What would Prince Philip make of what’s happening in the world right now?
What would Prince Philip make of what’s happening in the world right now? I am presuming to give an answer because I was the chairman of one of his favourite charities – the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) – and spent time with him on and off over forty years. I wrote about his life and views, sometimes with his encouragement, occasionally not. I think I got to know the way his mind ticked.
He was an avid student of military history. He would have followed the horrors of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in close detail. His Greek grandfather was assassinated in 1913; he was a cousin of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, murdered with his family in 1918; it was the turbulence of Balkan politics that drove his own family into exile in France when he was a baby. He was familiar with the reality of war at a personal level. In the 1930s his sisters were married to Germans, which was why they could not be invited to his wedding to Princess Elizabeth in 1947. One of his brothers-in-law was still undergoing the denazification process at the time. During the Second World War he served with distinction in the Royal Navy. In 1941 as a midshipman on board HMS Valiant, manning a searchlight under enemy fire, he was mentioned in despatches during the battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean Sea. The action culminated in the early hours of 29 March 1941. Though no one has said so, I imagine that is why the Queen has chosen 29 March as the date for Prince Philip’s memorial service. She always knew her husband was a hero.
One of his personal heroes (he would have called her a heroine) was his great-aunt Grand Duchess Ella who, before she was murdered by the Bolsheviks, established a convent of nursing sisters in Russia. She is now recognised as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church and is one of the ten twentieth century martyrs whose carved effigies above the Great Door of Westminster Abbey were dedicated in the presence of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1998. Prince Philip told me how Ella had inspired his own mother to found an order of nursing sisters and taught him the value of what he called ‘using faith to a purpose’. He talked knowledgeably of Russia and her history. Over the years he met a number of Soviet leaders (Kruschev and Bulganin in 1956; President Podgorny in 1973) and was intrigued by the respect they evinced for some of their Tsarist predecessors and their ability to hold the vast and unwieldy Russian empire together. In 1973, as president of the International Equestrian Federation, and piloting his own plane, Prince Philip became the first senior member of the Royal family to visit the Soviet Union, flying to Moscow and then on to Kiev to attend the European Horse Trials in which his daughter, Princess Anne, was competing. In 1994, he joined the Queen on a state visit to Russia and one of their hosts in St Petersburg was the deputy-mayor, a forty-one-year-old Vladimir Putin.
Prince Philip would have been fascinated by the character of Putin and would have followed the detail of his military strategy in Ukraine. I think he would have agreed with Lord Dannatt, the former chief of the General Staff whom he knew and respected, that one of the key reasons the Russian invasion has faltered is the apparent lack within the Russian army of a strong non-commissioned corps, the corporals and sergeants who provide the low-level leadership that is, in Dannatt’s phrase, ‘the backbone of successful armies’. Having seen him with them on many occasions, I can tell you Prince Philip always appeared to have more time for – and greater rapport with – the young recruits and the NCOs than he did with the senior officers.
Inevitably, Prince Philip reflected the values and attitudes of his generation. He once showed me a quotation by Napoleon: ‘If you want to understand a man you should understand what the world was like in the year that man turned twenty-one.’ Prince Philip turned 21 in 1941. He saw the value of a stiff-upper-lip and the dangers of too much introspection. Cancel culture would have depressed him. He believed in debate and disagreement. ‘Why should everyone agree about everything?’ he asked. ‘There are several sides to most arguments.’ Wokery would not have appealed to him, but he accepted the usefulness of some elements of political correctness. More than once I saw him rebuke people who were guilty of using outdated sexist and homophobic turns of phrase. He was intolerant of intolerance and always open to change.
He would have warmly saluted the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their recent Caribbean tour and not been remotely concerned about Jamaica’s desire to follow Barbados and become a republic. He would have seen it as only natural. ‘Everything evolves,’ he often said, ‘nothing is immutable.’ And that includes the Commonwealth. Famously, on a visit to Canada, many years ago, he said, ‘We don't come here for our health; we can think of other ways of spending our time.’ If people in an overseas territory felt the monarchy was what they wanted and could serve some useful purpose, then well and good, but if not, as he put it, ‘Let’s do things differently and make the separation amicable.’
I know he liked the personal style of William and Catherine, because he told me so. In 2013 when, after sixty-six years in post, he stepped down as President of NPFA, Prince Philip chose Prince William to succeed him and was delighted by how effortlessly his grandson slipped into the role. When Catherine came along as a potential bride for his grandson, the Duke of Edinburgh was, he told me, ‘relieved to find her such a level-headed girl’. He knew from his own experience that her life in the royal spotlight wasn’t going to be easy. ‘If you believe the attention is for you personally,’ he warned, ‘you’re going to end up in trouble. The attention is for your role, what you do, what you’re supporting. It isn’t for you as an individual. You are not a celebrity. You are representing the Royal Family. That’s all. Don’t look at the camera. The Queen never looks at the camera. Never. Look at who you’re talking to. Look at what you’ve come to see.’ I have been on walkabout with the Duchess of Cambridge. She never looks at the camera.
I know, too, how much he admired Prince Harry. I think he would have been saddened to know that Prince Harry had decided not to come to the memorial service. Prince Philip’s attitude would have been, ‘Bugger the security arrangements.’ He would have just got on a plane and come. (Perhaps, at the last minute, Harry will.) He accepted the Sussexes’ decision to live abroad with regret, but often repeated the line ‘We are a family’, meaning that every family has its ups and downs and occasional disagreements. He believed in letting people live their own lives in their own way. But he would certainly have advised the Sussexes against too much litigation (‘It’s costly and usually just gives additional airing to whatever you are complaining about in the first place’) and too much talking about yourself in public. ‘It’s a hostage to fortune and no one is interested in the long run.’
He wouldn’t be drawn on the prospects for the royal family in the long run. ‘All I’ll say is I’ve done my best to help while I’ve been here.’ At the Abbey today hundreds of organisations he helped create or develop will be on parade. They are part of his legacy. But his principal role was as the Queen’s consort and for more than seventy years he delivered the goods in full measure. He pursued his own causes and had his own passions and enthusiasms, but from start to finish his priority was to serve the Queen – always one step behind, never upstaging, never getting in the way. I reckon perhaps his greatest legacy will prove to be being the role model for future consorts. I had lunch with him in the week Camilla and Charles got married. ‘I like her very much,’ he said – and he didn’t often offer verdicts on individuals. The Duchess of Cornwall has acknowledged her indebtedness to her father-in-law’s example – and I am sure that’s why the Queen used her Platinum Jubilee message in February to ensure her daughter-in-law’s status as Queen Consort in the fulness of time. If you’re destined to be married to the sovereign, ‘Doing it Philip’s way’ is not a bad recipe for success.
+ Philip The Final Portrait by Gyles Brandreth is published by Coronet