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Four year old Philip
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Princess Alice with her son
1924 |
I am,
relatively speaking, not interested in the British Royal Family but
then again, not especially hostile to it either, though do believe
that a country which retains Royalty and the attendant aristocracy,
cannot truly be a democracy. That said, when Philip died last week,
at almost 100, it was not a great personal loss though it seems, from
across the Channel, that the media has, as usual, gone overboard with
non stop comment and endless ‘features’. Plus ca change …… |
| Philip's sisters, 1922. |
I have
always considered Philip as physically gorgeous, when young, and
unfailingly supportive to the Queen even when he let rip with
racialist, colonial-type gaffes which caused offence and hilarity in
equal volumes and over which remarks, Elizabeth generally sailed,
serenely on. I believe he was probably a briskly-impatient father
who heaped some suffering on his eldest, Charles, who followed his father's educational path but who hated Cheam Prep. School and
Gordonstoun ["Colditz in kilts"!] in equal horrified measure. I do remember, too, that
Edward was frog-marched into the Marines I think, when he was rather
more drawn to the theatre! One didn’t need to read about the Royals
to judge that Anne was awfully like her father in temperament and
that they were probably great pals!
However, mea culpa, it is only now that I have learned more about Philip’s
early life and feel uncomfortable that I hadn’t been interested
enough to discover more when he was alive; it would have
 |
Philip's mother became a nun. She was also recognised by Israel
as Righteous among the Nations for sheltering Jews
during WW2 in Greece. Profoundly deaf, she had a tragic but heroic life. |
made me
more tolerant of him. Born in Corfu in 1921 eight years after the
assassination of his grandfather, King George of Greece, and youngest
child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg.
The family was exiled when Philip was one and led a somewhat
itinerant life which no doubt contributed to the nervous breakdown of
his mother in 1930 when she was hospitalised. Philip did not see his
mother at all between 1932 and 1937. He went briefly to live in Paris but soon landed safely chez Uncle George, the Marquess of Milford
Haven who became his active guardian. Philip’s own father seems to
have drifted off without contact with his son. Uncle George’s son,
David, became Philip’s great friend and eventual best man at his
wedding.
In keeping with the class system regarding education, Philip was sent to Cheam
Preparatory School which fostered a tough, independent ethos for its
boys. He grew to love it there where his sporting
 |
Kurt Hahn, German educator and
inspired educational innovator. |
talent and
competitive spirit had full rein. Similarly, after Cheam, came
Gordonstoun, founded by Kurt Hahn as a deliberately Spartan
establishment with a heavy emphasis on sports and education for
leadership. Philip, who had long decided to banish introspection and
adopt a resolutely cheerful and independent spirit as a way of
dealing with the chaos and loss of his earlier life, flourished,
eventually rising to become Head Boy. The school gave him a secure, stable, challenging environment which compensated for his earlier rootlessness. During his years there,
Cecilie, one of his four sisters who had all married when Philip was
young, was killed with her family in a plane crash in 1937. His
headmaster said, approvingly, that Philip took the dreadful news
“like a  |
George, 2nd Marquess of
Milford Haven. |
man.” Six months later, his guardian died at 45 from
cancer. George of Milford Haven had been very interested in
engineering and was technically ingenious and had passed on this
interest to Philip. This aptitude became embedded in Philip’s enquiring mind
and a fascination with how things worked, became one of the hallmarks
of his subsequent life.
George’s
younger brother, Louis Mountbatten, took up the guardian reins and it
was he, ever ambitious for his name, who arranged for Philip, then a
student at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, to show around
Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret. The enduring rumour that
the 13 year old Elizabeth fell in love with him then, may well be
true though such early puppy love does not usually endure and produce
a marriage of 73 years. He proposed during the Summer of 1946 but
George V1 was not pleased; the Court was suspicious of Philip with
Louis behind him; Louis was considered “unsound” with odd habits
of friendship with Labour politicians! But Philip’s early losses
are poignantly echoed in a letter he sent to Queen Elizabeth after he
had stayed with them, thanking her for “...the simple enjoyment of
family pleasures and amusements and the feeling that I am welcome to
share them.”
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| Engaged couple, 1946. |
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| Philip at Gordonstoun. |
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| Young family with Charles and baby Anne. |
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Towards the end. No sign here of that indomitable
spirit withering or a challenge unmet. |
I obtained much of the above information from a BBC News website which was, itself, based on the book:
Young Prince Philip: His Turbulent Early Life by Philip Eade.
