Freedom 95: Retirement for a prince
PHILIP TO RETIRE FROM A (CRANKY, OPINIONATED) LIFE OF SERVICE TO THE QUEEN AND CROWN
It tells you something about a man when he decides to give up the day job at the age of 95. By the time Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh hangs up his Admiral of the Fleet hat in the fall he will have passed the official state retirement date by 31 years.
Indeed, he is likely to be one of the few men who served in the Second World War and is still in public service. It is one of his gifts that he has never made us dwell on the fact that he is old. The role of the Grandfather of the Nation is to be taken utterly for granted, and that’s the way he likes it. In a wonderfully cantankerous interview for the BBC on his 90th birthday, Philip was invited to take pride in his achievements. Good grief! It was as if he had been asked to strip off. His peregrinefalcon face contorting with disbelief, he objected, “No, that’s asking too much.”
Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday morning that Philip would retire from royal duties in the fall with the full support of the Queen.
In typically irreverent form the Duke of Edinburgh made the crowd at an Order of Merit service at St. James’s Palace later that day roar with laughter when he made a joke at his own expense, telling one guest who said he was sorry he was standing down: “Well, I can can’t stand up for much longer.”
That refusal to regard one’s self as of any great interest, indeed, to view introspection with grave suspicion, is typical of the Duke of Edinburgh’s generation. It has been the defining quality of an amazing life. To an extent we have not yet fully understood, this dashing, rather wild and opinionated Alpha male, who came into the world on a kitchen table in Corfu in 1921, has had to quash and subdue almost everything he was and wished to be in order to fit the role of consort to Queen Elizabeth II. And, let no one dispute it, he has been magnificent.
Not one of Nature’s handbag-carriers, to put it mildly, Philip had to accept a humiliating reversal of roles when he married Princess Elizabeth in 1947. Behind every great man is a woman, was the common wisdom; to make the opposite true took uncommon fortitude. When the King announced the betrothal of “our dearly beloved daughter to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, RN,” the bridegroom had renounced his nationality, his name and his Greek Orthodox religion to make the marriage possible.
The naval career he adored would soon be sunk, subordinated to spousal duties. Philip was a New Man 70 years before his time and it frequently infuriated him. ‘I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba,” he fumed to a friend, “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children.”
For Princess Elizabeth, marrying “Phil the Greek” was her one great act of rebellion. For Philip, marrying Elizabeth was his one great act of conformity.
It was 1939 when the 13-year-old Princess Lilibet first met Prince Philip of Greece, aged 18. She said it was love at first sight.
No wonder. With his mix of German and Danish blood and his whiteblond hair, he looked like an Aryan god. Crawfie, the Royal nanny, recalled that the handsome young man with the piercing blue eyes “showed off a good deal” and Lilibet couldn't take her eyes off him. “How good he is, Crawfie, how high he can jump!”
For eight decades, the brash confidence that attracted that rather solemn young girl has made her feel secure and enabled her to relax. Look at the way Philip makes her light up with laughter. With him by her side she feels as normal as she could ever feel. The Duke may be the only one who dares call Her Majesty “a bloody fool,” but she could not wish for a stauncher ally. He is the Everest of rocks.
The royal marriage, the longest in recorded history, has certainly had its stormy patches, but the Queen wisely cut the Duke some slack. She has never forgotten the words of her father, “Remember, he's a sailor. They come in on the tide.”
The Queen is well aware what she owes Prince Philip. In a moving speech on their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, she said, “He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments, but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years.”