Inside Prince Philip’s Final Years and Lasting Legacy | FULL DOCUMENTARY -Hww

The Duke of Edinburgh died on the 9th of April, 2021, just 8 weeks before his 100th birthday. >> I and his whole family and this and many other countries owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know. >> He dedicated his life to duty. >> The institution is the thing that matters to the country and we are merely the temporary tenants of it.

and helped modernize the monarchy. >> He was very aware that if a royal dynasty is not in step with its people, it can go. >> Who do you think is the most fascinating and exciting man of the 20th century, dead or alive? And top of the pops was in fact Prince Phillip, well ahead of Shan Conry and President Kennedy.

But despite being famously forthright, >> as so very often happens, I discovered it would have been much better if I kept my trap shut. >> Philip remained an enigma. >> He was a public person but quite a private individual. >> Now using rare interviews recorded throughout his life. >> I think people want this intimate relationship.

Makes them feel that the family is known to them as neighbors and as credible individuals. >> Remarkable archive from across the world. These have got a real home movies quality about them which is lovely. >> And iconic footage colorized here for the very first time. We’ll discover the moments that defined the man. >> He changed the expectation of the world as to what a prince does.

>> Philillip, prince, husband, father. The heart of the world is thrilled by the prospect of one royal wedding with a genuine aura of romance. >> My goodness, they were young and beautiful, weren’t they? >> Seen for the first time in color, this is the moment in 1947, the British public met the man who was to marry Princess Elizabeth.

so sweet and young and gorgeous looking. >> He was such an immaculate naval officer in terms of accomplishment and also the way he looked. >> They looked like a Hollywood couple actually. They looked so ravishing. >> It’s the most enchanting little bit of film. He looks confident. She has been in front of the press all her life, but it’s him that seems to be putting her at ease.

>> There’s a clear chemistry between them. I mean what’s lovely is that is there particular moment she’s sort of posing and he’s posing alongside her but then he turns there that’s the bit there that’s the thing that just you know it’s obviously something highly inappropriate there [laughter] whatever he’s saying she finds it funny and then tries to keep it all together but she clearly doesn’t want to give anything away those of you who can remember it a fairly drab world the postwar recovery had hardly even begun and practically

Everything was still rationed. Well, everyone seemed to think that our wedding was a very happy occasion and brought a little color back to life after the dreary war years. We certainly thought so. >> The royal wedding 4 months later captured the hearts of the nation. And bowing to public demand, the couple shared footage from their honeymoon.

This is just just wonderful. >> Filmed in black and white, it’s the first time it’s been seen in color. >> The dark years of the war are behind them. And this is well, it’s the beginning of an era, isn’t it? >> Duke of Edinburgh didn’t view the world through rose tinted spectacles. But he was a person of great feeling, and sometimes we get access to letters from him when he and the queen were were young.

You see that he’s a he was romantic in that sense. It was a love match. No doubt at all. >> After Philip married Princess Elizabeth, he wrote to Elizabeth’s mother, then the queen. Libbert is the only thing in the world which is absolutely real to me. And my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us, but will also have a positive existence for the good.

It it shows a much softer side of Philillip. This is the man who never revealed his emotions. At first, Philillip combined marriage with his other great love, the Royal Navy. >> I was 17 in 38, I suppose it was. Then the war was threatening and it was apparent to me that the best thing that I could do was to join one of the services anyway if I could.

And at that time, I was virtually stateless. I think I had a Danish passport, but I the Navy said that they’d accept me. Prince Philip loved reading military history and he’d read several biographies of Napoleon. And in one of them he came across something interesting that Napoleon said, which is this. If you want to understand a man, you should know what the world was like in the year that man turned 21. He turned 21 in 1942.

And Prince Phillip reflected absolutely the values, the attitudes, the sense of humor of people of that generation, that wartime generation. For many people, the best generation. He’d served very gallantly through the war. Pledged himself very early on to this country. Philip went back to work for the Royal Navy almost immediately after the wedding.

