PRINCE PHILIP DIES, 99
PRINCE Philip has died at the age of 99, Buckingham Palace confirmed late last night.
Born on June 10, 1921 in Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh was just months away from celebrating his 100th birthday.
Governor-General David Hurley said it was a “sad and historic day”. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been informed.
PRINCE Philip has died at the age of 99, Buckingham Palace confirmed late last night.
Born on June 10, 1921 in Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh was just months away from celebrating his 100th birthday.
Governor-general David Hurley said it was a “sad and historic day”. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been informed.
Philip was taken to the King Edward VII Hospital in London in February as “a precautionary measure, on the advice of His Royal Highness’s Doctor, after feeling unwell”.
He was released on March 16 after a four-week stay and a heart operation. The latest hospitalisation, the Duke of Edinburgh’s longest, renewed concerns about Philip’s health.
Prince Philip made increasingly rare public appearances after retiring from public duties in 2017 at the age of 96, following a two-night hospitalisation for an infection. He then had a hip operation in 2018. In January 2019, he emerged unscathed after his vehicle was involved in a car accident that injured two people near the monarch’s Sandringham estate in eastern England.
He spent four nights at King Edward Hospital in December 2019, where he was treated for what was described as a “preexisting condition” and was discharged on Christmas Eve that year.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Prince Philip and the Queen, 94, made few public or private appearances. He attended the wedding ceremony of his granddaughter Princess Beatrice last July, shortly before celebrating his 73rd wedding anniversary.
The longest-serving consort in British history, Philip was born on the island of Corfu with Danish and Greek royal titles.
When he was 18 months old, his uncle, King Constantine of Greece, was forced to abdicate and Philip fled the country with his parents and four sisters, initially settling in France.
Philip had been formally introduced to Princess Elizabeth, the future queen, in July 1939 and they kept in touch during the war, meeting on a number of occasions. The pair married in Westminster Abbey in London in 1947.
Their first child, Prince Charles, was born 1948, followed by Princess Anne in 1950, Prince Andrew in 1960 and Prince Edward in 1964.
Prince Philip shelved his personal ambitions to support his wife, sharing her sense of duty and tradition and put his energy behind numerous charities including the World Wildlife Fund For Nature and the Duke of Edinburgh Award.
Yet his public appearances caused offence at times. In 1986, on a visit to China, he reportedly told students from Edinburgh University: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”