Happy 73rd Birthday to HRH The Prince of Wales

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Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George; born November 14, 1948), is the heir apparent to the British throne as the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II.

Charles was born in Buckingham Palace on November 14, 1948, during the reign of his maternal grandfather King George VI, as the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was baptised there by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, on December 15, 1948.

The death of his grandfather and the accession of his mother as Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 made Charles the heir apparent. As the monarch’s eldest son, he automatically inherited the titles Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. Charles attended his mother’s coronation at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.

Prince Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester by his mother on July 26, 1958. His investiture was not held until July 1, 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony held at Caernarfon Castle.

The Prince of Wales is both the oldest and the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. He is the oldest Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay. He is also the longest-serving Prince of Wales. He surpassed the record held by Edward VII on September 9, 2017. If he becomes monarch, he will be the oldest person to do so, the current record holder being King William IV, who was 64 when he became king in 1830. Upon the death of his father, Prince Philip, on April 9, 2021, Charles also inherited the title of Duke of Edinburgh.

The Prince of Wales took his seat in the House of Lords in 1970, and he made his maiden speech in June 1974, the first royal to speak from the floor since the future Edward VII in 1884. He spoke again in 1975. Charles began to take on more public duties, founding The Prince’s Trust in 1976, and travelling to the United States in 1981.

He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun schools, both of which his father attended as a child. He later spent a year at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976.

In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer, with whom he had two sons: William and Henry, the current Duke of Cambridge and Duke of Susex respectively.

In 1996, the couple divorced following well-publicised extramarital affairs by both parties. Diana died as the result of a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married his long-term partner Camilla Parker Bowles. Although legally she is the Princess of Wales out of respect for the late Diana, Princess of Wales she is known as the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince of Wales has five grandchildren. The children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. The Children of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are Archie and Lillibet Mountbatten-Windsor.

As the Prince of Wales, Charles undertakes official duties on behalf of the Queen. He founded The Prince’s Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince’s Charities, and is a patron, president, or a member of over 400 other charities and organisations.

As a self-described environmentalist, Charles has spoken publicly about issues such as organic farming and climate change, which has earned him awards and recognition from environmental groups. His support for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, has been the subject of criticism.

His views on the role of architecture in society and the conservation of historic buildings have received significant attention from British architects and design critics. Since 1993, Charles has worked on the creation of Poundbury, an experimental new town based on his architectural tastes. He is also an author or co-author of a number of books.

October 6, 1903: Marriage of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Princess Alice of Battenberg

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Princess Alice of Battenberg ( February 25, 1885 – December 5, 1969) was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria of the UnitedKingdom. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria’s second daughter.

Her father, Prince Louis of Battenberg was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Alice’s mother noticed that she was slow in learning to talk, and became concerned by her indistinct pronunciation. Eventually, she was diagnosed with congenital deafness after her grandmother, Princess Julia of Battenberg, identified the problem and took her to see an ear specialist.

With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German. Educated privately, she studied French, and later, after her engagement, she learned Greek. Her early years were spent in the company of her royal relatives, and she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of the Duke of York (later King George V) and Mary of Teck in 1893. A few weeks before her 16th birthday, she attended the funeral of Queen Victoria in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and shortly afterward she was confirmed in the Anglican faith.

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (January 21, 1882 – December 3, 1944) was a Prince of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of the Hellenes and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the UnitedKingdom. He was a prince of both Denmark and Greece by virtue of his patrilineal descent.

Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark while both were in London for King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902.

They fell in love, and the following year, on October 6, 1903, Andrew married Alice in a civil wedding at Darmstadt. The following day two religious wedding services were performed: one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and another Greek Orthodox service in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe.

The bride and groom were closely related to the ruling houses of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Greece, and their wedding was one of the great gatherings of the descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark held before World War I. Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Children:

1. Margarita 1905 – 1981, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
2. Theodora 1906 – 1939, Margravine of Baden
3. Cecilie 1911 – 1937, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine
4. Sophie 1914 – 2001, Princess of Hesse-Cassel, Princess of Hanover
5. Philip, 1921 – 2021, Duke of Edinburgh

Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine/Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven. Conclusion

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In 1930, her eldest daughter, Alice, suffered a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed as schizophrenic. In the following decade Victoria was largely responsible for her grandson Prince Philip’s education and upbringing during his parents’ separation and his mother’s institutionalisation. Prince Philip recalled, “I liked my grandmother very much and she was always helpful. She was very good with children … she took the practical approach to them. She treated them in the right way—the right combination of the rational and the emotional.”

In 1937, Victoria’s brother, Ernst Ludwig, died and soon afterwards her widowed sister-in-law, nephew, granddaughter and two of her great-grandchildren all died in an air crash at Ostend. Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, had married Victoria’s nephew (Ernst Ludwig’s son), Georg Donatus of Hesse and by Rhine. They and their two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander, were all killed. Cecilie’s youngest child, Johanna, who was not on the plane, was adopted by her uncle Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine but the little girl only survived her parents and older brothers by eighteen months, dying of meningitis in 1939.

