London (AP) — Prince Phillip, the mysterious and tough husband of Queen Elizabeth II, who spent more than 70 years helping his wife in the role of defining and limiting his life, died, Buckingham Palace said. Said on Friday. He was 99 years old.
His life spanned almost a century of European history, beginning with his birth as a member of the Greek royal family, and during the turbulent reign of a thousand-year-old monarchy that forced him to reform himself in the 21st century. He ended up as the longest-serving spouse in Britain.
He was occasionally known for his racist and sexist remarks — and for fulfilling more than 20,000 royal promises in the game to boost British interests at home and abroad. It was. He leads hundreds of charities, sets up a program to help British school children take part in challenging outdoor adventures, and raises four children as heirs to the throne, including his eldest son, Prince Charles. Played an important role in.
After being hospitalized for a month earlier this year, Philip was released on March 16 and returned to Windsor Castle.
“It is a deep sorrow to announce the death of Her Majesty’s beloved husband, Prince Philip and Duke of Edinburgh,” said the palace. “His Highness died peacefully at Windsor Castle this morning.”
The Queen is a very personal person who has not been given a sign of extravagant affection and once publicly called him “her rock”.
Philip personally called his wife, Lillibet. However, he called her a “queen” in conversations with others.
Over the decades, Philip’s image has changed from a handsome and dashing athlete to an arrogant and insensitive magician. In his later years, the image finally settled on the image of Dror and the philosophical observer of the time, an elderly rugged-faced man who maintained his military support despite his illness.
The popular Netflix series, The Crown, gave Philip a central role, giving him a slightly swashbuckler image. He had never commented on it in public, but the portrayal touched the hearts of many British people, including a young viewer who knew him only as an old man.
Philip’s position was challenging — no official role for the Queen’s husband of sovereignty — and his life was characterized by an extraordinary contradiction between his public and private duties. In honor of the monarch, he always walked three steps behind his wife in public, but was personally the head of the family. Still, his son Charles, as a heir to the throne, had a higher income and had access to high-level government documents that Philip was not allowed to see.
Philip often took a painful approach to his unusual place at the royal table.
“Constitutionally, I don’t exist,” said Philip, who became the longest spouse in British history in 2009, surpassing Queen Charlotte, who married George III in the 18th century.
He often had a hard time finding his whereabouts. The friction was later reflected in the decision by his grandson, Prince Harry, to waive his royal obligations.
“There was no precedent,” he said in a rare interview with the BBC to commemorate his 90th birthday. “When I asked someone,’What do you expect me to do?’ They all looked blank.”
However, when Elizabeth became Queen at the age of 25, Philip gave up her promising Navy career to become a Consort, and wasn’t happy to stay on the sidelines and enjoy peace and affluent life. He promoted British industry and science, supported environmental protection long before it became fashionable, and traveled extensively and frequently to support his many charities.
In those frequent public places, Philip gained a reputation for being impatient and demanding, sometimes even rude.
Many Britons appreciated what they saw as a tendency to speak his spirit, while others criticized the behavior they labeled as aggressive and out of touch.
For example, in 1995 he asked a Scottish driving instructor, “How can I keep the indigenous people away from alcohol enough time to pass the test?” Seven years later, when he visited the Aboriginal people with the Queen in Australia, he asked: “Are you still throwing spears at each other?”
Many believe that his tendency to speak spirit means that he provided the Queen with the necessary, unvarnished advice.
“The way he survived the British monarchy was to become his own man, and that was a source of support for the Queen,” said royal historian Robert Lacey. “She was surrounded by a man who said,” Yes, wife “for the rest of her life. He was a man who was always telling her what it really was, at least how he saw it. “
Lacy spoke authoritatively for her family during a difficult royal relationship with Princess Diana after her marriage to Charles broke down, showing that he did not automatically leave it to the Queen. ..
Philip’s relationship with Diana was complicated by her separation from Charles and their final divorce in a series of public battles that undermined their monarchical status.
It was widely believed that Diana was critical of using broadcast interviews, including those that Diana accused Charles of being unfaithful. However, a letter published after her death between Philip and Diana showed that an older man sometimes favored his daughter-in-law.
After Diana’s death in a car accident in Paris in 1997, Philip had to endure allegations that former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed attempted to kill the princess. Al Fade’s son, Dody, also died in the crash.
During a lengthy investigation into their death, a senior judge acting as a coroner instructed the jury that there was no evidence to support Philip’s allegations that he did not publicly respond to Al Fade’s accusations.