He wasn’t someone to just lounge around. And I think blonde hair you don’t really see so much when you’re looking at the black and white pictures. I mean he’s strikingly handsome. He was a high achiever. Always a golden boy to match his golden locks. You can see very much why the queen fell for him. >> It was in Malta that the Duke of Edinburgh assumed command of HMS Magpire.

There’s no prouder moment in any sailor’s life than his first ship. Philip’s career was going from strength to strength, but his world was about to be turned upside down. >> I only had her for a year because it all got rather difficult at the late king was was not very well and um it was decided that we should go to Canada in 1951.

So I had to come back for that and then the king was going to go to Australia and he couldn’t. So we were sent off on that and then of course he died. So that was the end of the sort of naval career. When they had the news in 52 that the king had died, I think his world um collapsed, his natural place of service, the navy, w was no longer possible.

And I think it was a huge shock. It happened sooner than anyone might have hoped because the old king George V 6th died at a much earlier age than anyone would have wished for. The thing is that well both the queen and I got pitchforked into a situation in a since well before our time well before our age group and obviously at 30 pretty intense experience.

[cheering] >> When his wife went from princess to queen, Philillip would have to put her job first for the rest of his life. He didn’t have the easiest time in those early years because there was a man who was very much you know an alpha male having caught thinking who do you think you are.

Philip wanted to shake up the whole of how Buck and Palace was run but there was fierce resistance. >> I think there was a long period by that I mean sort of three or four years in which honestly he didn’t quite know where he fitted in. So I think he was in a mastrom of emotions and and and and struggle and uncertainty. I think he was he was a bit lost.

But in 1956, 3 years after the coronation, Philillip embarked on a tour that would change his life forever. The thing about going to see is you’re suddenly exposed to to an element which is which you can’t really control. You’re subject to it and I think that’s quite good for the soul frankly. I think one of the epoch moments for Prince Philip was 1956 when he was asked and joyfully accepted the invitation to to travel.

It was in a sense his first solo mission going to parts of the Commonwealth that no member of the royal family had ever visited before. Whilst the queen was kept busy with affairs of state, Philillip acted as her envoy in far-flung corners of the globe. >> I’ve been around the world and covered nearly 40,000 miles since the 15th of October last year.

I think that tour was pivotal because that’s when he found himself again. He loved this trip and he was free. Free to grow a beard, free to be his own man. We weren’t going anywhere with big populations and um places where we had to uh stand to attention and parade. And so um we were allowed to grow a beard without permission.

We had a competition to see who grew the best. They brought a whale catcher alongside us in um the Antarctic and um he was put into one of the baskets and hoisted up. >> Prince Phillip transferred to the whale catcher by an old sailor’s method which is never without a bit of excitement. >> He was very much a Navy man. No, no doubt about that.

He was a good sport all round. He used to play deck hockey. He he’d come with the yachts company and um it was a dangerous sport, mind you, the few broken legs. He did wander around quite a lot and come and have a chat with us and um see how we were getting on. But he was always working. He was reading or doing something.

>> It must be so marvelous on these particular journeys just to be free and in the open wild cold air. stumbling across streams, taking your own camera with you. >> He took with him a a Hasselblad camera and he was fascinated by the birds and started taking lots of photographs of them.

I think in that experience gave him that sense of how important it was to save this beautiful planet that then drew him even closer to what would eventually end up as his role in formation of the World Wildlife Fund. >> He was him himself. He wasn’t three steps behind the queen and I think it gave him a sense of vocation. >> By Christmas 1956, Philillip had been away from his wife and family for 2 months.

>> For Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, this was the farthest point of a 40,000mi Commonwealth journey. A long way from home to spend Christmas. I know the Duke of Edinburgh was frustrated the way his 1956 Commonwealth tour on Britannia became controversial because at the time he was excited by it, thought he was doing something really worthwhile.

