ELIZABETH & PHILIP

A genuine love match, their marriage stood the test of time.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s love story spanned seven decades, through marriage, the birth of children, a Coronation, triumphs and trials. Theirs was a happy union, a love match. The pair first met at a family wedding when Princess Elizabeth was just a young girl. Five years later, on a tour of the Royal Naval College, a 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth was re-introduced to an 18-year-old Philip, now a cadet. It’s said that from then on, the young royal never thought of anybody else. The pair began to exchange letters during the war years. In 1946, the year before their wedding at Westminster Abbey, Philip wrote in a touching letter to his beloved ‘Lilibet’, “to have fallen in love unreservedly, makes all one’s troubles seem small and petty”.

When Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, the Duke of Edinburgh began his life as her faithful and truly devoted consort. In a touching tribute to her husband, that same year the Queen granted Prince Philip a position normally reserved for the heir to the throne – “place, pre-eminence and precedence” next to herself.

During a speech marking her Golden Jubilee in 2002, the Queen said of her husband: “I take this opportunity to mention the strength I draw from my own family. The Duke of Edinburgh has made an invaluable contribution to my life over these past fifty years, as he has to so many charities and organisations with which he has been involved.”

In 2017, they celebrated their Platinum Wedding anniversary marking 70 years together, becoming the first couple in the Royal Family to ever do so.

Clockwise from top left: Royal Family picnicking at Balmoral; Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visit a farm on their Silver Wedding anniversary year in 1972; Elizabeth smiles as she walks past Philip, disguised as a palace guard, at Buckingham Palace in 2005; The Queen in Coronation attire; The couple in 2007.