Of state, but the Duke of much head of the family
parents than had their two older siblings, but by this time the couple had been married for well over a decade, the Queen had been on the throne for eight years and they were clearly finding their modus operandi as a family.
And it was this.The Queen was the head of state, but Philip was very much the head of the family and she went along with all his decisions.
“The Queen wears the Crown but her husband wears the trousers,” quipped Giles Brandreth, one of Philip’s biographers. It is commonly held that this wise decision on the Queen’s part is what helped them
survive 73 years together. “What kept the marriage stable was that in private it held to the traditional pattern of paterfamilias and wife,” said Lord Charteris, a courtier to the Royal Family.
Philip remained the unquestioned head of the household, a role he retained until 2017, when he announced his retirement from public life. Even then, his
presence was still felt. It is only now that Prince Charles really is the male head of the House ofWindsor.The baton has been passed on.
But Prince Philip was always known to be an innovator and this applied to family life as much as to the wider world.When their fourth child, Prince Edward was born in 1964, Prince Philip attended the birth, the first royal father ever to do so. He continued to dominate home life: on the annual trips to Balmoral, it was the Prince who liked to be in charge of the barbeque.
Hunting, shooting and fishing with house parties were the order of the day.All the children were schooled in these traditional country pastimes.
What is certainly the case is that all three sons clearly wanted to please him (this is not so obvious with Princess Anne, but given her lifelong closeness to her father, it is clear that she did.)
CHARLES turned into a polo-playing sportsman who joined first the Royal Air Force and then, following in the footsteps of his father, the Royal Navy.And despite the difference in temperaments, the two had a great many interests in common, including the environment.
Both painted and read poetry. Both were interested in philosophy. In many ways, Charles is his father’s son.
Prince Andrew, of course, also joined the Royal Navy, and whatever scandal he has brought on himself in recent years (which would have been very painful for his father to see), served with distinction in the Falklands war.
Prince Edward, keen to impress too, joined the Marines, but only lasted a few months. Prince Philip was at the time the Captain General Royal Marines.
Reports are mixed as to his reaction: some have it that he reduced poor Edward to tears with a diatribe, others that he was in fact very understanding about the courage it must have taken to quit. Either way, the relationship between father and son was close. Ironically, given the strength of
‘What kept the marriage stable was that in private it held the traditional pattern of paterfamilias and wife’