He was going to be going to parts of the Commonwealth that no member of the British royal family had ever visited before. So he thought, I’m doing good stuff. And then to find that he was the subject of criticism for being so long away from home, it made no sense to him. partly because of course he was a naval man and people in the navy are used to long tours of duty.

This was really what he’d been trained to do. So he found that frustrating and then that the whole story became about where is Philip at Christmas? Why is he away? Philip was enjoying his freedom from palace life but his long absence was attracting unwelcome attention. >> There were rumors in the press that there [snorts] were problems in the royal marriage.

That started really because there was an article related to many years earlier about his friendship with a theatrical star. Well, Prince Phillip was very handsome. Obviously, before he married the queen, that he had had girlfriends. You know, he had a reputation of being a ladies man. It had nothing to do with what was going on at the time.

>> The rumors were compounded by the fact that his right-hand man was caught up in a divorce scandal. >> A shadow falls on the last stages of the Duke of Edinburgh’s tour. Lieutenant Commander Michael Parker, his friendland secretary, has resigned. >> Anything fresh and new, I’d give it to you, but I bet I haven’t.

>> Mike Parker was one of Philip’s closest friends. Um, they used to like to party together. And of course, when Mike’s wife filed for divorce, what was becoming the story was, “Oh, well, there’s a problem in that marriage. Maybe there’s a problem with the royal marriage.” It grew be to become so intrusive the media and and the treatment of him was so rude and dismissive that it did hurt.

>> In February 1957, Philillip returned from the tour under a cloud of suspicion, and the world waited to see how the queen would react. Within days, she showed the strength of their union by making Philillip a prince. At the mansion house, the Lord Mayor of London greets the Duke of Edinburgh.

It is the Duke’s first big public engagement since the Queen conferred on him the title of the Prince Philillip, Duke of Edinburgh. >> I think he was very pleased that the Queen made him a prince of the United Kingdom in recognition uh of the tour that he had just made. People don’t realize that actually for 10 years he wasn’t a prince at all.

when he became a British citizen, he gave up being a prince of Greece and became the Duke of Edinburgh. So, she was saying, “Up yours to everybody else.” The Queen was asserting Philillip’s importance to the country and to her. Despite the gossip, >> the press had really blown it up into a major story and uh it irritated the Duke.

In fact, he made a speech sort of alluding to that a few days after he came back. >> The tour, says the Duke naturally involved the personal sacrifice of being separated from his wife and children for a considerable time. >> This Commonwealth of which every member is so proud came into existence because people made sacrifices and offered their service to it.

And I for one am prepared to sacrifice a good deal if by so doing I can advance its well-being even by a small degree. >> Philip had sacrificed his naval career for the queen and spent time away from his family so she wouldn’t have to. And when he returned he supported the queen by helping raise their young children.

It was always the case with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh that the Queen was the head of state, head of nation, but Prince Philip was head of the family. And I think those roles worked very well. He was a very hands-on father. >> He wanted them to have a good, secure, happy childhood within the constraints of their mother being the queen and him being the Duke of Edinburgh and having a lot of stuff to do.

>> Another treat is the horse show at Windsor, although the English weather can be chilly. Oh, this is sweet. I’ve not seen this before. And there’s an Oh, look at her. Now, that’s interesting. This is him in a caring mode, and we don’t tend to think of him as that much of a carer.

Making sure that an is warm enough, very sweet. Philillip was very good with his children. He he could be a quite a rough character. Charles was a very sensitive child and Philip just didn’t understand that. He was such a robust man himself. Philillip really wanted his son particularly to be in his image and he wasn’t.

>> The royal children are sturdy and encouraged to take the rough with the smooth. Prince Charles plays cricket and football, sails, swims and rides, both horse and bicycle. >> Philillip was a natural sportsman. I think that he therefore thought that it would be a really good thing for his children.

