For over 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were one of the most famous royal couples
in the world — but did you know that they met when Elizabeth was barely a teenager,
or that they always dreamed of being like us? Keep watching to find out more.
Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip first got to know each other in 1939 when they were both
still very young — in fact, Elizabeth was just 13 years old at the time. The meeting
occurred during a royal tour of the Royal Navy College in Dartmouth where she and her sister,
Princess Margaret, were greeted by Philip, who was 18 years old.
Elizabeth's governess, Marion Crawford,
later recalled that the future queen was intrigued by Philip's athleticism
after seeing him leaping over several tennis nets. According to several biographers,
Elizabeth was smitten from the very first meeting and never considered any other man for a partner.
"And she fell desperately, desperately head over heels in love with him at first sight."
Of course, the two were also distant cousins, both related to Queen Victoria, though it's probably
fair to say that blood ties aren't exactly uncommon in the history of royal marriages.
After their initial meeting, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip went their separate ways.
They did, however, keep in touch. Philip served in the navy during the Second World
War and Elizabeth completed her schooling. The relationship seemed to be moving along
as he spent Christmas of 1943 with her family at Windsor Castle. As the queen's governess
wrote of the visit, she was animated in a way that none of them had ever seen before.
However, Elizabeth's family wasn't initially keen on the match.
As Time magazine pointed out in a 1957 article,
her father was particularly skeptical of Philip's upbringing. The article wrote:
"Despite Philip's British background and his fine war record, George VI was deeply worried about
how British opinion [...] would take to a Greek Prince as the husband of the heiress presumptive."
Philip's boisterous laugh and his blunt manners were also said to annoy the king.
Luckily for Elizabeth and Philip, the family eventually embraced its latest member.
After a brief engagement, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip married in an extravagant ceremony
in November 1947. Elizabeth was the 10th royal to marry at Westminster Abbey, and the ceremony
was recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio to 200 million listeners. While the wedding itself wasn't
televised, Elizabeth and Philip greeted the public from the balcony of Buckingham Palace afterwards.
Elizabeth's dress was designed by Sir Norman Hartnell, who reportedly used a famous Botticelli
painting as his inspiration. The couple also had an elaborate nine-foot tall wedding cake
that featured their coats of arms and sugar figures of their favorite activities, while
a wedding breakfast was hosted the next morning. The pair spent their wedding night in Hampshire at
Philip's uncle's estate before traveling to their Balmoral estate in Scotland for their honeymoon.
In the early years of their marriage, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip
enjoyed a peaceful existence, as she had yet to become the queen of England.
Shortly after the wedding, the couple seemed to be perfectly happy. Elizabeth wrote to her parents:
"We behave as though we had belonged to each other for years.
Philip is an angel — he is so kind and thoughtful."
Meanwhile, Philip wrote to Elizabeth's mother:
"My ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to
withstand the shocks directed at us but will also have a positive existence for the good."
The pair spent their first few years living in Malta, where Philip was the commander of a
Royal Navy ship. This blissful honeymoon period came to an abrupt end, however,
when Elizabeth's father, King George VI, died in 1952.
When King George died, Princess Elizabeth and her husband had to return home,
where she was expected to take the throne.
Philip had to give up his naval career in order to become her consort, too. As he himself once said:
"I thought I was going to have a career in the navy, but it became obvious there was no hope.
[...] You have to make compromises. That's life. I accepted it. I tried to make the best of it."
The fictionalized drama series The Crown portrayed this era as a time of tension,
with Philip struggling to adjust to his new duties — and it appears that there
is likely to be some truth in this. As royal biographer Philip Ziegler told the Daily Mail:
"It would be surprising if any strong-minded, enterprising man who wants to have his own career
wouldn't have been slightly irritated about having to walk two steps behind someone else."
Eventually, however, Philip became more accustomed to his new role.
As royals author Clive Irving told NBC News:
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip had four children: Prince Charles, Princess Anne,
Prince Edward, and Prince Andrew. In The Crown, Philip is portrayed as a distant, uncaring father,
but both he and the queen were reportedly heavily involved in their children's upbringing.
According to some tabloid sources, the queen was actually "upset" and "annoyed" about how
the show portrayed Philip's parenting skills. One senior staff member reportedly told The Express:
As Philip recalled at his golden wedding anniversary:
While the queen took on her full range of duties as monarch, her husband had a part to play, too.
After giving up his career, he became a full-time royal. In addition to appearing
at many royal engagements with his wife, Prince Philip also undertook
22,000 solo engagements for the royals. Of his contribution to her role, Elizabeth once said:
"He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments,
but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years."
Prince Philip retired from his public role in 2017, at the age of 96.
While Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were certainly very busy with royal duties
during their marriage, they continued to enjoy spending peaceful time together in
more modest surroundings. For one, Philip was reportedly never a fan of Buckingham Palace,
and even once compared it to a hospital.
The pair apparently had a lifelong dream of moving away from London for a simpler life.
As The Daily Beast put it during one article about the couple:
"The dream of quietly living out their days as 'normal' people in the Shires."
When they could get away from official appearances, the queen
and Philip often spent time at Craigowan Lodge on the Balmoral estate in Scotland.
Here, they reportedly enjoyed a more down-to-earth lifestyle, with the queen
doing the washing up and the prince holding barbecues. As biographer Penny Juror once said:
"They like being in a smaller cozier house [...] they dream of being like us."
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip have welcomed several grandchildren
and great-grandchildren into their family over the years, including Prince Charles' children,
Prince William and Prince Harry. Another of these grandchildren,
Princess Eugenie, described her grandfather in the documentary Our Queen at Ninety, saying:
"I think Grandpa is incredible. He really is strong and consistent."
Reportedly, Philip was especially helpful towards William and Harry after their mother,
Princess Diana, passed away. The queen apparently has an equally close
relationship with her grandchildren. As a body language expert once told Good Housekeeping:
"There's a genuine joy in her face when she's with her grandchildren and that's all that matters."
Finally, Prince William himself once said of his grandparents:
"I would love to know their secret. They are the most lovely couple."
Due to their busy royal schedules, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip didn't exactly
have a normal relationship. In fact, they often had to spend weeks or even months apart.
Philip moved into the country after his retirement, but, before this,
they had often been away from each other, and even when they were together, they reportedly slept
in separate bedrooms. Nevertheless, despite their unconventional marital arrangements,
the pair remained loving and devoted throughout their lives. They even made
time for a daily catch-up phone call. As royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said in 2019:
"She has always known she could rely on his advice and that it would be valuable."
You might not imagine the queen and her husband being particularly romantic.
However, in private, they were evidently very fond and affectionate with each other.
Most famously, Philip used to call his wife "cabbage." Apparently, this was a joke,
taken from the French pet name "mon petit chou," which directly translates to "my little cabbage."
Peter Morgan, who wrote the 2006 film The Queen, told The Times:
Apparently, Philip also called his wife by her family nickname,
"Lilibet," a pet name that developed when she was a child and couldn't pronounce "Elizabeth."
Of course, Philip referred to her as simply "The Queen" in
public — but things were clearly very different once the cameras disappeared.
The royal couple was always fastidious about marking their wedding anniversary,
as it was usually the only time either expressed any remotely romantic feelings in public.
The pair's first public celebration was for their sixth anniversary during the
year of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, with a dance held at Clarence House.
In 1972, Philip and the queen held a service at Westminster Abbey for their silver anniversary.
The year 1997 marked their golden anniversary, and it was during this celebration that the
queen famously called Philip her "strength and stay." In 2007, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip
celebrated their diamond anniversary, making their relationship the longest marriage in royal
history. Finally, in 2020, they celebrated their 73rd anniversary. It would also be their last.
Even though Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth didn't live together permanently after his
retirement in 2017, they did spend an extended period of time together
during the 2020 pandemic. In March of 2020, just before lockdown in the U.K.,
Philip and the queen settled down in Windsor Castle. They also spent some time at the Balmoral
estate in August of that year. As Chris Ship, a royal correspondent, noted on ITV:
"The queen has been in a so-called HMS bubble."
According to Vanity Fair, their lockdown together actually provided a nice break from their busy
royal lives. Apparently, the pair enjoyed daily walks and quiet dinners together every single day.
Unfortunately, these were some of the final days that Queen Elizabeth
and Prince Philip shared together. Philip began to experience health
problems during this time and was rushed to hospital in early 2021.
Prince Philip's death in 2021 marked the end of the longest marriage in royal history.
According to insiders, who spoke to the Daily Mail, the prince's last few days were quiet
and calm. Apparently, he was determined to die at home rather than at the hospital.
In his last few days, he sat outside in the sun with a rug
over his legs and avoided using a wheelchair. As one insider said:
"When [the wheelchair] first appeared in the private rooms he shouted,
'Get that bloody thing out of my sight!'"
After Philip died, his son, Prince Andrew,
emerged to tell the press that his mother was facing her loss with stoicism.
"She described it as having left a huge void in her life."
Responding to the numerous tributes paid to Philip following his death,
the queen released a statement, saying:
"We have been deeply touched, and continue to be reminded that Philip
had such an extraordinary impact on countless people throughout his life."
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