Americans have a curiously ambivalent attitude toward monarchy, especially the United Kingdom’s constitutional version. We’re proud of the principles that prompted us to separate ourselves from the British crown in the 18th century. In the 21st century, however, Americans can’t seem to get enough of the royal family, whether as an enduring symbol of virtue and tradition (Queen Elizabeth II) or an irresistible domestic soap opera (Prince Harry and Meghan Markle). At a moment when the American republic is deeply divided, the family that faithfully serves Britain’s democracy as the figurehead of state has an enduring appeal.
This was certainly reflected in the long, and largely admiring, obituaries for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who died last week, two months shy of his 100th birthday. He had married then-Princess Elizabeth nearly three-quarters of a century ago and lived to be history’s longest-serving royal consort. A man of high intelligence and good looks, personal courage, perception, and allegiance to duty, Philip spent his long life in the shadow of a monarch, though his wife’s powers are almost exclusively symbolic in an era when Britain’s power in the world has diminished.
With energy and flair, he devoted himself to multiple philanthropic causes, including conservation and wildlife, among others, and his Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards, designed to inspire discouraged youth, are now administered worldwide. Above all, in a relentless series of studies, commissions, exhortations, and initiatives, he sought to encourage Britain’s postwar adaptation from imperial power to modern society, promoting industry, enterprise, quality of life, and social reform. In a 1982 collection of essays, he wrote that “the art of government is to make individual ambitions and self-interest coincide with the national interest.”
Yet Philip’s obituaries inevitably emphasized family marital dramas, past and present, and his predilection for politically incorrect humor. His verbal embarrassments and occasional miscues often reflected an admirable willingness to express the obvious: He once remarked that he would “like very much to go to [the Soviet Union], although the bastards murdered half my family.” The horror with which some of his comments were greeted is all too familiar in our present culture. But Philip reflected the temperament of millions of his fellow countrymen and the candor of an aristocrat who had earned the right to speak his mind. He struck a chord among American admirers as well.
Similar to his wife, Philip was a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, and he was the son of a prince of the Greek royal family, with roots in Denmark and Germany. Born on the island of Corfu in 1921, his earliest years were unsettled, even perilous. His father was very nearly executed for his role in a failed military campaign against Turkey, and the family fled into genteel exile in Paris. In 1929, his mother was committed to a mental institution, his father left his family to live in Switzerland, and 8-year-old Philip was packed off to a series of austere boarding schools in England and Scotland.
His four sisters eventually married German noblemen, a few of whom were ardent Nazis, but the English-speaking Philip’s allegiance was to Britain. He entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth and, at 19, was commissioned in the Royal Navy.
His wartime record was exemplary. He served on a series of battleships in Mediterranean campaigns, took part in the Allied landings in Italy, and went out to the Pacific as an aide-de-camp to his uncle, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia. When the Japanese surrendered in Tokyo Bay on board the USS Missouri in 1945, Philip was a few hundred yards away on the destroyer HMS Whelp.
It’s not clear precisely when he met Elizabeth, but after their marriage in 1947, he remained in the navy until her father’s failing health and her accession to the throne thrust him into the consort’s role he reluctantly embraced and filled triumphantly.
“It was not my ambition to be president of the Mint Advisory Committee,” he once explained. “I was asked to do it. I’d much rather have stayed in the navy.”
Philip Terzian is the author of Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century.
