For a very public figure, Queen Elizabeth has always been a pretty private person. One
of the people who knew her best was her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. But
what do most people not know about him? Here's everything about Prince Philip that you may
not have known.
Prince Philip, who turned 99 in 2020, was both the oldest and the longest-serving consort
in British history, according to USA Today.
Queen Elizabeth II became the monarch in February 1952, after the unexpected death of her father,
King George VI. She was in Kenya on an international tour when she discovered that she had become
the queen, with Philip breaking the news to her while on a walk around the grounds.
Overnight, Philip's life changed as well. He went from husband to royal consort, a position
that required substantial adjustment. For one thing, he had to get used to walking a
few steps behind his wife when the two were in public. Philip also had to abandon his
Naval career, something he tried hard to accept. As he reportedly once said,
"There was no choice. It just happened. You have to make compromises. That's life. I accepted
it. I tried to make the best of it."
Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II were married for decades and enjoyed a dedicated
relationship. However, despite being devoted to each other, the royal couple lived in separate
residences after Philip retired from royal duty at the age of 96 in 2017.
Philip reportedly spent most of his time going between Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle,
and Wood Farm, Norfolk, on the Sandringham Estate, with the bulk of his time spent at
Wood Farm.
Joe Little, editor of Majesty Magazine, told Express that it was not unusual for Philip
to be away from the Queen for weeks at a time — but according to him, they still spoke
every day on the telephone.
When he turned 50 years old, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, gave up his favorite
sport of polo. But he didn't exit the sporting life altogether. During his life, Philip took
the extraordinary step of helping to create a new sport.
The duke reportedly said, "I was looking round to see what next, I didn't
know what there was available. And I suddenly thought, well, we've got horses and carriages
so why don't I have a go."
The sport he helped make — carriage driving — features two-wheeled or four-wheeled carriages
pulled by horses and involves time trials, the dance-like sport of dressage, and an obstacle
course.
The duke threw himself into carriage driving with enthusiasm, having a group of equestrian
experts come up with international rules for the sport. Philip even ended up competing
on the national team for England in multiple European and World Championships, going to
the Netherlands, Poland, and Hungary.
While Prince Philip and the queen were married for decades in a rock-solid marriage, Philip
was required to sacrifice a lot in order to marry Elizabeth. Not only did he have to give
up smoking and his career in the royal navy, but he also had to sacrifice something much
more personal: his Greek and Danish titles, making him one of several royals who gave
up their titles for love.
As a prince of Greece and Denmark, Philip was in the line of succession to the Greek
throne. But because Philip had been raised largely abroad and was exiled from Greece
as an infant, he had few ties to the country, and found it more important in life to show
allegiance to Britain as a naturalized subject.
Philip was not to remain title-free, however; on the day of his wedding to Elizabeth in
1947, King George VI granted him the titles of Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and
Baron Greenwich.
Philip took on the surname Mountbatten, the last name of his maternal grandparents, and
became a naturalized British citizen. Philip's numerous sacrifices didn't go unnoticed, however.
Queen Elizabeth II was reported as saying, quote, "Philip is an angel."
The Duke of Edinburgh didn't just see active duty during World War II. He also distinguished
himself as a war hero.
While in the Royal Navy, Prince Philip was in charge of the searchlights on the battleship
Valiant. During the battle of Cape Matapan, he took part in a nighttime attack on an Italian
fleet, with his searchlight skill playing an important role in helping to find survivors
in the ocean. For his important skill, Prince Philip was awarded a medal.
In another instance, Queen Elizabeth's husband saved the lives of many aboard the destroyer
HMS Wallace — of which Philip was first lieutenant, second-in-command — when it
was repeatedly bombarded during the Allied landings in Sicily.
60 years after the event, a yeoman by the name of Harry Hargreaves remembered Philip's
bravery and quick thinking, saying to the BBC,
"Prince Philip saved our lives that night. [...] He was always very courageous and resourceful
and thought very quickly. You would say to yourself 'What the hell are we going to do
now?' and Philip would come up with something."
In December 1922, 1-year-old Prince Philip was famously taken out of Greece in a fruit
crate serving as a makeshift crib. After the forced abdication of King Constantine I of
Greece — the older brother of Philip's father, Andrew — Philip's parents quickly went into
exile, settling in Saint-Cloud, outside of Paris, France.
Young Philip's childhood grew trying from that point. Because the exile from Greece
was difficult for his mother Princess Alice's nerves, Philip and his siblings were regularly
in the care of friends and family members.
When Philip was only 10, his mother was abruptly sent away to a sanatorium, ultimately leaving
him alone without his parents or sisters in his day-to-day life. Philip later recalled,
"The family broke up. My mother was ill, my sisters were married, my father was in the
south of France. I just had to get on with it. You do. One does."
