Steadfast support for the Queen is his greatest legacy
The Duke of Edinburgh completed his 22,219th and last public engagement yesterday as a spry 96-year-old, bringing an end to a remarkable seven decades of public service.
From the time it was announced that he was to marry Princess Elizabeth, more than 70 years ago on July 9 1947, Prince Philip – then known simply as Lieut Philip Mountbatten, RN, has carried out a relentless, often monotonous, round of royal duties.
His first public appearance with the Princess took place the day after their engagement at a Buckingham Palace garden party. Lady Airlie, Queen Mary’s lady-in-waiting, noted with approval that the young prince was wearing his “shabby” naval uniform with the “usual after-the-war look”, having not bought a new one for the occasion “as many men would have done, to make an impression”. “Observing him I thought that he had far more character than most people would imagine.”
Lord Louis Mountbatten, his uncle, had played a key part in Prince Philip’s upbringing since he was nine, when his parents split and his mother, having suffered a breakdown, was taken to a secure asylum. He engineered Philip’s first significant meeting with the young Princess at Dartmouth naval college in 1939 and subsequently did all he could to foster their love affair, assuring Clement Attlee, then prime minister, that: “She couldn’t have picked a better man.” Edwina Mountbatten, meanwhile, told her friend Lady Reading that Philip was “extremely cultured, well-read, of a progressive mind … In fact he will I think be a breath of fresh air into the Royal circle”.
Influenced by Mountbatten, Philip’s opinions were to the left of the instinctive conservatism of the King and Queen, and far more in tune with the post-war mood of the country. The landslide victory for Attlee’s Labour Party in the 1945 general election led directly to the establishment of the welfare state. Several of the organisations to which Prince Philip subsequently devoted his energy – notably the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme – were devoted to helping young people from all backgrounds to lead fulfilling lives.
Once married, in the manner of a naval officer taking up a new command, he began an Organisation and Methods Review, visiting every one of the 600-odd rooms in Buckingham Palace and asking staff exactly what they were doing. He broke new ground for the royal family by carrying his own luggage and calling for help if required rather than ringing a bell. A few years later, he said to a footman who opened a door for his young son: “He’s not helpless. He’s got hands hasn’t he?”
With the advent of electric frying pans, he took to cooking his own bacon and eggs in their private dining room – until his wife complained that the smell lingered until lunchtime.
But while Prince Philip has been instrumental over the years in helping to bring about a less stuffy, more modern monarchy, his most important contribution has been his steadfast support for the Queen, the longest reigning monarch in British history. “He helped to make her what she’s become,” remarked one diplomat. “She is very shrewd but she had a protective shell around her, and he brought her out of it. We are extremely fortunate that he married her.”
Philip Eade is author of Young Prince Philip: His Turbulent Early Life (Harper Press, £8.99
‘He helped to make her what she’s become. She is very shrewd but she had a protective shell around her, and he brought her out of it. We are extremely fortunate that he married her’