Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II and father to Great Britain’s next king has died. He was 99.
The Royal Family announced the news Friday saying, “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”
Philip spent a month in hospital earlier this year before being released on March 16 to return to Windsor Castle.
It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. pic.twitter.com/XOIDQqlFPn
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) April 9, 2021
Philip was born in Greece’s island of Corfu on June 10, 1921. He was the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. He was a member of both the Greek and Danish royal families, but he was not Greek.
Philip’s uncle, King Constantine I, was forced to abdicate the Greek throne in 1922. The military government arrested Philip’s father, and a court eventually banned him from Greece.
Philip spent his childhood in France, Great Britain and Germany. He attended the Royal Naval College starting in 1939 at 18 years old, just before the start of World War II. It was there that Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I, remembered meeting Philip for the first time when she was 13, although there are multiple reports they met at a wedding five years earlier (Elizabeth said in a letter she didn’t recall). The young Elizabeth developed a crush on Philip, and they eventually started a relationship. The two were great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, making them distant cousins.