>> Teen games particularly, I think, help them to learn about how to behave. They’ve got to learn to be successful and how to lose and how to cooperate and and how to submerge themselves into a team. I think all that’s good news. >> Prince Philip was in charge of making all the decisions around schools and, you know, he was very keen that Prince Charles go to Gordon.

The Queen was less keen, but he had his way. The heir to the throne of England is to attend Gordon Ston, the alma mater of his father, Prince Philillip. Charles will sleep in a dormatory with a dozen other boys and will be routed out at 7:00 a.m. for a run around the grounds. Rumor has it that the young prince was reluctant about retending this academy with its Spartan routine.

>> I think he probably thought that it might knock Charles into shape and make him a more robust character. And of course, it had actually the complete opposite effect. Here the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles examine a kayak presented to them. >> I once said to Prince Phillip, “It’s strange that people say that you and Prince Charles are so different when to me you seem to be so similar in many ways. You you walk in the same way.

You talk in the same way. You share so many interests in, you know, young people, in nature, in art, in science.” And he said, “Oh, yes.” He said, “But there is a difference. Uh, I’m a pragmatist and uh, Prince Charles is a romantic. >> In terms of character, you almost couldn’t find two men more far apart.

You know, Philillip was very stiff upper lip, roll with the punches, don’t take things too personally. Anyone that knew both of them would say that the Prince of Wales is rather different and is much more of a sensitive soul than that and and feels feels things much more keenly and personally than his father did. Philip adored his boarding school.

Charles hated it. For Philillip grew up in a profoundly dysfunctional family. I mean, shockingly dysfunctional family, frankly. [snorts] And um school here in the UK, boarding school gave him a a firm foundation. His childhood was extraordinary. His grandfather, the king of Greece, was assassinated.

His parents had to leave Greece. They were driven into exile when Prince Philip was a little boy. They lived uh in Paris. They didn’t have much money. Then his parents separated. His father floated down to the south of France and ended up living with a girlfriend down there. His mother had a mental breakdown and was in a clinic for some years. We talked about this.

He he decided, I think very early on, that he was not going to be a victim of his upbringing. >> Philip didn’t dwell on the past. He focused on the future. He knew he could connect to people in a way the queen couldn’t and make a real difference to the way the monarchy was perceived. >> I feel that I’m I may have a position, whatever influence I have.

I I want to use for the benefit of the country. Therefore, I feel that I I’m ought to be doing my best for the community. This is really the in in in whatever way I can. I think that tour in 56 gave him a chance to see that he had a position in his own right as Duke of Edinburgh that made it possible for things to happen.

And boy did he make some things happen. If you knew him as it were in his prime, you would be bowled over by the man’s energy, the amount that he packed into a day. Eventually, I became the appeals chairman of the National Playing Fields Association. And what I liked about him was that he used to go into the office every day and run the show on a daily basis.

He uh was at his office at 10:00 in the morning. He wouldn’t leave till the intray was all in the out tray. You know, he was he was much loved by the people who worked for him. >> Philillip realized he could put his popularity to good use. >> The publicity which surrounds, let’s say, a visit that I make isn’t necessarily publicity about me, but it’s about the thing which is being visited.

Using a little intelligence, you can actually pick places to draw attention to because they’re valid or valuable. >> There was a different energy with Philillip. the queen. There’s a sort of awe and wonder, but I think Philillip there was much more kind of interaction with the crowds. >> I mean, he really was so handsome and so charming and he was, you know, voted Britain’s most popular man, the world’s most popular prince.

You know, he was absolutely a golden person. Philillip loved pretty women. He was quite flirtatious. I don’t think it necessarily meant anything. Um, but it’s another way of of interacting with people, of putting people at their ease. >> Miss Muriel Roberts has worked for the company for 20 years.

