Prince Philip Life, Love & Duty

We look back at the extraordinary life of the Queen’s devoted husband, who passed away two months before his 100th birthday.

- Judy Kean

In 2017, the year Philip retired from public engagements, the palace unveiled this striking portrait of him by artist Ralph Heimans. The prince is depicted in the Grand Corridor at Windsor Castle wearing the sash of the Order of the Elephant, Denmark’s highest-ranking honour.

THE DUKE SAW HIS SOLE JOB ‘WAS TO NEVER LET HER DOWN’ AND HIS FAMILY LOVED HIM FOR IT

Prince Philip often described himself as “the world’s most experienced plaque unveiler”. A master of the self-deprecating crack, he once told an aide, “I know my place – two paces behind the Queen.”

But he was massively underselling himself. Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who died on April 9 aged 99, might have had to lag behind his wife for reasons of protocol, but out of the public eye, he was her rock, and a large part of the reason she has been able to do such an astounding job as monarch for so long.

Philip’s first-ever private secretary, Mike Parker, once revealed, “He told me the first day he offered me my job that his job, first, second and last, was never to let her down.”

And he never did. The Queen, 94, announced the death of the man she fell in love with – when she was just a teenager and to whom she had been married to for 73 years – via a statement from Buckingham Palace. It read, “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces 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. The Royal Family join with people around the world mourning his loss.”