Caris McKee-Shell
A reflection on the life and legacy of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, following his death earlier this month.
On the 9th of April 2021, Prince Philip passed away peacefully at Windsor Castle, and since that date countless people around the world have been reflecting on his achievements and the impact he has made on society in his hectic 99 years.
He had an unstable childhood and a constantly fluctuating adulthood. Philip was often recognised for his abrasive and brusque comments, many of which were not politically correct or well received. He was never afraid to share his opinion and rarely concerned himself with the consequences that would arise from this, a quality which some despised and some admired. Philip led an unquestionably interesting and rich life, filled with trauma and fragility, from which he found his strength.
Prince Philip was born in Corfu, off the coast of Greece, on 10th June 1921. He was the sixth in line to the Greek throne, but when his uncle was forced to abdicate in 1922 after the Greco-Turkish war, all of this changed. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, was in the army at the time and when he was accused of treason he was exiled, forcing him and his family to leave the country. They fled from Greece and settled in Paris. In 1930, when Philip was just 9 years old, Princess Alice, his mother, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and confined to a sanatorium in Sweden. By the age of ten, all four of his sisters were married to German citizens and his father had no fixed home, moving around Southern France. He was left alone to fend for himself. Philip later made the comment that ‘I just had to get on with it. You do. One does’.
When sent to the UK to attend the Cheam School in 1930, he lived with his maternal grandmother, Victoria Mountbatten, and Lord Mountbatten. He was sent to a boarding school in Scotland called Gordonstoun, which he would attend for the next five years. When there, at the age of 16, his sister Princess Cecilie, her husband and their two children died in a plane crash. Months later, George Mountbatten also died. Already in early adulthood, Philip had been exiled from his home country, he had minimal contact with his parents, one of his sisters and his uncle had passed away within quick succession, and the other three were living in Germany. His mother, who was famously analysed by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, resumed contact with the family in 1937, and returned to Athens in 1938 to work with the underprivileged alongside the Red Cross.
Attending the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth when he was 17, he discovered his passion and the place where he would spend many subsequent years. When the war began in 1939, Philip was called to help. When he was 21, he took the role of second in command aboard HMS Wallace, making him one of the youngest first Lieutenants. While fighting in the war, there was conflict between himself and his sisters, who all showed support for the Nazis as they were now German citizens. None of them, or any other member of his family, were invited to his wedding.
It was in 1939 that he first met Elizabeth at the house of the Captain of the College, when she was 13 and he was 18. This is said to be when the Queen first developed an admiration for the Prince. From here onwards their relationship grew, as they later began to write letters to one another. His father never lived to see his wedding day, as he died in 1944. Two years later in 1946, Philip asked King George VI for his daughter's hand in marriage, which the King granted but asked that they would delay their announcement for another year, when Elizabeth was 21. On the 9th July 1947, the world knew of their engagement, and later that same year on the 20th November in Westminster Abbey, they married. When King George VI died unexpectedly on the 6th February 1952, during a Kenya tour of the Commonwealth, the couple flew back to Britain. Elizabeth left the country as Princess of Wales, and arrived back as Queen Elizabeth II. Everything had changed for the couple.
From this point onwards, Prince Philip sacrificed his career in the navy to support his wife in her role as queen and was the longest serving consort. During this time he took on many other roles, and was the patron, president, or member of 780 organisations. He was the co-founder and first president of WWF, the WorldWide Fund for nature, a non-government run preservationist organisation working in the field of conserving nature and reducing human impact on the ecosystems around us. Most notably, he founded and was the chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which began in 1956. It is a self improvement program for young people between the ages of 14 and 24, helping them to gain what he considered essential skills. The Prince also attended more than 22,000 sole engagements, as well as others which he attended while supporting the Queen.
On 17th April 2021, 13.6 million people in the UK joined the royal family as they mourned Prince Philip on the day of his funeral. The funeral was filled with personal touches to the Duke of Edinburgh, with military detachments with links to the Prince stood on the Quadrangle in the bright spring sun, and his favourite driving carriage pulled by two black horses and accompanied by some of his grooms watched the procession go by. His riding cap, whip and gloves lay solemnly in the empty seat. The appearance of a green Land Rover in place of a hearse seemed a rather peculiar choice at first, but this particular model had been the product of the 16 years the Duke spent modifying it. In 2019 he made the final adjustments for it to become his own bespoke hearse, and asked for it to be painted in military green. The sight of his coffin was heart wrenching for many, draped in his flag which depicts crucial stages of his life, from his Greek heritage to British titles. His Naval cap and officer’s sword also lay on top of the coffin, a painful reminder of his death. Many of the family members walked behind the coffin, led by Princess Anne and Prince Charles, closely followed by Prince Harry and Prince William. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Queen was forced to sit alone in St George's Chapel, seemingly small and fragile without her Prince beside her.
Prince Philip’s tale is a one of dignity, strength, fragility and most importantly resilience. His story leaves an impression, from the Greek island of Corfu to a Royal Vault at St George’s Chapel. 99 years of pain, change, success, stability, love, all comes to an end. His journey is finally complete and his legacy is one which will be remembered for several years to come.
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