Prince Phillip stops for a chat with her. >> He’s utterly charming. Wherever he is, he just speaks to whoever he wants. He’s egalitarian, I would say. Utterly non-g grand. One of the things that most surprised me, I mean, I grew up in a huge working-class housing estate. I went to the local school. I never expected to be in a position of having this kind of friendship with a member of the royal family.

Did it make any difference to him? Not an iota. And I think that people ought to be judged much more by what they are and and how they behave than entirely on the basis of what they do to earn their living. >> The queen had to maintain a degree of distance. But Philillip realized the monarchy had to become more open and accessible.

>> The essence of the monarchy is a very personal relationship. I mean people respond to the to the individual as well as to the institution and it only really functions if people know the the the members. >> He was very aware that if a royal dynasty is not in step with its people it can go.

He was the product of that in Greece where you know he had he had to be exiled away his father could have been executed. And so even though the royal family in Britain was fairly established, he realized that you’ve got to be in step with the people. >> And he was a driving force in maintaining their popularity. >> Who do you think is the most fascinating and exciting man of the 20th century? Dead or alive was the question.

And top of the pops was in fact Prince Philillip. well ahead of uh Shan Conry and President Kennedy. >> Philip knew the media was key to the monarchy’s future. Since the first days of television, he realized it could help make the monarchy more accessible. He was the first member of the royal family to present a TV show in 1957.

>> 40 minutes to get around the world. Well, it’s going to be a bit of a rush. They may leave you a little bit muddled, but I hope at least that you’ll uh have seen a number of places and a number of things that you haven’t seen before. And in 1961, he became the first royal to give a television interview.

>> In this country alone, I think there are something like uh 10,000 major occasions have been stunts have been organized. >> That’s 5 million people on that calculation who are concerned with it in some way. >> Well, your mathematics are better than mine. I did it beforehand. [laughter] >> Philip went on a one-man mission to raise the profile of the monarchy by making multiple television appearances.

>> Our guest in Face the Press tonight has flown up here specially from London in order to take part in the program. And he is his royal highness, Prince Phillip, Juke of Edinburgh. >> Tonight, television viewers all over Australia are invited to meet his royal highness, the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

>> He would argue, he would debate. And as you may know, Prince Philip has a certain reputation for being forthright. >> What did you have in mind about the South Wales valleys or for that matter the North? >> Are you Welsh? >> Well, originally as long time ago, >> you’ve seen the South Wales. >> I have.

I’d like to hear what you think about it. >> I mean, do you really think that we ought to do that sort of thing again? >> I don’t. No. >> Well, that’s exactly what I meant. >> Prince Phillip was a naturally forthright person. If he was asked a question, he gave an honest reply. And I do remember he once said to me, “There’s no harm in disagreeing.

Why do we all have to agree about everything?” >> I mean, you do have one function anyway, as I see it, among many others, which is to help promote monarchy and the image of monarchy and to look after it very carefully. >> No, you make it sound as if I was some sort of PR agency. No, no, I don’t. I I in fact I I I’m very doubtful about the whole concept of of deliberately trying to create an image because I think that it’s it’s very easily rumbled.

Some people thought that he was abrupt, brusk, rude. I don’t think he ever meant to be. He was just being himself. >> Philillip threw himself into engaging with the public. >> He’s a great mover and shaker, and he was the first to say, “Let the light in on this. Let’s film these things. Let’s show people what it is.

>> A thing that surprised me was that you write most of your speeches yourself. >> Yes, I do do it myself. >> I mean, is it is it is that stern sense of duty or is it is it because you want to say something particularly? >> No, it’s just um I don’t know. It just seems to be the obvious way of doing it. I think >> you realized that that was a way to connect with the public because, you know, you have to be relevant and you have to be known.

How far can you go in your efforts to humanize if you like the perhaps and yet retain the some of the mystique of the royal family? How far can you go towards meeting the people? >> Well, how far is far? I think you’ve got to strike a balance somehow. I think that what is what has happened anyway is that particularly through the medium of this device is that the whole thing has become much more intimate in people know each other very much better.