When Prince Philip proposed to Queen Elizabeth II, the young royal was head over heels in
love. Elizabeth had had a crush on Philip since the age of 13. Her cousin Margaret Rhodes
recalled in her autobiography,
"Elizabeth was truly in love from the very beginning."
However, despite Elizabeth's devotion, the path wasn't nearly as smooth on Philip's side.
Philip was initially rejected by Elizabeth's father because he wasn't British and didn't
belong to the Church of England.
Philip ended up having to change his religion in order to marry the then-princess. Philip
was raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition. However, as the then-future monarch, Elizabeth
would be the head of the Church of England and the "Defender of the Faith" — and any
spouse would be required to adhere to the same Anglican faith.
Philip converted before their wedding, and the rest is history.
Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II shared more than a long-lasting marriage: They also
shared ancestry. The Duke of Edinburgh and the queen are both direct descendants of Queen
Victoria herself and each could claim the famed monarch as a great-great grandmother.
Queen Elizabeth is a direct descendant on father King George VI's side, as her paternal
grandfather, George, was the son of Victoria's eldest son, Edward.
Meanwhile, Prince Philip was a descendant of Queen Victoria through his mother's side.
Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Alice had a daughter of her own named Victoria, and
that Victoria's daughter was Princess Alice of Battenberg: Prince Philip's mother.
While it might seem odd to have kept it all in the family, it was common back then. Sandra
Pearson of Expedia — which developed an online tool showing how royal families intermarried
— spoke to Insider about the topic of looking for love as a royal family member. She said
that most royals had no other option than to keep it in the family, saying,
"In many countries, you would lose your right to the throne if you married a commoner, hence
your choice was very limited and you most probably would be related."
When Prince Philip married Queen Elizabeth II in 1947, his four older sisters — Margarita,
Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie — were not invited to the royal wedding. The reason was
reportedly because all four sisters married German aristocrats, and anti-German sentiment
following World War II was still fresh in people's minds. Three of Philip's sisters'
husbands even had connections to Germany's Nazi party.
Philip's mother, Princess Alice, thankfully took an entirely different path during the
war, choosing to shelter a Greek Jewish family in her Athenian home until after the Nazi
occupation ended. As a result, she was endowed with the designation of "Righteous Among the
Nations" by Yad Vashem Israel's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust.
Prince Philip had an unusual interest: unidentified flying objects. As told by Philip Eade in
his book Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth
II, after World War II, Prince Philip was a subscriber to the magazine Flying Saucer
Review and even sent his equerry, Sir Peter Horsley, to meet a rumored extraterrestrial
posing as a human at a house in England.
Alleged UFO witnesses were invited to Buckingham Palace in the hopes of testing their honesty
before royalty, Horsley explained, thinking that the mere presence of Prince Philip would
be "a method as effective as any truth serum."
Retired Air Force pilot major George Filer claimed that when he met Prince Philip in
the 1960s, Queen Elizabeth's husband was fascinated by extraterrestrials and UFOs.
During a dinner with Filer in the early '60s, Philip reportedly told him that the Royal
Air Force had stopped sending fighters to pursue UFOs, giving the reason as,
"Some of them didn't come back."
Otherworldly, indeed.
The first several months of Queen Elizabeth's reign as monarch were hard on Prince Philip.
He allegedly had trouble acclimating to life as second in command. Regarding how his role
as head of household had changed with Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, Philip said,
"People used to come to me and ask me what to do. In 1952, the whole thing changed, very,
very quickly."
One of the hardest things for Philip to bear was the fact that royal officials decided
Elizabeth and Philip's children should take the name Windsor, instead of Philip's last
name of Mountbatten. It was a decision that reportedly hurt and infuriated the Duke of
Edinburgh, who said,
"I am the only man [in] the country not allowed to give his name to his children."
His close friend Countess Mountbatten confirmed Philip's hurt at the decision, calling it
a "final insult" and adding that it made Philip both unsettled and unhappy for some time.
Over the years, Prince Philip had earned a reputation as a "cantankerous" guy.
"Just take the f---ing picture!"
However, Philip was actually surprisingly adored by people who worked for him.
Actor Matt Smith, who portrayed Prince Philip on the Netflix show The Crown, was quoted
as saying that Queen Elizabeth's husband was loved by the household staff who attended
to him and the royal family.
Smith said,
"I felt there was a sort of a misconception and a preconception about him, which reduced
him a bit. And actually all the research I did found him to be brilliantly funny, very
clever, very popular."
Smith noted that the staff loved Philip more than any other royal, saying that he carried
himself like a man of the people who hadn't been changed by royal protocol. As Smith put
it,
"There's a sort of rebellion in him and a naughtiness and a cheekiness. I think he's
quite affable and open by all accounts with the staff. They all love him."
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