The Royal Love Story: Elizabeth & Philip (2024) –  Hww

the British royal family is a subject of Attraction around the world millions of tourists flock to the UK and London all year round to visit the numerous historic locations associated with the monarchy their lives are consistently on display in the media covered and speculated by national newspapers and dramatized in TV adaptations like Netflix’s the crown arguably the most followed aspects of the royal family have been the love stories the relationships the tragedies Royal babies and marriages with the wedding of Prince William and

Katherine Middleton for example peaking at a total of 36.7 million viewers this infatuation with the Royals has been aided by the emergence of social media and the internet however it was present over half a century before near the dawn of the late Queen’s reign Elizabeth and Phillip the tale of the queen with her prince when it comes to love stories their story is one for the ages having met as far back as 1934 their relationship blossomed into a marriage

that endured for more than 70 years with the queen famously describing her husband as her strength and stay but before they were Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh they were simply princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark he is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years and I and his whole family and this and many other countries owe him a debt gr greater than he would ever claim or we

shall ever know the future Queen was born on a dull ordinary rainy day on the 21st of April 1926 Elizabeth Alexandra Mary princess Elizabeth had a very very happy childhood she was born in 1926 in the center of London in brutin Street and it was 6 weeks before the general strike so it was a time of great political turbulence but there was still great excitement about this new royal baby this was a beautiful baby and she was brought up by a series of nannies and

nursemaids and she had very loving parents and they they they basically in those days people followed the sporting calendar the winters were in hunting country Summers were in Scotland and the season was in London and Elizabeth had this adelic child childhood with her parents and horses and dogs and also her loving grandparents Her Sister Margaret was born on the 21st of August 1930 Elizabeth looked after her she was always really kind to her little sister a be beautiful little sister and they had a very very close relationship they

looked after each other but obviously Elizabeth was the oldest and so she kind of took charge of her little sister but they were dressed identically she was four years older and yet they were wearing the same clothes but that’s how royal families dressed in those days Britain in the 1930s was a much different place almost unrecognizable in fact King George V was on the throne and Britain was still recovering from the horrors of the Great War World War I only a few years later Britain would come to see the second world war in

1939 the outbreak of of World War II affected the British royal family hugely because they were right up there at Buckingham Palace which was was a big big Target for the German bombers but they decided that they would not leave the country they would stay there with their people but they obviously had to look after their two daughters Elizabeth and Margaret started in Scotland then they were uh sent down south and they eventually stayed at Windsor Castle for 5 years while the king and queen went to London during the week and they wanted

to be visible to their people so they would go around the bombed areas um you know and meet the people and obviously the king became very involved with the troops and he would go and visit the troops so they were a very big part of the pr war effort once again londoners who have known Nights of terror before returned to their bombed out homes but the damage here cannot compare with devastated Berlin where onethird of the city lies in Ruins Britain’s beloved monarchs are on the scene a short while after again

demonstrating a human sympathy for their subjects whose courage has never yet been shaken but king queen or humble citizen all veterans of the blitz demonstrate once more that London can still take it Elizabeth and philli were first introduced to one another when Elizabeth was just 8 years old according to eyewitnesses it was at the wedding of Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark Philip’s cousin and Prince George Duke of Kent Elizabeth’s uncle in 1934 it wasn’t until 5 years later when Elizabeth was 13 and Philip was 18 that

the two met again at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth this time Elizabeth fell in love with the one who would later become her husband princess Elizabeth met Prince Phillip at a family wedding but she can’t really remember that moment the reason we know so much about it is because her Governor Marian Crawford uh talks in great detail about their first first meeting at Dartmouth College where Prince philli was a a naval Cadet and he was very very good-looking 18 years old very striking blond looking and he was

assigned to look after the two princesses Elizabeth and Margaret for the day for their visit while their parents went around the college I mean it was quite strange to think of an 18-year-old looking after the princesses the oldest of whom was 13 but he decided that it would be fun if they jump the tennis Nets so he took the princesses outside and he jumped the tennis nets for them and they were very very impressed later he went on board the vessel that the king and queen had come to Dartmouth in and he had lunch and

