Queen’s ‘deep sorrow’
Buckingham Palace announces death of Prince Philip
PRINCE Philip, the beloved husband of Queen Elizabeth II, has died at the age of 99.
The ailing prince had been taken to King Edward VII Hospital in London on February 16, after feeling unwell.
At the time, Buckingham Palace had said it was merely a “precautionary measure”.
His health had been a cause of concern for years, with other spells in the same hospital in April 2020 and December 2019 for observation and treatment.
“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” the palace said in a statement.
“His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Further announcements will be made in due course.”
Philip had been isolating along with the Queen at Windsor Castle during the pandemic. Both had received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in January.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s death has plunged the UK into mourning and will be felt right across the globe, including the 53 nations of the British Commonwealth, where flags were being lowered to half mast.
The duke and the Queen were married in 1947 and had celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary on November 20 last year.
Prince Philip retired from public life in August 2017 but was occasionally at events with the Queen, and attended the May 2018 wedding of grandson Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, weeks after a hip replacement.
The 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth will be devastated at the loss of her loyal husband, who has been her companion throughout her entire adult life and with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward.
Philip would have turned 100 on June 10.
An outspoken, proud and gruff man, he often chafed at the restrictions placed upon him by royal life, but always supported the Queen in her public life for more than seven decades and walked three steps behind her in public, as royal protocol dictated.
The distant cousins Princess Elizabeth and Philip, Prince of Greece and Denmark first met as children, and again in 1939 when the princess was 13 years old, when she accompanied her father King George VI for a visit to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. A cadet at the school, Prince Philip was dispatched to entertain the princess.
They exchanged letters, and by 1946 became secretly engaged when Prince Philip asked King George VI for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
The wedding was held on November 20, 1947, at Westminster Abbey.