THE GREATEST ROYAL LOVE STORY
As the world farewells the man who changed the monarchy, Her Majesty looks back on more than seven decades of his unwavering love and support
When the Duke of Edinburgh passed away on April 9, it brought his love story with Queen Elizabeth II to a peaceful end.
His death at Windsor Castle at the age of 99, just weeks shy of his milestone 100th birthday, has plunged Buckingham Palace into mourning – and no one is more devastated than his wife of 73 years, the Queen.
Palace insiders tell Woman’s Day Her Majesty – while as stoic as ever – is in a “wistful mood” as she reflects on a long, rich life with the man she fell for when she was just 13 years old.
It would be a few years before their friendship turned into romance in a fairytale that scandalised some and captivated many.
A NAVY MAN
During a 1939 tour of the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, when Philip Mountbatten escorted Princess Elizabeth, alongside her sister Princess Margaret and father King George VI, the teen poised to be queen fell in love with her 18-year-old future husband.
Soon after, the dapper sailor and Princess Elizabeth, who were third cousins through their mutual greatgrandmother Queen Victoria, began exchanging letters.
Elizabeth’s governess Marion Crawford famously recalled her young charge would “take more trouble with her appearance and play the tune People Will Say We’re In Love from the musical Oklahoma!” before the dashing blond navy man’s visits to Buckingham Palace, and that he would “roar into the forecourt” in his MG sports car, “hatless” and “always in a hurry to see Lilibet”.
It’s reported that in 1946 she invited him to Balmoral
Castle for a three-week summer hunting holiday, which is where he proposed.
At first, King George wasn’t pleased, and some say he privately described Philip as “rough, ill-mannered, uneducated, and would probably not be faithful”.
But he eventually and begrudgingly gave the young couple permission to marry once she had turned 21.
Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten married on November 20, 1947 in a grand ceremony at London’s Westminster Abbey that was a welcome occasion of great happiness after the war years.
It would lead to a life of service – when Prince Philip died he was the world’s longest-serving consort.
BLESSED WITH FAMILY
The union brought them four children – Prince Charles a year after the wedding in 1948, Princess Anne in 1950, Prince Andrew in 1960 and Prince Edward in 1964.
The couple have since been blessed with eight grandchildren, including Prince William and Prince Harry, and 10 great
grandchildren, including future king Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis of Cambridge, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son, Master Archie Mountbatten-windsor. Most recently, Philip welcomed the arrival of Princess Eugenie of York’s firstborn son August Philip Hawke Brooksbank, with the 31-year-old announcing the boy was named in honour of his great-grandfather.
From 1949, Philip and Elizabeth enjoyed two blissful years stationed in Malta for his role with the Royal Navy, before he left to begin life as a full-time royal. In 1952, Philip and Elizabeth’s life changed forever when her beloved father passed away aged just 56, landing his daughter on the throne just five years into their marriage. The couple were on a tour of Kenya at the time and it was Philip who broke the devastating news to his 25-year-old wife. “[Philip] looked as though
you’d dropped half the world on him,” recalled Commander Michael Parker, who was travelling with the couple and told Philip the shocking news.
“He took her up to the garden and they walked up and down the lawn while he talked and talked and talked to her. Then she was sitting erect, fully accepting her destiny.”
Upon Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne, she rebelled against royal tradition and decreed that her husband would be her equal and have “place, pre-eminence, and precedence next to her on all occasions and in all meetings”.
SECOND FIDDLE
Despite this acknowledgement to her husband’s place, there were many rumours
throughout their marriage that Philip struggled playing second fiddle to his wife – claims Elizabeth denied, describing him as her “constant strength and guide”.
However, Philip’s role as consort to the Queen hasn’t been without controversy. He was widely blamed for pushing Prince Charles into his unhappy marriage to the late Lady Diana Spencer, despite his son being in love with Camilla Parker Bowles, who he later married, in