then and the following day he went and had tea so that was the meeting that the princess remembers Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born on the Greek island of Corfu on the 10th of June 1921 the only son and Fifth and final child of prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenburg after a suffocating loss during the Greco Turkish War a revolutionary Court banished Philip’s father from Greece for life and he evacuated the country with his family aboard HMS Calypso it was a difficult and strenuous

upbringing fraught with tragedy moving from place to place philli finally found stability in the Royal Navy in 1939 when he became a Cadet at the Royal Naval College Dartmouth the very place he would meet his future bride Elizabeth his father was in the Greek army and eventually the family were exiled from Greece and went to live in Paris where Prince philli was sent to school then his mother who was mentally very fragile went into a sanatorium and it was decided it would be better for philli to be educated by

his cousin in England so he was sent to school in England and lived with his cousins the Martian of Milford Haven and then he eventually was sent to gordonston but all this made him very independent and very strong and he never says he always maintains he didn’t have an unhappy childhood it was probably a very interesting childhood because he he traveled from a very very early age and also they were a very Grand family they were princes of Greece and Denmark so they were related to both sides and they were actually also related to all the

houses of Europe so they had a lot of very influential relations and when there wasn’t any money their relations paid for them as as was the way it went in those days Phillip fulfilled his military service in in the Royal Navy he was uh educated at Dartmouth college and then he left college and went straight into the Navy and he actually saw action and he saw the Japanese surrender um at the Battle of matapan the pair began to exchange letters and after some time they became secretly engaged in 1946 when Philip asked King George V 6

for his daughter’s hand in marriage the king granted his request providing any formal engagement was delayed until Elizabeth’s 21st birthday the following April Elizabeth was just 21 when their engagement was announced on the 9th of July 1947 they had known each other prior to the announcement for about 8 years he had proposed to Elizabeth with a three karat round diamond ring consisting of a Center Stone flanked by 10 smaller P Diamonds the diamonds were taken from a tiara that belonged to Philip’s mother Princess Alice of

Battenburg and were also used to create a quattra foil bracelet for Elizabeth this engagement was not without controversy Philip had no Financial standing was foreign born and had sisters who had married German noblemen with Nazi links before the marriage Philip renounced his Greek and danish titles officially converted from Greek Orthodoxy to anglicanism and adopted the style leftenant Philip Mount Batton taking the sirname of his mother’s British family before the wedding he was created Duke of Edinburgh

and granted the style his Royal Highness when her engagement to Lieutenant Philip mountbatten of the Royal Navy’s announced the heart of the world is thrilled by the prospect of one royal wedding with a genuine Aura of romance a former Greek Prince Philip gave up his Greek citizenship to become a British subject on the eve of the wedding the king elevates him to the purage and he becomes officially his Royal Highness Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh Earl of marionet and baron Greenwich from all over Christendom gorgeous and

Regal gifts pour into Buckingham Palace among them lovely Crystal pieces including a delicately chased Crystal bowl from the president of the United States from Prince and commoner tokens of esteem and good wishes by the hundreds are acknowledged individually by Elizabeth with the simple sincerity of any well-bred young woman who punctiliously observes the amenities despite the tremendous demands upon her time this picnic hamper from Sister Margaret is covered with alligator skin the Swiss Watch makers and one of

their finest from Burma and Bombay to Regent Street in London jewels from governments and family have been showered on the bride well when uh Elizabeth and philli got engaged they decided that because London was ravaged by War and you know a lot of the buildings were absolutely rubble and and there was you know there was unemployment there was rationing it was in a really bad place the king thought well let’s have a very quiet wedding at St George’s Chapel Windsor no p no ceremony will just be very private but then the government

surprisingly said no no no we need to lift the people’s Spirits let’s have a beautiful royal wedding that everybody can see so that is what it ended up happening and and it was televised and eventually the the television got to America so it was it became a global Affair and it did live people Spirits in London hugely to see this beautiful young couple married you know no one had seen anything like that for for the years of the war Elizabeth and Phillip were married on the 20th of November 1947 at Westminster Abbey they received 2,500

