London Prince Philip, the husband of British Queen Elizabeth II, has died, the royal family announced on Friday. He was 99.
“His Royal Highness passed away peacefully at Windsor Castle this morning,” the family said in a statement.
He was admitted to the hospital in February and underwent a heart condition. He and the queen had been married for more than 73 years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Philip deserves the affection of generations here in Britain, across the Commonwealth and around the world. ”
“Like the expert coachman he was, he helped manage the royal family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution that is indisputably essential to the balance and happiness of our national life.”
His role in life was to walk one step behind the queen, but even there Prince Philip could invent his own reputation and role in history.
“In essence, the queen has always worn the crown,” says Giles Brandreth, who for years ran one of Philip’s charities, while ‘Prince Philip could always wear the trousers. That’s how it worked. ‘
Philip was born into the Greek royal family in 1921, but was educated and had a naval career in Britain.
And by luck or – many think – by the royal design, he was chosen to accompany the young Princess Elizabeth on a tour. The queen’s cousin and good friend, until her death in 2016, Margaret Rhodes, remembered the impression Philip made at the first meeting.
In an interview with CBS News, Rhodes once said that Philip had the immediate benefit of a good look when he met the young princess and described him as a ‘perfectly beautiful, Viking god’.
They married in 1947 at Westminster Abbey during a television ceremony that garnered millions of viewers around the world. This was the beginning of a long and successful royal marriage. He and the queen have four children, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
After Elizabeth became queen in 1953, Philip provided support and, from time to time, controversy. Some thought he was a source of political inaccuracy prone to alcohol.
He once asked the indigenous people in Australia if they still threw spears at each other. Closer to home, he once asked Scottish driving instructors how to keep their students away from the sauce long enough to pass the test.
“He just said what he felt,” Brandreth told CBS News. “He was very funny. Prince Philip was the man who said if you ever see a man open the car door for his wife, is it a new car or a new woman. He was a shrewd observer of people. ‘
In 1997, with Britain in mourning after the death of Princess Diana, he stepped in to defuse a moment of crisis during her funeral. It was Philip who convinced the young princess William and Harry to walk behind their mother’s coffin if they did not want to. “I will walk with you,” he said.
Philip remained healthy and active until old age, but has experienced a number of setbacks in recent years. He was treated for a clogged coronary artery in 2011 and then spent a few nights in hospital in December 2019. A month later, at the age of 97, he had to stop driving after hitting a car with his Land Rover near the royal vehicle. family’s Sandringham estate.
Philip retired from official royal duties in 2017 and public appearances became scarce. He spent the recent closure of the coronavirus at Windsor Castle with the Queen.
Royals very rarely come across and we do not know what Philip thought of the Queen’s glowing tribute to him during their golden wedding anniversary, but some of her words may serve as his epitaph:
“He was simply my strength and remained all these years,” the monarch said. “I and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a greater debt than he would ever claim, or we will never know.”