ABOUT PRINCE PHILIP OF EDINBURGH, QUEEN ELIZABETH II’S HUSBAND

He was born in 1921, the same year as our King Michael was born. Philip was born on the Greek island of Corfu.
He was the nephew of the king of Greece. When his uncle was forced to abdicate, the entire Greek royal family
moved to France, then to England, where Philip went to school. He first attended a boarding school in Scotland,
then a naval college, then joined the Royal Navy and took part in the Second World War. He was first a cadet
then a naval officer. He had a military career that he loved. He had no idea at the time he would marry the future
queen.

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip knew each other since 1934, when they had met at a family wedding. They
were both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria. They exchanged letters while Philip was overseas during
the war, they were occasionally seeing each other, sometimes even went out driving in Philip’s car. Princess
Elizabeth kept a photo of him on her dressing table. He was a very good-looking young officer serving in her
father’s navy. And he looked very much like her grandfather, King George V.

Eventually they got married, it was in 1947. Afterwards they moved to Malta, where Philip assumed command of
a battleship. They lived there more or less the life of a naval officer and his wife. Any freedom they might have
had was cut short by the declining health and eventually death of Elisabeth’s father, King George VI. From that
moment on, Philip became the queen’s prince consort. This is the title given to the spouse of a monarch.

In his new role, he worked tirelessly in support of his wife. He explained in an interview in 2011 that, and I quote,
“Being married to the queen, it seemed to me, my first duty was to serve her the best way I could.” Prince Philip
championed many causes. For instance, he promoted the use of the English language outside Britain, especially
after the breakup of the British empire, he encouraged young people to take up adventures in the outdoors, or he
streamlined the operations of the royal estates, he modernized everything sometimes against the opposition of the
so-called old guard. To do that, he first visited every one of the 600-plus rooms in Buckingham Palace and asked
each member of the staff what they did there and why.

I was telling you that he carried out very many official duties in support of the queen. In public the protocol
required him to walk two steps behind his wife. In private, though, he took the lead and urged her to spread her
wings. He used the words: “Come on, Lilibet!” This is the queen’s nickname because as a small child she had a
hard time pronouncing her own name.

I will end here, but not before citing a sentence from a letter Prince Philip had sent to his future wife a year before
they married. He wrote: “To have fallen in love completely and unreservedly makes all my personal and even the
world’s troubles seem small and petty.”