Everything about Prince Philip Duke Of Edinburgh totally explained
particularly when meeting the British public or on state visits to other countries.
Early life
Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark was born on
10 June 1921 at Villa Mon Repos on
Corfu, a Greek island in the
Ionian Sea. His father was
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, the fourth son of Greece's
King George I, who was of partial
Byzantine Greek descent, and
Queen Olga of
Greece. His mother was the former
Princess Alice of Battenberg, elder daughter of the
1st Marquess of Milford Haven (formerly Prince Louis of Battenberg) and his wife, the former
Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Lady Milford Haven, through her mother, the Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine (formerly
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom), was a granddaughter of
Queen Victoria. (As a descendant of Queen Victoria, he's himself in
line of succession to the British Throne, but very distantly.) Philip's mother Princess Alice, who ended her life as a Greek Orthodox nun and sheltered Jewish refugees in Athens during World War II, was also a sister of
Queen Louise of Sweden;
George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven; and
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. He is currently the oldest living great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria, as well as her second-oldest living descendant after
Prince Carl Johan of Sweden.
The Prince was baptised a few days after his birth at St. George's Church in the Palaio Frourio ("Old Fortress") in Haddokkos, Corfu. His godparents were Queen Olga and the Corfu community (represented by Alexander S. Kokotos, Mayor of Corfu, and Stylianos I. Maniarizis, Chairman of Corfu City Council). In later life he's had a rediscovered interest in his original
Greek Orthodox faith.
Prince Andrew and Princess Alice remained in residence on the Island of Corfu for 18 months. Greece entered an unpredictable period, and it was expected that the monarchy would soon be overthrown. On
22 September 1922,
Constantine I was forced to
abdicate the
throne. A revolutionary court sentenced Prince Andrew, his younger brother, to banishment for life. Fortunately for the family,
George V ordered that the
Royal Navy vessel,
HMS Calypso, evacuate the family, and Philip was carried to safety in a cot made from an orange box.
The prince was educated at
Schule Schloss Salem in Germany and at
Gordonstoun, a private boarding school in the north east of
Scotland.
Philip has survived his four elder sisters, all of whom married German princes:
Philip's first real family tragedy occurred in 1937, when his sister Cecilie, her husband, mother-in-law and two young sons were killed in the
Sabena OO-AUB Ostend crash. Philip, who was only sixteen at the time, attended the funeral in
Darmstadt.
Military Service
After leaving Gordonstoun in 1939, Prince Philip joined the
Royal Navy, graduating in 1940 from the
Royal Naval College, Dartmouth as the best cadet in his course.
Commissioned as a
Midshipman, Prince Philip spent six months on the battleship
HMS Ramillies then serving in the Indian Ocean. In January 1941 he was posted to the Mediterranean fleet aboard the battleship
HMS Valiant where, amongst other engagements, he was involved in the
Battle of Crete. He was
mentioned in despatches for his service during the
Battle of Cape Matapan and was also awarded the Greek War Cross of Valour.
Promoted
Sub-Lieutenant, and after a series of courses, Prince Philip was appointed to the V&W class destroyer,
flotilla leader HMS Wallace, where he was subsequently involved in convoy escort tasks. Promotion to
Lieutenant followed on
16 July 1942 and in October 1942, he became the ship's
First Lieutenant (at 21 years of age, he was one of the youngest to be appointed a First Lieutenant). Whilst with HMS
Wallace, he took part in the
Allied invasion of Sicily. He renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles on
18 March 1947 and decided to take the name
Mountbatten, an Anglicised version of Battenberg, his mother's family name. The day before his wedding, King George VI titled his future son-in-law
Duke of Edinburgh,
Earl of Merioneth, and
Baron Greenwich, of Greenwich in the County of London.
The King also issued
Letters patent creating the Duke of Edinburgh
His Royal Highness. After their marriage, his wife became
Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh. On the popular but erroneous assumption that if Philip had the style of 'Royal Highness' he was automatically a prince, media reports often mentioned "Prince Philip", with or without reference to his ducal title. Although the princely prefix was omitted in the
Regency Act of 1953 and in Letters Patent of November 1953 appointing
Counsellors of State, it had been included in the Letters Patent of
22 October 1948 conferring princely rank on children of his marriage to Princess Elizabeth. George VI, however, appears to have been clear and intentional in having withheld the princely title from his future son-in-law. From 1947 to 1957, Philip's correct style was
His Royal Highness Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
At the marriage of his youngest son in 1999 it was announced that Prince Edward would be created Duke of Edinburgh when the current creation of that Dukedom reverts to the Crown.
