Moments after Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, she sat on her throne in Westminster Abbey to receive the homage of princes and peers.
It wasn’t all plain-sailing, though. Prince Philip was a strong, irascible character who had to give up his own dreams and ambitions for his wife. He once praised her for having “tolerance in abundance” – and she had to learn to tolerate his infamous gaffes. One former member of the royal household described Philip as being “as constant a presence in our lives as the Queen, walking three steps behind her… just with a lot less diplomacy”.
In July 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrived to tour Dartmouth’s Royal Naval College with their two daughters. In the summer of 1946, Philip proposed at Balmoral. The King asked them to hold off making an announcement until after her 21st birthday and Philip became naturalised, taking the name Philip Mountbatten.
But the newly created Duke of Edinburgh was all smiles later as he and his wife waved from the balcony of Buckingham Palace before embarking on married life. Their first child, HRH Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, was born on 14 November 1948, just six days before their first wedding anniversary. In January 1952, the Queen and Prince Philip set off on a tour of the Commonwealth in place of King George VI, who was in poor health. A month later they were in Kenya, enjoying a well-earned safari break at the famous Treetops Hotel.When the news reached Kenya, the Queen was writing a letter to her father, telling him of the wonderful sights she had seen and hoping he would be able to see them for himself soon.
In 1953 the couple made their first Commonwealth Tour – a six-month, 43,618-mile visit to 13 countries. He was a man of contradictions – an authoritarian and a caring hands-on dad, media-savvy but with a distrust of the press, a public figure who resented any curiosity about his life and a champion of the stiff upper lip who became devoted to the fragile Diana, Princess of Wales.
The Queen, visibly enraged, appeared in the doorway, screaming at him to stop running and ordering him to come back. She later reappeared and calmly remarked to the crew, “I’m sorry for that little interlude but, as you know, it happens in every marriage.”
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