U.S. authorities accused Andrew of rebuffing their request to interview him as a witness, and Andrew confronted accusations from a girl who mentioned that she had a number of sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest. He denied the declare however withdrew from public royal duties amid the scandal.
In the beginning of 2023, Philip’s grandson Harry and his spouse, the American former actress Meghan Markle, introduced they have been quitting royal duties and shifting to North America to flee intense media scrutiny that they discovered insufferable.
Born June 10, 1921, on the eating room desk at his dad and mom’ house on the Greek island of Corfu, Philip was the fifth baby and solely son of Prince Andrew, youthful brother of the king of Greece. His grandfather had come from Denmark through the 1860s to be adopted by Greece because the nation’s monarch.
Philip’s mom was Princess Alice of Battenberg, a descendent of German princes. Like his future spouse, Elizabeth, Philip was additionally a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria.
When Philip was 18 months previous, his dad and mom fled to France. His father, a military commander, had been tried after a devastating navy defeat by the Turks. After British intervention, the Greek junta agreed to not sentence Andrew to loss of life if he left the nation.
The household was not precisely poor however, Philip mentioned: “We weren’t effectively off” – they usually bought by with assist from family members. He later introduced solely his navy pay to a wedding with one of many world’s richest girls.
Philip’s dad and mom drifted aside when he was a toddler, and Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944. Alice based a non secular order that didn’t succeed and spent her previous age at Buckingham Palace. A reclusive determine, usually wearing a nun’s behavior, she was little seen by the British public. She died in 1969 and was posthumously honored by Britain and Israel for sheltering a Jewish household in Nazi-occupied Athens through the warfare.
Philip went to highschool in Britain and entered Britannia Royal Naval School Dartmouth as a cadet in 1939. He bought his first posting in 1940 however was not allowed close to the principle warfare zone as a result of he was a overseas prince of a impartial nation. When the Italian invasion of Greece ended that neutrality, he joined the warfare, serving on battleships within the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific.
On depart in Britain, he visited his royal cousins, and, by the tip of warfare, it was clear he was courting Princess Elizabeth, eldest baby and inheritor of King George VI. Their engagement was introduced July 10, 1947, they usually have been married on Nov. 20.
After an preliminary flurry of disapproval that Elizabeth was marrying a foreigner, Philip’s athletic abilities, beauty and straight discuss lent a definite glamour to the royal household.
Elizabeth beamed in his presence, they usually had a son and daughter whereas she was nonetheless freed from the obligations of serving as monarch.
However King George VI died of most cancers in 1952 at age 56.
Philip had to surrender his naval profession, and his subservient standing was formally sealed on the coronation, when he knelt earlier than his spouse and pledged to develop into “her liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship.”
The change in Philip’s life was dramatic.
“Inside the home, and no matter we did, it was collectively,” Philip instructed biographer Basil Boothroyd of the years earlier than Elizabeth grew to become queen. “Folks used to return to me and ask me what to do. In 1952, the entire thing modified, very, very significantly.”
Stated Boothroyd: “He had a selection between simply tagging alongside, the second handshake within the receiving line, or discovering different shops for his bursting energies.”
So Philip took over administration of the royal estates and expanded his travels to all corners of the world, constructing a job for himself.
From 1956, he was Patron and Chairman of Trustees for the biggest youth exercise program in Britain, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a program of sensible, cultural and adventurous actions for younger folks that exists in over 100 international locations. Hundreds of thousands of British kids have had some contact with the award and its well-known tenting expeditions.
He painted, collected trendy artwork, was considering industrial design and deliberate a backyard at Windsor Fort. However, he as soon as mentioned, “the humanities world thinks of me as an uncultured, polo-playing clot.”
In time, the well-known blond hair thinned and the lengthy, fine-boned face acquired a couple of strains. He gave up polo however remained trim and vigorous.
To a good friend’s suggestion that he ease up a bit, the prince is claimed to have replied, “Properly, what would I do? Sit round and knit?”
However when he turned 90 in 2011, Philip instructed the BBC he was “winding down” his workload and he reckoned he had “executed my bit.”
The subsequent few years noticed occasional hospital stays as Philip’s well being flagged.
He introduced in Might 2017 that he deliberate to step again from royal duties, and he stopped scheduling new commitments – after roughly 22,000 royal engagements since his spouse’s coronation. In 2019, he gave up his driver’s license after a critical automobile crash.
Philip is survived by the queen and their 4 kids – Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward – in addition to eight grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.
The grandchildren are Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Harry; Anne’s kids, Peter and Zara Phillips; Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie; and Edward’s kids, Woman Louise and Viscount Severn.
The good-grandchildren are William and Kate’s kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis; Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie; Savannah and Isla, the daughters of Peter Phillips and his spouse, Autumn; Mia and Lena, the daughters of Zara Phillips and her husband, Mike Tindall; and Eugenie’s son, August, together with her husband, Jack Brooksbank.
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The Related Press contributed to this report.
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