Philip’s last year was clouded by royal controversies and cracks.
His third child, Prince Andrew, is involved in a scandal over friendship with American financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sexual trafficking charges. I did.
U.S. officials accused Andrew of rejecting their request to interview him as a witness, and Andrew faced accusations from a woman who said she had had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s request. .. He denied the claim, but withdrew from public royal obligations in the scandal.
In early 2020, Philip’s grandson Harry and his wife, former American actress Meghan Markle, will move to North America, quitting their royal obligations to escape the fierce media surveillance they found unbearable. Announced.
Philip was born on June 10, 1921 at the table in his family’s dining room on Corfu, Greece, and was the fifth and only son of Prince Andrew, the younger brother of the Greek king. His grandfather came from Denmark in the 1860s and was adopted by Greece as a national monarch.
Philip’s mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, a descendant of the German prince. Philip, like his future wife Elizabeth, was also the great-grandson of Queen Victoria.
When Philip was 18 months old, his parents fled to France. His father, a military commander, was tried after a devastating military defeat by the Turks. After British intervention, the Greek junta agreed not to sentence Andrew to death if he left the country.
The family wasn’t completely poor, but Philip said, “We weren’t wealthy” — and they came with the help of relatives. He later brought only the Navy’s salary to marry one of the wealthiest women in the world.
Philip’s parents drifted away when he was a kid, and Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944. Alice founded an unsuccessful religious order and spent her old age at Buckingham Palace. A hermit dressed in nun habits, she was rarely seen by the British people. She died in 1969 and received posthumous honors from Britain and Israel for protecting her Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Athens during the war.
Philip attended a British school and enrolled in Dartmouth, the Royal Navy School of Britannia, as a cadet in 1939. He got his first post in 1940, but was not allowed near major war zones because he was a foreign prince in a neutral country. When Italy’s invasion of Greece ended its neutrality, he joined the war and served battleships in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific.
During his vacation in England, he visited his royal cousin, and by the end of the war it was clear that he had courted George VI’s eldest son and successor, Princess Elizabeth. Their engagement was announced on July 10, 1947, and they got married on November 20.
After the first storm of frustration that Elizabeth was married to a foreigner, Philip’s athleticism, good looks, and candid stories gave the royal family a unique charm.
Elizabeth shed light in front of him, and they had a son and a daughter while she was still freed from her duty to work as a monarch.
However, George VI died of cancer in 1952 at the age of 56.
Philip had to abandon his career in the Marines and his obedient status was formally sealed at the coronation. He knelt in front of his wife and vowed to be “her liar man of life, limbs, and earthly worship.”
The changes in Philip’s life were dramatic.
“At home, and whatever we did, it was the same,” Philip told biographer Basil Boothroyd in the years before Elizabeth became Queen. “People came to me and asked me what to do. In 1952, the whole thing changed very, very significantly.”
Boothroid said: “He could choose to tag, shake hands a second time on the receiving line, or find another exit for explosive energy.”
There Philip took over control of the royal family, extending his travels to every corner of the world and establishing his own role.
Since 1956, he has been the patron and council president of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Britain’s largest youth program. This is a program of practical, cultural and adventurous activities for young people in more than 100 countries. Millions of British children have made some contact with the award and its famous camping expedition.
He painted, collected contemporary art, was interested in industrial design, and planned a garden at Windsor Castle. But he once said, “The art world considers me a cultureless, polo blood clot.”
Over time, the famous blonde’s hair became thinner, and her long, fine-bones face gained several lines. He gave up Polo, but remained active with Trim.
The prince is said to have responded to a friend’s suggestion that it would be a little easier. Do you want to sit down and knit? “
But when he turned 90 in 2011, Philip told the BBC that he was “reducing” his workload and thought he was “a little done.”
In the next few years, Philip’s health deteriorated and he was occasionally hospitalized.
He announced plans to withdraw from royal missions in May 2017, suspending the schedule of new promises after approximately 22,000 royal involvement since his wife’s coronation. In 2019, he abandoned his driver’s license after a serious car accident.
Philip is survived by the Queen and her four children, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
His grandchildren are Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. Anne’s children, Peter and Zara Tindall. Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Edward’s children, Mrs. Louise and Viscount Severn.
Great-grandchildren are Prince William and Kate’s children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. Archie, son of Harry and Megan. Savannah and Isla, Peter Phillips and his wife’s daughter, Autumn. Mia and Lena, daughters of Zara Tindall and her husband, Mike Tindall. With Eugenie’s son, August, and husband Jack Brooksbank.
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