wedding gifts from around the world because Britain had not yet wholly recovered from the devastation of the war Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy the material for her gown which Norman Harel signed and now the great hour arrives as the Queen and Princess Margaret Rose leave Buckingham Palace for the ceremony at Westminster alley and Prince Phillip with Split Second timing also departs for the great revu the Royal Standard waves over a truly Royal occasion as the state coach with Elizabeth and the king is escorted

to Westminster ABY by the household of for regards a sovereign’s escort p pageantry and Splendor are revived for this day in austerity written London a day which the world shares with Britain this is the moment for which the teaming Millions have been waiting for months a deepthroated roar swells in volume as cheering thousands grief princes the drabness of the day is forgotten here at Westminster ABY scene of Splendor on great occasions through its 900 years of British history the Royal Coach arrives at the Great West

door through whose portals the mighty of old England have passed it is a radiant bride to be the loveliest the Old Abbey has ever looked upon here at Britain’s his Shrine where all the kings have been crowned her Royal Highness the princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary and his Royal Highness Prince Philip Duke of Edinboro are wed in the same ceremony that has United English Couples from Village to Palace for centuries here they plight their trough in the proud words of King George our daughter has married the man she

loves Elizabeth and philli take their places on history’s pages to the stirring strains of medon they marches man and wife toward the west door amidst nearly 3,000 invited spectators it is a deeply moving occasion and yet a supremely happy one for the king and queen as well as the Queen Mother the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Duchess of Kent are followed by the royal couple of Holland in England the man doesn’t take the wife’s title the woman takes the husband so

when Princess Elizabeth became Queen he didn’t become king because that was her title and it it it didn’t pass to him but conversely when the queen mother became Queen she took her husband’s title so she was married to King George V 6 and she was Queen Elizabeth because she took his title but it doesn’t work the other way around well from Prince Phillip’s perspective this is someone that had had to leave their country they didn’t have a Home of Their Own all his sisters were married to German aristocracy and lived

in enormous castles and there’s Phillip living off the Good Will of his relation so I think that the idea of of marrying a princess that that was going to inherit so much must have been very attractive and he was pushed by his uncle Louis M baton who was the great king maker and he really pushed Phillip into kind of maintaining a relationship with Princess Elizabeth who she was completely smitten with him from the age of 13 and I think she started right wrote to him to say you know thank you for entertaining us at Dartmouth and

I suppose she it gradually gradually kept up then of course during the the time when he was on leave on Shore leave he often went to stay at Windsor Castle and that’s when their relationship you know became more serious and eventually eventually he proposed to her at Bal moral her Royal Highness is the proud and happy mother of a prince the salute is fired and in the Monarch’s home lies the infant boy who will one day be king on Saturday the eminent gynecologist Sir William gillot was called to the palace

for the most responsible case in even his career by his advice sister hmro was chosen Midwife the whole country knew that the baby would soon be born all day on Sunday people waited outside the palace including fmatic pressmen with whom it is a point of honor to show no excitement and all day there was no announcement it was after 10: at night that those who waited and they were very many heard the tremendous news a royal baby and a boy radio gave no advantage to Watchers at the palace the Glad Tidings went out

everywhere this is the BBC Home Service it has been announced officially from Buckingham Palace during the past hour that her Royal Highness the princess Elizabeth Duchess of Edinburgh was safely delivered of a prince at 9:14 p.m. today and that her Royal Highness and her son are both doing well the press agencies were covering the world the Miracles of modern communication span the globe unto us a child is born and no ordinary child a prince for the moment all other news took second place the morning newspapers went to

press with one of those rare warm stories that touch every heart cable and radio brought thousands of messages of congratulation from every corner of the Commonwealth the young Royal mother herself a child but little more than yesterday lay at her parents’ home an infant Prince at her side by custom the Home Secretary was among the first informed when he arrived at the home office next morning the announcement hung outside Mr ched was not called to the Palace no one feared in this day and age that some other child would be foed

on the nation privileged on this Royal occasion to drive through marblearch into the park were a king’s troop of Royal Horse artillery it was their honor and proud duty to fire the salute of 41 guns announcing the birth of a prince Elizabeth gave birth to her first child the now King Charles on the 14th of November 1948 one month earlier the king had issued letters patent allowing her children to use the style and title of a royal Prince or princess to which they otherwise would not have been entitled as their father was no longer a royal

