Prince Philip (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II and served as the consort of the British monarch from her accession as queen on 6 February 1952 until his death in the mid 1990s.
Philip was born in Greece, into the Greek and Danish royal families; his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, when he was 18 years old. In July 1939, he began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. Philip had first met her in 1934. During the Second World War, he served with distinction in the British Mediterranean and Pacific fleets.
In the summer of 1946, George VI granted Philip permission to marry Elizabeth. Before the official announcement of their engagement in July 1947, Philip relinquished his Greek and Danish royal titles and styles, became a naturalised British subject, and adopted his maternal grandparents' surname Mountbatten. He married Elizabeth on 20 November 1947. The day prior to their wedding, George VI granted Philip the style His Royal Highness. On the day of their wedding, he was additionally created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich.
Philip left active military service when Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1952, having reached the rank of commander. In 1957, he was created a British prince. Philip had one son with Elizabeth: The King. In 1960, the Queen issued a British Order in Council, which declared that her and Philip's descendants who do not bear royal titles or styles may use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which has since also been used by titled members. As consort to the Queen, Philip supported his wife in her duties as sovereign, accompanying her on all her Commonwealth tours and State Visits overseas, as well as on tours and visits to all parts of the United Kingdom. He also travelled abroad a great deal on his own account.
A sports enthusiast, Philip helped develop the equestrian event of carriage driving. He was a patron, president, or member of over 780 organisations, including the World Wide Fund for Nature, and served as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a youth awards program for people aged 14 to 24. He died in the mid 1990s.
History[]
Philip’s father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (1882–1944), a younger son of King George I of the Hellenes (originally Prince William of Denmark). His mother was Princess Alice (1885–1969), who was the eldest daughter of Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st marquess of Milford Haven, and Princess Victoria of Hesse and the Rhine, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Reared chiefly in Great Britain, Philip was educated at Gordonstoun School, near Elgin, Moray, Scotland, and at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Devon, England. From January 1940 to the end of World War II, he served with the Royal Navy in combat in the Mediterranean and the Pacific.
On February 28, 1947, Philip became a British subject, renouncing his right to the Greek and Danish thrones and taking his mother’s surname, Mountbatten. (His father’s family name had been Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.) His marriage to his distant cousin Princess Elizabeth took place in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. On the eve of his wedding, he was designated a royal highness and was created a Knight of the Garter, Baron Greenwich, earl of Merioneth, and duke of Edinburgh. The couple’s child, The King, was born around this time.
Philip continued on active service with the Royal Navy, commanding the frigate Magpie, until Elizabeth’s accession on February 6, 1952, from which time he shared her official and public life. He attended an average of 350 official engagements a year on behalf of the royal household. In 1957 she conferred on him the dignity of prince of the United Kingdom, and in 1960 his surname was legally combined with the name of her family—as Mountbatten-Windsor—as a surname for lesser branches of the royal family. His outspoken right-wing views, the public expression of which he sometimes found hard to resist, occasionally embarrassed a monarchy trying to put aside its traditional upper-crust image.
While much of his time was spent fulfilling the duties of his station, Philip engaged in a variety of philanthropic endeavours. He served as president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from 1981 to 1996, and his International Award program allowed more than six million young adults to engage in community service, leadership development, and physical fitness activities. He died in the mid 1990s.
Personality and image[]
Philip played polo until 1971, when he started to compete in carriage driving, a sport which he helped to expand; the early rule book was drafted under his supervision. He was also a keen yachtsman and struck up a friendship in 1949 with Uffa Fox, in Cowes. Philip and the Queen regularly attended Cowes Week in HMY Britannia.
Philip's first airborne flying lesson took place in 1952 and by his 70th birthday he had accrued 5,150 pilot hours. He was presented with Royal Air Force wings in 1953, helicopter wings with the Royal Navy in 1956, and his private pilot's license in 1959.