In post-war Britain it wasn't acceptable to invite any of the Duke of Edinburgh's German relations to his wedding. The sole exception was his mother, who was born at
Windsor of parents who had both renounced their German titles. Excluded from the invitation list were his three surviving sisters, each of whom had married German princes, some with
Nazi connections. (His sister Princess Sophie's first husband,
Prince Christoph of Hesse-Cassel had been a member of the
Schutzstaffel (SS) and an aide to
Heinrich Himmler.) Also, the bride's aunt
Mary, Princess Royal allegedly refused to attend because her brother, the
Duke of Windsor (who abdicated in 1936), wasn't invited due to his marital situation. She gave ill health as the official reason for not attending.
Duke of Edinburgh
After their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh took up residence at
Clarence House in
London. The Duke was keen to pursue his naval career. However the knowledge that it would be eclipsed by his wife's future role as Queen was always in his mind. Nevertheless, he returned to the Navy after his honeymoon, and from 1949 was stationed in
Malta after being posted as First Lieutenant of the destroyer
HMS Chequers in the
Mediterranean Fleet. In 1950, he was promoted to
Lieutenant Commander and given
command of the frigate
HMS Magpie. He was promoted to
Commander at the beginning of 1952. In February 1955,
South Africa belatedly made known that it, too, would object to the "Prince of the Commonwealth" title. When told, the Queen continued to express the wish that her husband's position be raised, but rejected the
Cabinet's recommendations to confer upon him either the title "Prince Consort" or "Prince Royal". By March 1955 the Cabinet was recommending that Philip's new title be simply "His Royal Highness the Prince". But the Queen was advised that, if she still preferred "Prince of the Commonwealth", her personal secretary could write to the Commonwealth's
Governors-General directly for their response, but warned her that, if their consent wasn't unanimous, the proposal couldn't go forward. The matter appears to have been left there until the publication on
8 February 1957 of an article by P. Wykeham-Bourne in the
Evening Standard titled "Well, is it correct to say Prince Philip?" A few days later Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan and his Cabinet reversed the advice of the previous ministers, formally recommending that the Queen reject "The Prince" in favour of "Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories", only to change this advice, after she consented, to delete even the vague reference to the Commonwealth countries. Letters Patent were issued, and according to the announcement in the
London Gazette, the Queen's husband officially became
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She inserted the capitalised definite article, a usage normally restricted to the children of monarchs.
Health
It was revealed in October 2007 that Prince Philip has been suffering from a heart condition since 1992. It is said that bodyguards protecting His Royal Highness have been trained to rush him to seek medical attention for simple dizziness or shortage of breath, even if it's against the Prince's own personal wishes. The Prince is said to have to take regular medication for his condition, but refuses to reduce his royal duties, which he's carried out alongside
The Queen for the past 60 years as her consort. The Prince carries out over 300 royal engagements a year, behind only
Princess Anne who carries out more engagements due to her younger age. Prince Philip is said to have the energy and fitness "of a man half his age".
On
3 April 2008, Prince Philip was admitted to the
King Edward VII's Hospital in London for "assessment and treatment for a chest infection". He was seen to walk into the hospital unaided, and was reported to be sitting up in bed and attending to his usual papers whilst in hospital. As of
6 April he's been released from hospital and is recuperating at
Windsor Castle.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Issue
Controversial remarks
Prince Philip is notorious for making remarks during public visits which are sometimes regarded as insensitive.
Speaking to a driving instructor in Scotland, he asked: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?"
When visiting China in 1986, he told a group of British students, "If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed".
On a visit to the new National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, he told a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, "Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you're deaf."
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" (in 1994, to an islander in the Cayman Islands)
At the University of Salford, he told a 13-year-old aspiring astronaut: "You could do with losing a bit of weight."
In 1997, the Duke of Edinburgh, participating in an already controversial British visit to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (Amritsar Massacre) Monument, provoked outrage in India and in the UK with an offhand comment. Having observed a plaque claiming "This place is saturated with the blood of about two thousand Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims who were martyred in a non-violent struggle.", Prince Philip observed, "That's a bit exaggerated, it must include the wounded". When asked how he'd come to this conclusion Philip said "I was told about the killings by General Dyer's son. I'd met him while I was in the Navy."
During a Royal visit to a Tamil Hindu temple in London, he asked a Hindu priest if he was related to the terrorist organization the Tamil Tigers.
In 2002, speaking to a blind, wheelchair bound woman who was accompanied by her guide dog, he remarked : "Do you know they're now producing eating dogs for the anorexics?"
In popular culture
Actor James Cromwell portrays Prince Philip in the 2006 Oscar-winning film, The Queen.
A fictionalised Philip (in his capacity as a World War II naval officer) is a minor character in John Birmingham's Axis of Time series of alternate history novels.
Prince Philip appears as a fictional character in Nevil Shute's 1952 novel, In the Wet.
Prince Philip sat for a portrait by Jonathan Yeo, which was commissioned by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. The portrait was previewed in The Sunday Telegraph's supplement, Seven, on 13 January 2008.
Prince Philip was the subject of ITV's two part documentary about his life in May 2008 called The Duke: A Portrait of Prince PhilipFurther Information
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