Prince Prince Philip was so happy to that his firstborn should be a son and Heir but he wanted his son to be an image of himself he wanted him to be macho and he wanted him to be sporty and he wanted him to have a sort of very strong personality well Charles wasn’t like that at all he was very timid he wasn’t particularly sporty you he was a little awkward and he wasn’t really the son that Phillip hoped he’d have so as Charles grew their relationship was just didn’t work Philip would you know sort of bark

orders at at Charles and Charles would cringe and be timid um they just didn’t rub along well together a second child Princess Anne was born in 1950 Prince Phillip felt very aggrieved by the fact that he wasn’t able to give his own children his surname now Prince Philip family name had been battenberg but it was changed because it was too Germanic it was changed from Battenburg to mount baton and Philip wanted Mount baton as the family name he wanted it to be the house of Mount baton and when the Royal circles I think Queen Mary heard of this

she said no way is this going to be the house of Mount ban I’m not having Louis Mount baton you know attach his name to to the Royal immediate royal family so it became the house of Windsor Phillip was very very hurt so later on it became Mount baton Windsor so that he could also have his name in included I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great Imperial family to which we all belong but I shall not have strength to

carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me as I now invite you to do I know that your support will be unfailingly given God helped me to make good My Vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it Prince philli was uh stationed in morar on board his his ship so the queen would visit him every few months and Prince Charles it was was their first child was left behind and then the queen was able to actually would of for the first time and probably the only time in her life be like any other

housewife wasn’t quite the same but she was able to go shopping she was able to have her hair done she was able to drive around the island and they all went to sort of like Naval dances and they just sort of joined in with the the life of the other other young naval officers and their wives and and it for her it was just a huge pleasure Prince Phillip undoubtedly thought he had more time before his wife became Queen and he consort the young couple lived for a few years in Malta where Philip was stationed

after the birth of their first two children Elizabeth’s father King George V 6 fell ill and grew unpleasantly sick leading to his death in 1952 Philip broke the news to his wife whilst on a holiday in Kenya suddenly Queen Elizabeth became the new Queen of England what happened was the princess of Elizabeth and Prince philli were standing in for the king and queen and they started a a a big Commonwealth tour in in Kenya as it was called in those days and the people of Kenya wanted them to be there and they’d given them a

lodge for their wedding present and the the sort of joy for them was that they were going to visit this game reserve and there was a a little place called Treetops which was overlooking a Salt lake lake so you could really see the animals you know this is 1952 so the whole of of Kenya was teaming with game and they spent the night up there and actually it was during the night unbeknownst to the princess that she became Queen so they went they they left their game viewing went back to sagana Lodge and had had a little sleep because

they’d been up all night when the news came across to Prince Phillip’s uh private secretary Mike Parker that that the king had died and he thought that you he he he eventually had he had one of those little radios and he fiddled with it and eventually he heard the sounds of Big Ben and he knew that the news was true and it was his duty to tell Prince Phillip which was probably he says later the most difficult thing he’d ever had to do in his life so he went to Prince Phillip and told him the news that his wife Prince Phillip’s wife

was Queen so Prince Philip was in such shock he just put a newspaper over his face and let the news just absorb and then he got up and he went and got the princess out of her bedroom where she was resting and took her down to the lake at the bottom of the garden and the lady in waiting tells a wonderful story she watched them walk up and down up and down and she knew that he was telling her and when they walked back into the lodge she wanted she was putting her arms around the princess when she thought my goodness but she’s Queen and

