His devotion helped make the Queen what she has become
The future monarch was just 13 when she first laid eyes on the dashing cadet who was to become her husband and constant companion, writes Philip Eade
As Britain’s longestserving royal consort – having surpassed the record previously held by George III’s Queen Charlotte – the Duke of Edinburgh’s ability to inject levity into official occasions with the odd colourful remark was only the most publicised part of a job that he did for so many years with complete devotion and considerable flair.
Less widely appreciated was how much he did to help the Queen conquer her shyness, in much the same way that the Queen Mother had with the stammering King George VI. If he occasionally outshone his wife – as on their first overseas tour of Canada in 1951 – for the most part he stayed deliberately in her shadow, playing the supporting role, bolstering her confidence in private and acting as back-up in public.
In 1957, Time magazine credited him “for the fact that his mousy, slightly frumpy and occasionally frosty bride has blossomed into a self-confidently stylish and often radiantly warm” young woman.
Indeed, her transformation did owe much to the strength and sense of stability that she derived from their marriage, although those who did not know them better were sometimes taken aback by the cross words that passed between them. “How bloody stupid!” or “Don’t talk such rubbish!” the Duke might say if he disagreed with something his wife had said.
A turbulent childhood had helped form his forthright character. However, his toughness and refusal to kowtow were part of the reason why the young Princess Elizabeth fell in love with him, accustomed as she had been to the fawning deference of palace servants. As one of her friends remarked: “Nothing makes a woman less happy than being able to get away with everything.”
While growing up, Elizabeth had come across the handsome young prince at several Royal family gatherings, including the coronation of her father, George VI, in 1937, a year after the abdication that had thrust the 10-year-old princess into the unexpected and unwanted position of being heiress to the throne.
However, it is doubtful that either of them had given much thought to the other until July 22 1939, when the wily Lord Louis “Dickie” Mountbatten attended the Royal family on a visit to the naval college at Dartmouth and engineered several encounters with his 18-year-old nephew, who was a cadet there at the time. The college was in the grip of a combined outbreak of mumps and chickenpox, so to avoid the risk of infection the princesses were sent to the captain’s house, where Mountbatten arranged for Prince Philip to help entertain them. The princesses’ governess, Marion Crawford, later recorded that Elizabeth, then 13, “never took her eyes off him the whole time”, and when the cadets commandeered a flotilla of small craft to send the Royal family on their way, the princess watched avidly through binoculars as one solitary blond oarsman was eventually left, still rowing furiously in their wake.
When Philip went to stay at Windsor for Christmas in 1943 after three years of courageous wartime service in the Royal Navy, Elizabeth had already let on to her governess that he was “the one”. Afterwards Philip wrote to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) to say how much he had loved being with the Royal family and “the simple enjoyment of family pleasures and amusements and the feeling that I am welcome to share them” – an indication that he saw a way of regaining what he had lost when he was eight, when his mother had been committed to a psychiatric asylum and his father had closed down the family home and gone off to live with his mistress.
However, before the prince could be accepted as a suitor, he had substantial obstacles to overcome, not least the fact that the King felt his daughter was still too young. He was also reluctant to believe that she had fallen in love with virtually the first man she had met – and a foreigner at that.
Two years later, when Philip
returned from the Far East at the end of the war, Crawford recalled his frequent trips to London to see Elizabeth, his MG sports car roaring into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace and the prince getting out, “always in a hurry to see Lilibet”.
That summer he went to Balmoral for three weeks, and most historians agree that it was during this holiday that he proposed, she accepted, and they told her parents. His thank-you letter, this time to the Queen, bordered on the euphoric. “I am sure I do not deserve all the good things that have happened to me,” he wrote.
However, there was still opposition to the proposed match among several senior courtiers, who thought Philip “rather unpolished”, his background and behaviour thoroughly Teutonic, and his education at Gordonstoun dangerously progressive.
“The kind of people who didn’t like Prince Philip were the kind of people who didn’t like Mountbatten,” said one courtier. “It was all bound up in a single word: ‘German’.” The Queen, who occasionally referred to Philip as “the Hun”, would have preferred her daughter to marry a member of the British aristocracy, but that, as the Bishop of London later accurately remarked, ultimately “would have bored everybody out of their minds”.
Prince Philip, in any case, did not go out of his way to ingratiate himself with his detractors among the old guard of the British Establishment, and his self-reliance was another factor that helped capture Elizabeth’s heart. Having more royal blood in his veins than she did, he was also never going to be dazzled by her status, still less deferential. “He was not all over her,” observed one courtier, “and she found that very attractive.”
A fireball of masculine energy, he was never going to be a natural second fiddle either, yet after his wife’s accession to the throne in 1952, he was required to address her as “Ma’am” in public and bow whenever she entered a room. He was even prevented from passing on his adopted surname of Mountbatten to his children. Unlike Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s “uncrowned king”, he was barred from taking any part in constitutional affairs or expressing any political opinions – although by nature he had always been inclined to say what he thought, and there seems little doubt that in private the Queen relied heavily on his advice throughout her reign.
On walkabout, he was an invaluable foil. In the early part of her reign, in particular, the Queen was not especially good at putting people at their ease, her conversational openers often too stiff and her smile too forced to be encouraging. Yet whenever there loomed the awkward possibility of silence in her presence, Prince Philip was adept at sauntering up and saying something to defuse all the tension.
His breezy irreverence was also evident at formal dinners at Buckingham Palace, when he was apt to examine a menu written in elaborate French and declare loudly to the guests: “Ah, good. Fish and chips again.”
In many other ways, his character perfectly complemented hers. The Queen was never confrontational, having inherited the emollient character of her mother. Prince Philip, on the other hand, was rarely one to shy away from an argument, and when a stand needed to be taken, he could give her the impetus to take it.
It is hard to think of anyone else who could have done the job that he did. Like Prince Albert, Prince Philip is sure to be greatly admired by posterity for his energetic promotion of science and technology, and for the numerous social projects that he worked so hard to establish. But above all, he deserves to be remembered for the enduring support he gave to the Queen, enabling her to reign over so many years in the remarkable way that she has.
“He had a very wholesome effect on her,” said one diplomat. “She had a protective shell around her and he brought her out of it. He helped to make her what she has become. We are extremely fortunate that he married her.”