Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh ( born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, 10 June 1921 )
The life cycle 1 2 4 8 7 5
Important years of life
1937 2
1939 4
1943 8
1951 7
1958 5
1963 1
1964 2
1966 4
1970 8
1978 7
1985 5
1990 1
1991 2
1993 4
1997 8
2005 7
2012 5
2017 1
2018 2
2020 4
2024 8
In 1937, his sister Cecilie, her husband Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, her two young sons and her mother-in-law were killed in an air crash at Ostend; Philip, then sixteen years old, attended the funeral in Darmstadt. The following year, his uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of cancer of the bone marrow.
A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Philip was born into the Greek and Danish royal families. He was born in Greece, but his family was exiled from the country when he was an infant. After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. From July 1939, he began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth (his third cousin through Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and second cousin once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark), whom he had first met in 1934.
After leaving Gordonstoun in 1939, Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy, graduating the next year from the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, as the best cadet in his course
Promotion to lieutenant followed on 16 July 1942. In October of the same year, he became first lieutenant of HMS Wallace, at 21 years old one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy. During the invasion of Sicily, in July 1943, as second in command of HMS Wallace, he saved his ship from a night bomber attack. He devised a plan to launch a raft with smoke floats that successfully distracted the bombers allowing the ship to slip away unnoticed.
On 16 July 1950, he was promoted lieutenant commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie.
He was promoted to commander in 1952, but his active naval career ended in July 1951
With the King in ill health, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh were both appointed to the Privy Council on 4 November 1951, after a coast-to-coast tour of Canada.
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC(P) (Edward Antony Richard Louis; born 10 March 1964) is the youngest of four children and the third son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip receives a Parliamentary annuity (of £359,000 since 1990 that serves to meet official expenses in carrying out public duties.
In July 1993, through mitochondrial DNA analysis of a sample of Prince Philip’s blood, British scientists were able to confirm the identity of the remains of several members of Empress Alexandra of Russia’s family, more than seventy years after their 1918 massacre by the Bolsheviks. Prince Philip was then one of two living great-grandchildren in the female line of Alexandra’s mother, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the other being his sister Sophie, who died in 2001.
A year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.
2005 Prince Charles, Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles . In Canada, the Department of Justice announced its decision that the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada was not required to meet to give its consent to the marriage, as the union would not result in offspring and would have no impact on the succession to the Canadian throne
Contrary to rumours over the years, the Queen and Duke are said by insiders to have had a strong relationship throughout their marriage, despite the challenges of Elizabeth’s reign. The Queen referred to Prince Philip in a speech on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 as her “constant strength and guide”
On 4 June 2012, during the celebrations in honour of his wife’s Diamond Jubilee, Philip was taken from Windsor Castle to the King Edward VII Hospital, London, suffering from a bladder infection. He was released from hospital on 9 June. After a recurrence of infection in August 2012, while staying at Balmoral Castle, he was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for five nights as a precautionary measure
On 4 May 2017, the Palace announced that Prince Philip would be retiring from royal duties and visits in the autumn
