The Monarchy

 How do you like the royal family?

Standing behind his wife, Philip defined

a different kind of masculine ideal
Gaby Hinsliff

It’s a stretch to call him a feminist icon but the Duke of Edinburgh
allowed his wife the spotlight as husbands of public figures rarely did

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh wave at the crowds following her
coronation. He famously pledged allegiance to the crown by kneeling before
his wife during the ceremony. Photograph: Getty Images
Fri 9 Apr 2021 19.15 BST

F or seven decades he had walked faithfully in her shadow. The

Duke of Edinburgh was the Queen’s anchor and her rock, “her strength
and stay”, as she once said; the man who walked a delicate tightrope
between ensuring she never had to shoulder her responsibilities alone,
and respecting the fact that they were ultimately hers, not his.
Like Denis Thatcher after him, another forceful man married to a more
powerful woman, it would be a stretch to call the duke a feminist icon
merely because his marriage turned traditional gender roles upside
down. It was perhaps the crown, as much as the woman wearing it, to
which this scion of the exiled Greek royal family deferred; the crown to
which he famously pledged allegiance by kneeling before his wife at her
coronation.
But in an era still uncomfortable with the idea of a man bowing to
female authority, he did come to define a different kind of masculine
ideal; one rooted in devotion, support and the kind of strength that
does not need to show itself by muscling endlessly into the limelight.
The tributes heaped on him by politicians all mention his years of
public service; the wartime heroism, the Duke of Edinburgh award for
teenagers, the patronages and charitable works. But his real function in
public life was having the grace to fade into the background of it and
allow his spouse the spotlight, as the wives but more rarely the
husbands of public figures had previously done for so long.
If the compromises involved were sometimes bitter ones – some
macho pride swallowed over a lifetime of always walking a few steps
behind his wife in public, the naval career he loved but had to
surrender, the snubs and corrections endured at court in the early
years of their relationship – then alongside the frustration that saw
him occasionally erupt in private, they may have gifted him a little
empathy. When his eldest son’s marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales,
was acrimoniously breaking down, Philip wrote her affectionate
letters offering to do his best to help; she wrote back of her relief that
“you really do care”. Having been treated as a young man with initial
suspicion by some within royal circles, he had perhaps more insight
than Prince Charles into the difficulties of marrying into an institution.
Since the duke’s retirement from public life in 2017 we have become
more used to seeing the Queen alone in public. But she has never been
fully without her husband of 73 years until now, and a widowed Queen
stands revealed to her country in a newly vulnerable light. This has
been a year of too much loss and sorrow, in which the virus has torn
many long marriages apart. Now at 94, its monarch too is mourning a
love which spanned three-quarters of a century, and perhaps the only
man who, behind closed doors, could speak to her with complete
candour. In her grief, some may find an all too human echo of their
own.

1. Comment upon a part of this article that:

- you liked the most.
- surprised you.

2. How does this image compare to what you can see in the series The Crown?
3. Do you consider him a feminist icon?
Let’s see another side of the British family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-gkAM0XZMU

- Racism
- Suicide
- The Queen
- Relationship with the rest of the family

 Do you think that it would be easy to be a part of the royal family?