In Memory Of Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron of Greenwich was also known as Philip Mountbatten (his original name), Philip Prince of Greece and Denmark.

Philip was born on June 10th 1921 in Corfu, Greece, on the kitchen table!
In 1922, Philip’s uncle, the king of Greece, was forced to abdicate after the debacle of the Greco-Turkish War. Philip’s father, who was working in the army, was accused of treason and exiled. The family fled to Paris, where they would be based for the next decade, but it was an extremely difficult period for them.
“Though his parents both adored him, Philip saw little of them in his nomadic early years," Eade notes in his book. “His mother’s nerves had been badly strained by the family’s exile from Greece, and because of this the children were regularly packed off to friends and relations.”
In 1931, Princess Alice suffered from a nervous breakdown and she was confined to a sanatorium in Switzerland. “The children had been taken out for the day and they returned that evening to find their mother gone,” Eade adds. (She was later reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia.)
With his four older sisters married to German aristocrats and settled in Germany and his father now in the South of France, Philip was alone at just 10 years old.
Philip did not see or receive any word from his mother between the summer of 1932 and the spring of 1937. “It’s simply what happened,” the Prince later commented. “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.”
With no parents to care for him, Philip’s mother’s family—the Milford Havens and the Mountbattens—stepped in. The family had ties to the British royal family and many of the royal houses of Europe. Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and the oldest daughter of Louis Mountbatten, the first Marquess of Milford Haven.
Under the care of his aunts on uncles, Philip went to school in England and was then briefly educated in Germany at a school owned by one of his sister’s husbands. Less than a year later, Philip returned to Britain and was sent to Gordonstoun, a boarding school in Scotland.
While he was there, Philip experienced another series of tragedies. When he was 16, his sister Cecile, her husband, and their two children were killed in a plane crash. Just a few months later, his uncle and guardian, George Mountbatten, the second Marquess of Milford Haven, died suddenly of cancer at the age of 46. Gordonstoun’s German headmaster, Kurt Hahn, was the one to break the news. “His sorrow was that of a man,” his headmaster is said to have recalled.

He was sent to England and was mainly brought up in the UK, here he was educated at Gordonstoun School, Elgin, Scotland. When Philip left school, he joined the Royal Navy and enrolled at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England, on the advice of his uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten. This is where the 18-year-old cadet would meet his third cousin, 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth. (They share a great-great grandmother in Queen Victoria.) Seven years later, in 1947, the pair announced their engagement.

From January 1940 until the end of WW2 he served with the Royal Navy in combat in the Mediterranean and Pacific.

He met Queen Elizabeth when she was 13 and her parents the King and Queen visited Dartmouth Navy College. He was 18 yrs old. They corresponded by letter until she was of age, then began a formal courtship which ended in their marriage in 1947. He had given up his naval career to support his wife’s role as Queen.

From January 1940 until the end of WW2 he served with the Royal Navy in combat in the Mediterranean and Pacific.

Philip had no real role as Prince Consort, no-one had any idea what he should do or what duties he should perform, so he made the role his own by working ceaselessly with charities and organisations and was passionate about conservation and the future of younger generations. He founded The Duke of Edinburgh Awards which has helped thousands of youngsters around the globe.
He had a cheeky sense of humour which often got him into trouble and made everyone who met him feel totally at ease. He had far right views and was quite outspoken, he said what he that and not what people wanted him to say, which wasn’t always accepted and sometimes was embarrassing for the Royal Family. But you knew where you were with him. He was very grounded, worldly wise, fun to be around and a doting loving father to his 3 sons and daughter.
From someone who could have stood in the shadow of his wife, he became as well respected as her Majesty in his own right. He is the longest serving Royal Consort in history.
He made over 22,000 official engagements visiting many countries and retired from his official duties in 2017 at the age of 96.
He spent the last 3 yrs of his life at Sandringham reading in the garden and had taken up painting.
He led a wonderful life and worked so hard for others having known poverty and tragedy in his early life when he lived in Greece. He knew how difficult it was for those marrying into the Royal Family from normal life, as an outsider, and was always at hand to offer advice which was usually gratefully received.
He passed away peacefully on April 9th 2021 at Windsor Castle aged 99 having spent 70 yrs in the public eye.