{"id":182772,"date":"2021-04-12T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=182772"},"modified":"2021-04-12T07:31:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T06:31:44","slug":"prince-philip-the-duke-of-edinburgh-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/prince-philip-the-duke-of-edinburgh-obituary\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Obituary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Balmoral, Scotland, 1972.
Photograph: Fox Photos\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Prince Philip was the longest-serving consort of a British monarch, described by the Queen as her \u2018strength and stay\u2019.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

9 Apr 2021 – <\/em>P<\/span><\/span>rince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who has died aged 99, was the Queen\u2019s husband for 73 years. He was the longest-serving royal consort in British history, the family\u2019s patriarch and a well-known figure in public life for two-thirds of a century until his final disappearance into seclusion in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a marathon stint on which he had originally embarked with resignation, in the belief that a life of walking several steps behind his wife, curbing his opinions \u2013 though not always his tongue \u2013 and being an appendage to the institution, without even being able to pass on his surname to his children, would turn him into \u201cnothing but a bloody amoeba\u201d.<\/p>\n

Things did not work out that badly. He brought a relaxed, mostly affable, peppery, outspoken \u2013 and occasionally brusque \u2013 style to a ceremonial monarchy that would have been more hidebound, introverted, insipid and decidedly stuffy without him. He introduced badly needed fresh air into the royal family but, while his longevity ensured that he became an integral part of the family firm, he clearly never forgot his initial, impecunious, foreign and outsider status within the institution.<\/p>\n

His dutiful support for his wife and his engagement in public visits, ceremonial occasions and foreign trips continued well into old age. In 2011, he said in a television interview<\/a> that he was winding down, but it was not until 2017 that he completed his final public engagement and it was only in January 2019, when he gave up driving after causing a car crash near the Sandringham estate, that he disappeared from view. He became the focus of attention again in February 2021, when he went into King Edward VII\u2019s hospital in central London after an infection.<\/p>\n

Although he came to loathe the media for their intrusiveness, he played a considerable part in dragging the monarchy into the modern age. The pioneering 1969 television documentary Royal Family, scripted by Antony Jay<\/a>, which charted the royal family\u2019s year, showing them in off-duty, admittedly somewhat stilted moments, had received his support in the face of the disapproval of palace courtiers and advisers. The film was reportedly seen by two-thirds of the population, and was blamed by some commentators for a breakdown in deference towards the royal family.<\/p>\n

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The royal family in 1968 at Frogmore, Windsor: the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen, with Prince Edward, seated, and behind them, from left, Princess Anne, Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. Photograph: PA<\/p><\/div>\n

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If his tally of accomplishments was modest, this was at least partly because the role to which he was confined had been diminished. Although Philip was intelligent, with physical presence, energy and a clipped, ironic way of speaking, he took care to conceal his intellectual interests, which included poetry and theology, behind his bluff exterior. He had a fine private art collection, painted a little himself and had a well-thumbed personal library of more than 11,000 books, with perhaps surprising inclusions such as the works of TS Eliot. \u201cDon\u2019t tell anyone,\u201d he would say. Clerics visiting Balmoral or Sandringham to preach Sunday sermons could be disconcerted by his beady-eyed scrutiny from the front pew and his close questioning over lunch afterwards.<\/p>\n

Though frustrated, particularly in the early years of the reign, by his lack of personal scope, he made the most of the role that was open to him. He was a loyal and closely engaged patron of a wide range of organisations and causes, ranging from the postwar national playing fields movement to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People<\/a>, of which he was patron for 55 years. He was the first UK president of the World Wildlife Fund<\/a>, from 1961 to 1982, and international president from 1981 to 1996.<\/p>\n

After giving up polo in his late 40s, he took up carriage driving, and was instrumental in formalising it as a competitive sport. His book Thirty Years On and Off the Box Seat was published in 2004, and he continued to drive into his 90s. In 1967, he helped set up the Maritime Trust, concerned with the conservation of historic vessels, and as patron of the National Maritime Museum<\/a>, in Greenwich, he was involved in the work to save the tea clipper Cutty Sark from being dismantled.<\/p>\n

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