Too foreign for the English, too progressive for the king, a threat to the queen: Philip Mountbatten's first years in the palace were not easy.
Not only Meghan Markle and Princess Diana encountered difficulties when entering the British royal family. More than 70 years ago, when Philip Mountbatten, former Prince of Greece and current Duke of Edinburgh, courted Princess Elizabeth in the 1940s, the royal family, palace officials, the government and the public were not very enthusiastic about the future royal son-in-law.
Inside the palace, Queen Elizabeth, the princess's mother, did not approve of Prince Philip as her daughter's partner because she saw him as a "dangerously progressive" man, as recently revealed in the documentary The Private Lives of the Windsors. the Windsors). King George VI, for his part, also felt a certain contempt for Philip and his personality. He was concerned about how the British public would perceive Philip who was Greek and of Russian, German and Danish origins.
This was especially important to him given the geopolitical environment of the time—just a few years after World War II—as Greece had been occupied by Nazi Germany. Furthermore, before the war, two of his sisters had married members of the German nobility who later became part of the Nazi ranks. Philip would have to renounce his foreign titles and his religion to marry the future queen of England.
Philip's personality also seemed to put off Princess Elizabeth's parents. “It was not Philip's family heritage that affected the king's opinion: Philip's voluminous laugh and wild ways would have also bothered the king,” says an expert in the documentary, who also claims that the queen perceived Philip as the enemy once joined to the family, as she did not like competing with him for her daughter's attention. Felipe "challenged his authority as matriarch of the family," according to the documentary.
Things didn't change much when George VI died in 1952, his daughter becoming Queen Elizabeth II and his widow becoming the Queen Mother. Historian and biographer Professor Jane Ridley says: “The Queen Mother saw him more as an enemy and, indeed, one would see those early years as a tug-of-war and a fight for the Queen's attention.”
Royal biographer Christopher Warwick also explains in the programme: “With the death of King George, we have to remember how young they were. The king was 56, the queen mother was 51. So he felt they had been cut off in their prime, she loved the position of queen and suddenly all that was taken away from her. The queen mother cared very much about being Queen Mother, and she was jealous that her daughter had become queen.”
Despite the family's misgivings, Philip and Elizabeth married on November 20, 1947, after King George and Queen Elizabeth had forced her daughter to separate from Philip in case she changed her mind. Now, after more than 70 years of marriage, their professional lives led them to spend long periods apart, but during the coronavirus pandemic, they have spent more time together than usual. Next November, when Philip is 100 years old and Elizabeth II is 95, they would celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary.