I think people know us better and we know people better. I think people want this intimate relationship makes them feel that that the the family is known to them as neighbors and as credible individuals. He could probably see the longerterm implications that of course once you’ve let in the media to your personal lives then the media want to know even more.

They they don’t just leave it there. They dig and dig and dig. >> Would you mind talking a little about the family now? Your relationship with the children particular? Hey, we like each other. >> We like each other. >> Yeah. What sort of family discussions do you have about your own problems as members of a royal family? >> Several.

>> Pardon? >> Several. >> Yeah. Would you mind telling us what they are? >> Yeah. I mean, I would. Yes. [laughter] >> I reckon this is for internal discussion. >> Yes. >> Not for public discussion. >> I was in London a few weeks ago and I spoke to the prince. I spent an hour with him. He is a very informal man.

The press conference will be completely open, but you ask him many personal questions about his family. He won’t talk about that. There are a hundred subjects he will talk about. >> I once said to Prince Philip, “You’re the person who brought the media in. You gave the first television interview.” He stopped me immediately.

He said, “Yes, about the work I was doing. Of course, you used the media.” When I arrived in the 1950s, it was new. There wasn’t ITV. The BBC was only just beginning on television. And I used it to talk about the projects, not to talk about myself. And that was his rule. Talk about what you’re doing, don’t talk about yourself.

>> Philip had opened the door to the media and it couldn’t be closed. >> It was a sort of lovehate relationship with the press. He was irritated by them. >> There are certain things occasionally which uh they do which uh perhaps I don’t like very much. I think the business of overhearing conversations.

I mean, if you’re having a conversation and and somebody pokes one of these at you with a tape recorder behind or one of those long listening devices which you can overhear a conversation 20 yard away, you you get a bit anxious. >> You stuff it up. Take the bloody thing right out. >> Don’t do that. Be kind to him.

>> You see infuriated somebody’s snapping at him. He’s saying, you know, fair is fair. If you’re having a private conversation, it should be a private conversation. He didn’t want someone shoving a camera in his face because that’s when things can get misinterpreted. I know he became very frustrated with the way he was handled, particularly by the British press.

If he went on a foreign tour and he saw that there were British press covering it, his heart would sink cuz he’d know that there’d be no coverage at all unless there was a gaff. Then the gaff would be front page news. That’s all they were looking for. And they turned him into a caricature. >> You run out of film? Yeah. [laughter] >> Sometimes Philillip’s off-the-cuff conversations combined with his knack of putting his foot in it made for good headlines.

In time, this would increasingly come to define him in the press. because he was colorful and because he did make remarks that that were well in today’s terms politically deeply incorrect. Um he was criticized. >> The press were looking for those gas. I was one of them I know and it almost caricatures him really.

The fact is he did get things wrong and the slitty comment in China that was a mistake. He absolutely recognized that that he did have a gift for saying the wrong thing. He actually came up with a term himself of donto podology, foot in mouth. >> Obviously, I make mistakes. Good heavens, I’m noting I’d done. >> Yes. >> As so very often happens, I discovered it would have been much better if I kept my trap shut.

>> Unfortunately for Prince Phillip, sometimes that image of him as gaff prone has slightly overshadowed a lot of the brilliant work that he’s done over the years. But it wasn’t just Philillip who had to withstand press scrutiny. >> Is that not a terrible fear that the whole limelight will be thrown upon your eldest son? Well, what will you do to um either protect him for it or make it more tolerable? >> Well, I think it’s very difficult to know how to make it more tolerable.

Having perhaps more experience, one can either make it a bit easier by pointing out the pitfalls and by warning what might happen under certain sectors and making him aware of the of what is in fact going on as much as possible and how these things happen and the fact that it has happened before.

