Royal family share poem for Prince Philip a year after his death

‘They fought ingenious wars, finagled triumphs at sea with flaming decoy boats, and side-stepped torpedoes’

THE Royal family have shared a spoken poem in tribute to Prince Philip to mark a year since his death.

The Patriarchs – An Elegy, by the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, was first released for the occasion of the Duke’s funeral last year. On Saturday, an oral version of the poem was shared on the Royal family’s social media accounts, read by Armitage over piano music and set to a montage that included important moments in the Duke’s life.

The poem reflects on the wartime contribution made by people of the Duke’s age, who fought “ingenious wars” and “finagled triumphs at sea with flaming decoy boats, and sidestepped torpedoes”. It describes how their “survival was always the stuff of minor miracle”.

The language of the poem mirrors language used by the Queen to describe her late husband. The poem describes men who are “husbands to duty”, similar to how the Queen spoke of Philip’s “sense of service” in her Christmas Day broadcast last year.

The poem goes on to explore the domestic and family life of men of that generation, who are “great-grandfathers from birth” and “the last great avuncular magicians”, whose bootprints are stamped into the rose-beds and borders in the garden.

The new recording of the poem includes photographs of the Duke taken throughout his life, which capture intimate moments, as well as those of duty. He is pictured as a baby, on honeymoon with the then-Princess Elizabeth, and on ships during his naval career.

Prince Philip’s death was announced just after noon on April 9 2021, with a statement from Buckingham Palace that spoke of the Royal family joining with people across the globe to grieve.

He passed away just a few months short of his 100th birthday, which would have been on June 10 last year.

At the recent service of thanksgiving for Philip’s life, Dean of Windsor the Right

Rev David Conner paid tribute to his abilities and also highlighted his shortcomings. He described Philip as a man of “passionate commitment” who devoted his “intellectual and physical energy” to a “host of down-to-earth enterprises”, but he could also be “abrupt” in a “robust conversation, forgetting just how intimidating he could be”.

It is understood that the Queen will mark the first anniversary of the death of her husband privately.