dropped into a curtsy and then of course they had to make their way back to England as quickly as possible by the time they arrived back at London Airport she came down the steps beautifully dressed in her black clothes and Prince philli waited on the steps until she was at the bottom and she greeted her prime minister and that’s how it was going to be from then on well I think the reason that that the queen is referred to by some historians as the unlikely Queen is that you know she wasn’t prepared to be Queen she was

married in 1947 um and she expected to have a proper longish married life before her father died but he died quite suddenly so she was an unlikely Queen and also she wasn’t designated to be Queen because her uncle uh who became Edward VII very briefly abdicated and put Elizabeth directly in the line of succession princess Elizabeth became Queen in February 1952 and the coronation was in June 1953 but there was no plan for her coronation there had been a plan for her uncle’s coronation Edward VII but that had been scuppered so it it

takes a long time to pull all the ends together so it was decided that they would wait until June the following year and then everything could be lined up because for a coronation you’ve got to have all the heads of state from all the various countries all the Commonwealth so you couldn’t just say well we’re going to have it in November everybody needed time to organize things well the historical significance of the coronation is that it’s a very ancient ceremony and the queen she has to be anointed in the eyes of God and

that is the coronation ceremony so she sits on the throne in a very simple white linen dress and uh she has holy oil put on her forehead and that makes her Queen in the eyes of God which is why she always said in all her speeches you know I I will rule and I will do my Duty and as long as I’m fit and able to do so so um it it’s an anointing ceremony in the eyes of God and that was the great importance of it and then of course you’ve got all the Pomp and ceremony of all all the Lords and the ladies and the dignitaries and the heads

of state so it was an enormous undertaking and it was televised at the Queen’s coronation in 1953 Philip kneeled before her and swore to be her Le man of life and limb when the queen came to the throne she was only 26 and Churchill made the remark to his private secretary but she’s a child but she wasn’t a child she was very sophisticated and mature mentally it was a man’s world and you know women were really subservient in those days and the queen was walking into this world of men who were all much much older than her and also she hadn’t

really been taught she said there was no way to be taught all she did was she watched what her father did and followed him so of course the the court was very old-fashioned and very stuffy you know because it was really her father’s court at this moment of my silver jubilee I want to thank all those in Britain and the Commonwealth who through their loyalty and friendship have given me strength and encouragement during these last 25 years my thanks go also to the many thousands who have sent me messages of congratulations on my silver

jubilee that and their good wishes for the future my Lord mayor when I was 21 I pledged my life to the service of our people and I asked for God’s help to make good that vow I know that your support will be unfailingly given God help me to make good My Vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it although that vow was made in my salad days when I was Green in judgment I do not regret nor attract one word of it

since Elizabeth rarely gave interviews little is known of her personal feelings as a constitutional Monarch she has not expressed her own political opinions in a public forum she did have a deep sense of religious and civic duty and took her coronation oath seriously I think the characteristics that spring to mind to me are that she

is stable she’s diligent and she has an extraordinary ability to put Duty before else before everything and that is you know a characteristic that really doesn’t exist anymore but the queen was probably the last person you know to to decide that Duty was everything Duty became before personal happiness Duty became before family and children and um that is the characteristic that defines her and I think her stability also defines her and the fact that we she looks very somber but then you know her face can crack

into the most wonderful smile and we learn over the years about her sense of humor and her ability with mimicry um so we’ve got to know her but very gradually Prince philli was always seen walking at least a couple of Paces behind Elizabeth marking his position in the order of Precedence he has always said that his job first second and last was to never let the queen down especially in 1992 which came to be the Queen’s worst year 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted

pleasure in the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents it has turned out to be an Annis horribilis her daughter’s marriage had broken down Fergy and Andrew’s marriage had broken down but far the worst thing was the breakdown of the marriage of The Prince and Princess of Wales and the official announcement that they were going to split and then on top of all that came the fire at Windsor Castle on the Queen’s anniversary a curtain caught upon a light in the chapel at Windsor Castle and it just blazed and the fire raced

through all the state departments it was a huge fire but lucky very very few things were lost but it was devastating meeting and then the Prime Minister asked the country if they would be prepared to pay for the Reconstruction of Windsor Castle and basically the queen subject said no I mean although Windsor Castle is an official state building not her own uh the general consensus was that we didn’t want to pay for it so then the queen um had to pay tax and um it just really wasn’t a good year I sometimes wonder how future

