The Patriarch

On the 10th June, 1921 Prince Philip was born on the island of Corfu, Greece. His birth, and his long and eventful life are well documented. He became the consort of the British Queen, and the father of the future King. It was a remarkable story. Indeed, the whole history of the Royal Houses of Europe was remarkable, and turbulent. These Houses constitute different branches of an illustrious family tree, who have consistently consolidated power and influence across the continent.

The legacy of the remaining Royal Families in Europe is assured through essential ancestral links. However Philip’s connection to Greece was only tenuous. The Greek Monarch was never ethnically Greek but in fact a Prussian-Danish hybrid. The Greek Monarchy was created as a necessary bulwark against hostile forces in the wake of independence from the Ottomans.

The first Greek King was a Bavarian Prince called Otto. His apparent reluctance to integrate himself into Greek culture and society failed to redeem his reputation. His inability to produce any heirs also caused deep consternation. Fearing a possible coup, he went into exile in 1862. A year later, the Greek National Assembly sent an invitation to Prince William of Denmark, requesting whether he was willing to become the new King of Hellenes. He accepted, and ascended to the throne as King George I. George was assassinated in 1913 by a socialist agitator, and his son Constantine became King. One year later, World War One broke out, and Constantine’s supposed neutrality proved to be too controversial and he resigned. His son Alexander succeeded him.

The German connection had been noted by the Greek people, and there was a great suspicion that the King had deeper family loyalties. The Greek public felt threatened and the Family were banished, including Prince Andrew, Philip’s father. Philip’s parents were exiled to “Mon Repos” on Corfu, the summer retreat of the Greek Royals.

Princess Alice, Philip’s mother was 36 when Philip was born. His imminent arrival was the cause of great anxiety, so her doctor decided that she should give birth in the dining room. In the first few months of his life, a series of English nannies looked after him.

Royal childcare in the nineteen twenties was laissez faire. An alarming anecdote reveals that when the young Prince was just six months old he was left unsupervised with the nanny’s pin cushion, and enjoyed playing with the pins. This somewhat reckless disregard for health and safety, and the implication that children are harmed if they are mollycoddled left a distinct impression upon him and even influenced his own parenting.

Alice, however, was fragile. When Philip was just nine years old Alice suffered a mental collapse and she was sent to an institution in Switzerland. At the time of her crisis her husband was living with his mistress in the South of France. The shocking lack of empathy for her plight was characteristic of this family, who chose repression and coldness over openness and warmth.

The apparent insensitivity was a damning charge that would be continuously redirected against the British Royal Family. In 2012, Alice’s niece Lady Pamela Hicks confessed that, “it was difficult to talk to other people about it because they were embarrassed or ashamed…In those days it was something to be kept quiet about”. A frank and blunt confession like that looks, to an outsider, rather selfish and callous. However Philip, along with the rest of the family learned to suppress emotion as a kind of crude survival tactic.

Philip had to adapt to an itinerant life from the age of 9 until his marriage to the young Princess Elizabeth at the age of 28. One of his acquaintances, Lady Myra Butter observed, “the effect of not having a home is imponderable. You didn’t go into those things then, but now people like Philip would be counselled all the time”. Philip himself remarked upon this with his infamous bluffness, “I just had to get on with it. You do. One does”. Again, this typically crass, basic and clumsy language seems rather hollow and thoughtless, but it was a philosophy of sorts that he depended upon.

Philip was educated at Gordonstoun School, an institution inspired by the principles of Ancient Sparta, a militaristic, warrior culture. He thrived under the regime, and it honed vital skills which were invaluable in his future career as a Naval Officer. Courage, resilience and indefatigability served him well. His war record revealed his heroism on HMS Valiant where he bravely intercepted and destroyed enemy vessels on the battlefront of the Mediterranean Sea. After the war, Philip was posted to Malta, where he served as first lieutenant. In 1952, he was promoted to the rank of commander. When King George VI died, he was forced to relinquish his career in the Royal Navy, as his wife, Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne.

Philip’s experiences undoubtedly shaped his personality. He was not just a bluff person, he was unflappable, often irascible and sometimes just a bit rude. One of his greatest achievements in this country was to establish the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which encouraged resilience in generations of young people. The downside to his life derived from his unswerving belief that feelings must be bottled up, and this belief was something that his eldest son railed against, not to mention the wider British public who reacted strongly against his apparent indifference to the tragic death of his daughter-in-law.

However his position as the strong, paternalistic presence in the twentieth century British Monarchy remains in the memory. As the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage notes in his closing stanzas of “The Patriarchs”,

“Last of the great avuncular magicians,

they kept their best tricks for the grand finale:

Disproving Immortality and Disappearing Entirely.

The major oaks in the wood start tuning up,

and skies to come will deliver their tributes.

But for now, a cold April’s closing moments

parachute slowly home, so by mid-afternoon

snow is recast as seed heads and thistledown”.

This poem, composed on the event of his death on the 9th April 2021 is the perfect tribute to this unique figure in British cultural history.