No one’s got one lives through these periods. He knew that to find yourself in the newspapers um accused of all sorts of things, criticized for all sorts of things, you need to be quite a tough character to survive that. And I I suspect he thought that Charles would would find it really difficult.

I don’t think anybody could have foreseen what happened in the 80s and ’90s. By the early ‘9s, the press frenzy that surrounded his son’s failing marriage reached fever pitch. Prince and Princess of Wales put on brave faces again today during their South Korean tour. >> It’s the media that’s causing the problems and the reports.

Leave them alone. >> Well, they’ve got problems like everybody else, but I think it’s time everybody left them alone. >> Paparazzi. I don’t think they were called that when when when he was first the victim of it. Um but when it came to his children and grandchildren being photographed with long lenses, I mean he just well he found it desparing.

I think the only two aversions I have is to the gossip writer who doesn’t really bear much relation to fact and is not intended to be particularly constructive and the keyhole cameraman who is in sense trying to find something out of the ordinary with which to titillate his customers. >> >> I think it has been extraordinarily difficult and I think he watched the destruction of parts of his family.

Princess Diana in particular um who he was very very fond of, very gentle towards. Um he tried to help her fit into this weird family. He was a kind of outsider himself who had made it in but knew the kind of vicious sharks that swim around the royal family uh and that are ready to pick you off if they can and deride and mock.

I think it depressed him that as he put it to me once the the press turned the royal family into a bit of a soap opera. >> Principally he knew that you know if you’re doing something wrong such as having adulterous affairs then the press are likely to find out about it and under the new no holds barred press of the 80s and 90s they were going to put it in the paper.

He didn’t like the press. He didn’t particularly have um any affection for the journalists either. um far from it. But he knew they had a job to do. It was up to his family to not give them those opportunities to write about them. >> I would have thought Philillip was pretty horrified by by Charles admitting his adultery to Jonathan Dimbleby.

So many of the stories that came out during that period were so damaging not just to the individuals but also to the to the integrity of the monarchy which Philillip and Elizabeth had worked so hard over so many years to to get right. >> He he grew to become deeply saddened and distrustful. I remember when Prince Philip and I went to northern Greece.

It was the week in which those very distressing photographs of Fergie and her financial advisor and the toe sucking incident had come up [clears throat] and he had been hounded by the media. But we shook them all off and he was in the most appalling mood on the ferry bank. He was going back to this rough old world. >> But worse was yet to come.

In 1997, when Diana died, the royal family faced one of their greatest crises. And in this defining moment, Philillip chose to put his family first. >> There’s no doubt that Prince Philip will have felt first and foremost his duty was as a grandfather to protect and console William and Harry, who had just lost their mother in horrendous circumstances.

>> But not for the first time. His actions were misinterpreted. It wasn’t his idea, but there was a tradition at royal funerals of members of the family walking behind the hearse. And there was no plan originally for Prince Philip to be part of that. Prince Phillip said to Prince William, “If it would help, I can walk alongside you.

” So he volunteered to do that. Prince William accepted the invitation. So far from being what was reported, it was an act of grandfatherly kindness to grant offer support to Prince William. >> He’s come in for criticism for that, but it was not his choice, not his idea. And there’s a moment where they go under the um horse guards parade arch where it’s quite clear that Prince Philip and I asked him about this.

He said, “Yes, I didn’t think the cameras could see us.” And at that point, he turns to William, who he’s walking beside and comforts him. And you’ve just got to watch that moment and realize here is a grandfather who is trying to help his young, very vulnerable grandson struggle through this awful, awful moment. He knew what it was like to be a member of a dysfunctional family.