Generations will judge the events of this tumultuous year I dare say that history will take a slightly more moderate view than that of some contemporary commentators he who has never failed to reach Perfection has a right to be the harshest critic there can be no doubt of course that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life no institution City monarchy whatever should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support not to mention those who don’t but we are all part of the same

fabric of Our National Society and that scrutiny by one part of another can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness good humor and understanding this sort of questioning can also act and it should do so as an effective engine for change Prince Philip stayed by her side and together they became a bond that was very much Unbreakable I think that the main lesson that we’ve learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage it may not be quite so important when things are going well but

it is absolutely vital when things get difficult and uh you can take it from me that the queen has the quality of Tolerance and abundance I think many people have asked the queen and Prince Philip what is the secret of of their relationship and the queen has spoken out on a few occasions and she said patience sense of humor and she said famously of course that Prince vilet had simply been her Rock and her stay over the years and he had he’d always been there to support her although he never involved himself in constitutional

Affairs he was there as a sound board he was someone to listen and someone who would be on her side or would give her uh criticism which of course nobody else really could all too often I fear Prince Phillip has had to listen to me speaking frequently we have discussed my intended speech beforehand and as you will imagine his views have been expressed in a forthright manner he is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years and I and his whole family

and this and many other countries owe him a debt gr greater than he would ever claim for we shall ever know on the 9th of April 2021 Prince Philip sadly passed away at 99 Only 2 months before his 100th birthday leaving Elizabeth all alone after their 73 eventful years spent together I uh I particularly wanted to say that my father I suppose the last uh 70 years has given the most remarkable devoted Service uh to the Queen to my family and uh to the country and also to the whole

of the commonweal and as you can imagine my family and I missed my father enormously he was a a much loved and appreciated figure and uh apart from anything else I can imagine when we so de deeply touched by the number of other people here and elsewhere around the world in the Commonwealth who also I think share our loss and our sorrow and uh my my dear Papa Was a was a very special person who I think above all else would have been Amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about and from that point

of view we are my family deeply grateful for all that it will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time well many people have asked Prince philli how he wants to be remembered and he says typically he says well I won’t be around so I don’t care do I but I think I hope he’ll be remembered for what he’s done for conservation and what he’s done for the Sciences I think he’ll be remembered for his Duke of Edinburgh award because it Bears his name and I think he will also be remembered for his gffs which is a bit

of a shame but I think when people think of Prince philli they think of oh philli and the ladies and philli and and his Politically Incorrect remarks and sometimes those things stick in 2022 Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Platinum Jubilee 70 years of service a first for any Monarch in British history celebrations took place throughout the United Kingdom the Commonwealth and the world as people came together to honor this historic milstone it has been a long day but with the help of her walking stick the queen did press

ahead with the Beacon Lighting at Windsor this evening but by all accounts the Jubilee events have taken their toll she lit the beacons but the palace said the queen suffered some discomfort today and had pulled out to the big Thanksgiving service tomorrow despite tonight’s news this is how most people will remember today when the queen showed the world what celebrations for a 70-year Reign look like a balcony moment watched by tens of thousands on the M as this 96-year-old Monarch marked a moment in British

history none of her predecessors has ever achieved unfortunately a few months later the queen passed away in her Platinum Jubilee year on the 8th of September 2022 the nation Bid Farewell to Britain’s longest reigning monarch after a state funeral she was laid to rest alongside her husband Prince Phillip they were reunited at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle where they may rest in peace together Elizabeth and philli had been

married for a total of 74 years with four children eight grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren side by side they had traveled all over the world flying the flag for the Commonwealth they shared total commitment to their duties and service and always had each other to lighten the burden of public life with a little bit of laughter till death did really do them part Elizabeth and Phillip the tale of the queen with her prince