Duke of Edinburgh dies ‘peacefully’ at Windsor
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has died at the age of 99, Buckingham Palace announced yesterday. “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” the palace said in a statement. “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. The royal family join with people around the world in mourning his loss.”
Mourners gathered outside Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace to lay flowers in tribute yesterday afternoon. Flags at the palace and all government buildings have been lowered to half mast. All election campaigning across the UK has been suspended following the death, and the cabinet met at 5pm yesterday to pay tribute. Parliament will be recalled from recess on Monday, a day earlier than scheduled, to allow for
further tributes. A period of mourning will see planned government announcements and ministerial appearances cancelled.
The government is advising the public not to gather by or leave flowers at royal residences, and to continue following lockdown rules.
Last night the BBC aired a special programme, A Tribute to HRH Duke of Edinburgh, which remembered his life, featuring interviews with his four children.
The Prince of Wales said: “His energy was astonishing, in supporting my mama, and doing it for such a long time, and some extraordinary way being able to go on doing it for so long. What he has done has amounted to an astonishing achievement.”
Princess Anne added she will best remember him as always being there. “He treated everybody as an individual and gave them the respect that he felt they were due as individuals.”
An online book of condolence has been made available on the royal website for those who wish to send a personal message, while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s website has been transformed into a memorial page.
Prince Philip will not have a state funeral nor lie in state for the public to pay their respects, the College of Arms announced, with arrangements revised to meet Covid restrictions. His body will rest at Windsor Castle ahead of a service at St George’s Chapel, which is likely to take place in about a week’s time, according to royal experts.
Westminster Abbey tolled its tenor bell once every 60 seconds, 99 times, from 6pm yesterday evening in tribute to the duke. A 41-gun salute is due to take place in Cardiff today. Prince Philip officially retired from public duties in 2017, having spent more than seven decades supporting his wife as her consort in a role that defined his life.
His remarkable life spanned nearly a century of European history, starting with his birth as a member of the Greek royal family and ending as Britain’s longest-serving royal consort. He married Elizabeth in 1947, playing a key role in modernising the monarchy in the post-war period after she became Queen in 1952 – becoming the one key figure she could turn to behind the walls of Buckingham Palace.
“He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years,” the Queen said in a rare personal tribute to Philip made in a speech marking their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997. As a Greek prince, his early years were marked by upheaval after his family went into exile following a military coup in Greece which overthrew his uncle, King Constantine I. His childhood lacked stability and he moved between relatives in France and Britain, eventually going to Gordonstoun School in Morayshire, Scotland.
In private, he was often regarded as the head of his family, but protocol obliged the man dubbed ‘the second handshake’ to spend his public life literally one step behind his wife
The former naval officer admitted he found it hard to give up the military career he loved and take on the job as the monarch’s consort in 1952, for which there was no clear-cut constitutional role “There was no precedent. If I asked somebody ‘What do you expect me to do?’, they all looked blank – they had no idea, nobody had much idea,” he said in an interview to mark his 90th birthday.
Philip spent four weeks in hospital earlier this year for treatment for an infection and to have a heart procedure, but returned to Windsor in early March. Some royal watchers have argued that his absence from a frontline role in recent years due to his declining health has played a role in some of the monarchy’s recent travails, such as the crisis of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, and their decision to give up royal roles.
In private, he was often regarded as the head of his family, but protocol obliged the man dubbed “the second handshake” to spend his public life literally one step behind his wife. He took a typically irreverent view of his own retirement in 2017, telling a guest who said he was sorry he was standing down: “Well, I can’t stand up much longer.”
He was known to be an occasionally irascible figure, with a strong propensity to speak his mind, and became famed in the press for a series of gaffes made at official engagements. He once warned a group of Scottish students in China that they would become “slitty-eyed”. During a visit to a Glasgow factory, he pointed to a fusebox of loose wires and said it looked like it had been installed by an “Indian”.
Some royal observers believe his propensity to speak his mind meant he provided much-needed, unvarnished advice to the Queen. “The way that he survived in the British monarchy system was to be his own man, and that was a source of support to the Queen,” royal historian Robert Lacey said. “All her life she was surrounded by men who said ‘yes ma’am’, and he was one man who always told her how it really was, or at least how he saw it.”
It was widely assumed that he was critical of Diana, Princess of Wales, amd her use of broadcast interviews, including one in which she accused Charles of infidelity. But letters between Philip and Diana released after her death showed that the older man was supportive of his daughter-in-law. Philip’s final years were clouded by controversy in the royal family. His third child, Prince Andrew, was embroiled in scandal over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a US financier who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.