He did his damnest to make sure that did not happen to his grandchildren. One day the future of the monarchy would rest on William’s shoulders. So Philillip did his best to support him. And I think with William is down to the the queen and Prince Phillip actually realizing here was a someone who could go off the rails who was at danger of a life that could become badly disorientated because of what he’d been through and they gave him a firm and solid foundation and um there’s the fruits to this day. I think William

and Harry’s relationship with Prince Phillip has always been very important to both of them in terms of you know William has spoken a lot about the sense of duty that he has watched and inherited from his grandparents and you know you only have to look at what William and Harry are incredibly interested in in terms of their public facing work.

you know, conservation in the environment, which yes, of course, is inherited from the Prince of Wales, but it comes from the Duke of Edinburgh. Those things he was interested in for years have become the cornerstones of his grandchildren’s work. Now, >> in 2017, Prince Phillip decided it was time to hand over to the next generation, and he surprised the world by retiring from public life.

Prince Phillip’s final official engagement with the Royal Marines on the four quarter of Buckingham Palace had a lot of people sort of hairs on their arms because everything about that day represented everything brilliant about Philillip was pouring with rain. It was awful conditions for someone in their 90s to come out but out he came in his Mac and his bowler hat.

I think that image of him, you know, doing his hat was just so poignant and moving. I think people got a sense then of, you know, what we were losing. >> The last time I went to an official event with the Duke of Edinburgh, he came into the room and he ran towards the desk and jumped up onto it and began speaking. He was in his early 90s.

He had essentially done 70 years of service. And I think the queen thought, well, actually, why doesn’t he take some time off? Why doesn’t he do his own thing for a while? And he agreed. If the queen was happy for him to do that, he said he would, and he did. >> I think the queen would have had a really awfully much harder time.

She’s her whole life is duty, so she would never have given it up. But without Prince Philip by her side, I think it would have been intolerable. I think he’s been there all the way through. What did Prince Philip give the queen? Well, so much obviously, but I think he made her laugh and that’s a wonderful thing.

And of course, he treated her normally because nobody in the world treats the queen normally. You know, even her children except the Duke of Edinburgh did. And you know, he treated her as a woman, as his wife. And of course, nobody in the world could say to the Duke of Edinburgh, “Philip, do shut up, except the queen.” And she did. 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 greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know.

The last year and a half of Philip’s life, he spent more time with the queen than he probably had done for years before that because they came came together at Windsor and they isolated together at Windsor for, you know, the best part of a year. But that would have been very precious to the queen to have had that time with him before he passed away.

>> Prince Phillip died on the 9th of April, 2021. At his funeral, his family walked behind his coffin, led by his eldest son. >> I think that Charles and Philillip, as the years went by, the relationship did become closer. There was a a an understanding and a and a sort of greater forgiveness.

the last decade or so, I think that both Charles and Philillip have both both mellowed but both leared to respect each other and and respect each other’s point of views. Not necessarily agree with each other, but respect each other. >> For Charles to go and visit his father in hospital, I think was was very important.

You know, it was a handing on of the baton, but I suspect that it was a healing process as much as anything else after all these years of of discord between them. I I would think it was a very loving moment and an important moment for both of them. Actually, >> as you can imagine, my family and I missed my father enormously.

He was a a much loved and appreciated figure. The queen had lost her husband, the family, their father and grandfather and the nation. >> Ordinarily brave, marvelous leader. >> His view of life was look up and out, not down and in. >> There was no way I could say to him, “What is your legacy?” Because he would just go, >> “I haven’t done anything.

” Saw the others. I think if he [laughter] knew this program was being made, he’d what on earth for? What on earth for? What’s there to say? Another stupid program made by Can’t you live your own life? That’s what he’s saying. Why aren’t you living your own life? Why aren’t you living your own life? What have you done this year? That’s what he’s saying to you.

Say, at least the cameraman’s keeping quiet. That’s what he’s saying. >> What would you like to be remembered for? Well, it doesn’t really concern me very much because if I when I drop dead, I mean, I’m not going to be around to find out what people do remember. So, it doesn’t really bother me all that much.

>> Isn’t there anything though that you’re particularly proud of having achieved? >> I I No, I don’t think so. I think um keeping out of trouble, I think, probably. [laughter] >>