Queen Elizabeth II’s Husband, Prince Philip, Dies At Age 99

According to Buckingham Palace, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband has died at the age of 99.

f the Greek royal family and ending as the longest-serving consort of the United Kingdom.

He was noted for his often venomous remarks and for eagerly accepting over 20,000 royal engagements to further British interests at home and abroad. He was the patron of hundreds of charities, created initiatives to help British schoolchildren engage in challenging outdoor adventures, and was a key figure in the upbringing of his four children, including the heir to the throne, Prince Charles.

The palace said, “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” adding that, “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

Philip saw his primary position as supporting his wife, who ascended to the throne as Britain withdrew from the empire and guided the monarchy through decades of decreasing social deference and U.K. dominance into a new world where people demand affection from their icons.

“He told me the first day he offered me my job, that his job — first, second and last — was never to let her down,” an old navy friend and former private secretary of the prince said of him in the 1970s.

Philip “helped to steer the royal family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of Philip’s support for the queen.

The queen, who is known for her modesty and dislikes public displays of affection, once referred to him as “her rock” in public.

Philip called his wife Lilibet in private but referred to her as “The Queen” when speaking with others.

Statesmen and royals from all over the world expressed their condolences on Friday. Philip’s “poise, charm, and wit,” as well as his contribution to the “liberation of Europe from Nazi terror,” were remembered by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, also mentioned his military service and said he was at the “forefront of many community service initiatives.”

The Dutch royal house tweeted, “His lively personality never ceased to leave an unforgettable impression.” With figures from both sides expressing condolences, British politics was placed on hold. Campaigning for next month’s local and Scottish polls has been halted by the major parties.

Philip’s reputation evolved from that of a handsome, dashing athlete to that of an arrogant, cruel curmudgeon over the years. In his later years, he was known as a wry and philosophical observer of the times, an old, craggy-faced man who kept his military bearing despite ill health.

Philip was given a central role in the successful Netflix series “The Crown,” with a slightly racy, swashbuckling image. He never said anything about it in public, but many Britons, including younger viewers who had always seen him as an old man, were moved by the depiction.

Philip’s situation was difficult because the husband of a sovereign queen has no official role, and his life was marked by extraordinary inconsistencies between his public and private responsibilities. He marched three paces behind his wife in public to display respect for the king, but he was an important figure at home. Despite this, his son Charles, as heir to the throne, had a higher income and access to high-level government documents that Philip was not allowed to see.

Philip was known for his wry attitude about his rare seat at the royal table.

“Constitutionally, I don’t exist,” said Philip, who surpassed Queen Charlotte, who married King George III in the 18th century, as the longest-serving consort in British history in 2009.

He struggled to find his place in society on a regular basis, a conflict that would later be echoed in his grandson Prince Harry’s decision to abdicate royal duties.

In a rare interview with the BBC to commemorate his 90th birthday, he said, “There was no precedent.”  He said, “If I asked somebody, ‘What do you expect me to do?’ they all looked blank.”

Philip was born on the dining room table of his parent’s home on the Greek island of Corfu on June 10, 1921. He was the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew, the king of Greece’s younger brother. His grandfather came to Greece from Denmark in the 1860s to become the country’s king.

Princess Alice of Battenberg, a descendant of German princes, was Philip’s mother. Philip was a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, much like his future wife, Elizabeth.

His parents fled to France when Philip was 18 months old. After a humiliating military defeat by the Turks, his father, an army general, was put on trial. The Greek junta decided not to sentence Andrew to death if he fled the country after British intervention.

The family wasn’t bad, but as Philip put it, “we weren’t well off” — and they scraped by with the help of relatives. He later married one of the world’s wealthiest women, bringing only his navy pay with him.

When Philip was a boy, his parents split up, and Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944. Alice founded a religious order that failed, and she spent the rest of her life at Buckingham Palace. She was a reclusive character who was always dressed in a nun’s habit and was seldom seen by the general public in the United Kingdom. She died in 1969, and Britain and Israel honored her posthumously for sheltering a Jewish family during the war in Nazi-occupied Athens.

Philip attended school in the United Kingdom and enrolled as a cadet at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth in 1939. Since he was a foreign prince of a neutral country, he was not permitted near the main war zone when he was assigned his first assignment in 1940. He entered the war after the Italian invasion of Greece ended his neutrality, serving on battleships in the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and Pacific.

He visited his royal cousins while on leave in Britain, and by the end of the war, it was clear that he was courting Princess Elizabeth, King George VI’s eldest child and heir. On July 10, 1947, they declared their engagement, and on November 20, 1947, they married.

After a whirlwind of outrage that Elizabeth was marrying a stranger, Philip’s physical abilities, good looks, and straight talk gave the royal family a distinct glitz.

Elizabeth glowed in his presence, and the couple had a son and a daughter when she was still free of the monarchy’s responsibilities.

However, at the age of 56, King George VI died of cancer.

Philip had to give up his naval career, and his status as a subject was officially cemented at the coronation when he knelt before his wife and vowed to become “her liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship.”

Philip’s life changed dramatically.

Philip told biographer Basil Boothroyd of the years before Elizabeth became queen, “Within the house, and whatever we did, it was together,” he said, “People used to come to me and ask me what to do. In 1952, the whole thing changed, very, very considerably.”

Boothroyd said: “He had a choice between just tagging along, the second handshake in the receiving line, or finding other outlets for his bursting energies.”

As a result, Philip assumed control of the royal estates and spread his journeys to all corners of the globe, establishing a name for himself.

Since 1956, he has served as Patron and Chairman of Trustees for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, the world’s largest youth activity initiative, which offers practical, cultural, and adventurous activities to young people in over 100 countries. Thousands of British children have been exposed to the award and its well-known camping expeditions.

He painted, collected modern art, was fascinated by industrial design, and dreamed of creating a garden at Windsor Castle. “The arts world thinks of me as an uncultured, polo-playing clot,” he once said.

The iconic blond hair thinned over time, and the long, fine-boned face developed a few wrinkles. He stopped playing polo but stayed in shape.

The prince is said to have responded to a friend’s suggestion, “Well, what would I do? Sit around and knit?”

Philip, however, told the BBC when he turned 90 in 2011 that he was “winding down” his workload and that he had “done my bit.”

Philip’s health deteriorated over the next several years, and he was admitted to the hospital on many occasions.

After nearly 22,000 royal engagements since his wife’s coronation, he revealed in May 2017 that he intended to step down from royal duties and stopped scheduling new commitments. After a major car accident in 2019, he gave up his driver’s license.

The queen and their four children, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward, as well as eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren, survive Philip.

Prince William and Prince Harry, Charles’ sons; Anne’s children, Peter and Zara Phillips; Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie; and Edward’s children, Lady Louise and Viscount Severn, are among the grandchildren.