Further tragedy soon followed when Victoria’s son, George, died of bone cancer the following year. Her granddaughter, Lady Pamela Hicks, remembered her grandmother’s tears. In World War II Victoria was bombed out of Kensington Palace, and spent some time at Windsor Castle with King George VI. Her surviving son (Louis Mountbatten) and her two grandsons (David Mountbatten and Prince Philip) served in the Royal Navy, while her German relations fought with the opposing forces.

Victoria was present at the christening of her great grandson, the current Prince of Wales.

She spent most of her time reading and worrying about her children; her daughter, Alice, remained in occupied Greece and was unable to communicate with her mother for four years at the height of the war. After the Allied victory, her son, Louis, was made Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. He was offered the post of Viceroy of India, but she was deeply opposed to his accepting, knowing that the position would be dangerous and difficult; he accepted anyway.

She fell ill with bronchitis (she had smoked since the age of sixteen) at Lord Mountbatten’s home at Broadlands, Hampshire, in the summer of 1950. Saying “it is better to die at home”, Victoria moved back to Kensington Palace, where she died on September 24, aged 87. She was buried four days later in the grounds of St. Mildred’s Church, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight.

Legacy

With the help of her lady-in-waiting, Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, Victoria wrote an unpublished memoir, held in the Mountbatten archive at the University of Southampton, which remains an interesting source for royal historians. A selection of Queen Victoria’s letters to Victoria have been published with a commentary by Richard Hough and an introduction by Victoria’s granddaughter, Patricia Mountbatten.

Lord Mountbatten remembered her fondly: “My mother was very quick on the uptake, very talkative, very aggressive and argumentative. With her marvellous brain she sharpened people’s wits.” Her granddaughter thought her “formidable, but never intimidating … a supremely honest woman, full of commonsense and modesty.”

Victoria wrote her own typically forthright epitaph at the end of her life in letters to and conversation with her son: “What will live in history is the good work done by the individual & that has nothing to do with rank or title … I never thought I would be known only as your mother. You’re so well known now and no one knows about me, and I don’t want them to.”

September 3, 1851: Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes. Part I.

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Olga Constantinovna of Russia (September 3, 1851 – June 18, 1926) was queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920. Olga was the Grandmother of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh and the great-great-grandmother of Spains current king, Felipe VI.

Family and early life

Olga was born at Pavlovsk Palace near Saint Petersburg and was the second child and elder daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra, a former princess of Saxe-Altenburg. Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a niece of Emperor Alexander II and first cousin of Emperor Alexander III.

Her childhood was spent at her father’s homes, including Pavlovsk Palace and estates in the Crimea. Her father was a younger brother of Alexander II, and her mother was considered one of the most intelligent and elegant women of the court. Olga was particularly close to her older brother, Nicholas, and was one of the few members of the imperial family to keep in touch with him after he was banished to Tashkent.

Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia had an affair with a notorious American woman Fanny Lear. Due to his affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. He was declared insane and he was banished to Tashkent.

As a child, Olga was described as a simple and chubby little girl with a broad face and big blue eyes. Unlike her younger sister, Vera, she had a calm temperament, but she was also extremely shy. For example, when interrogated by her tutors during lessons, she burst into tears and ran from the classroom.

In 1862, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich was appointed viceroy of Russian Poland by his brother and moved to Warsaw with his wife and children. The stay in Poland proved difficult for the Grand Duke, who was the victim of a nationalist assassination attempt the day after his arrival in the Polish capital. Although Constantine embarked on a program of liberalization and re-instated Polish as an official language, Polish nationalists agitating for reform were not appeased. Finally, an uprising in January 1863 and the radicalization of the separatists pushed the Emperor to recall his brother in August. Olga’s difficult experiences in Poland marked her profoundly.

Engagement and marriage

The 17 year old King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank Olga’s uncle Emperor Aexander II for his support during George’s election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year-old Olga for the first time.

George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander (later Alexander III) the year before. He was determined to find a wife and the idea of an alliance with a Russian grand duchess, born into the Eastern Orthodox Church, appealed to him.

Olga fell in love with George, but she was nevertheless anxious and distraught at the thought of leaving Russia. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia.

For her part, Grand Duchess Alexandra was much more enthusiastic than her husband and, when some members of the imperial family noted the extreme youth of her daughter, she replied that Olga would not always be as young. Eventually, it was decided that Olga and George would marry when she had reached her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, she would continue her schoolwork until her wedding day.

Olga and George married at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867. After five days of festivities, they spent a brief honeymoon at Ropsha, south-west of Saint Petersburg. Over the following twenty years, they had eight children:

Constantine (August 2, 1868 – January 11, 1923), who was born ten months after the marriage of his parents; he married Princess Sophia of Prussia and succeeded his father as king;

George (June 24, 1869 – November 25, 1957), High Commissioner of Crete from 1898 to 1906, married Princess Marie Bonaparte;

Alexandra (August 30, 1870 – September 24, 1891), married Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia; their children included Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, one of the assassins of Grigori Rasputin;

Nicholas (January 22, 1872 – February 8, 1938), married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia;

Marie (March 3, 1876 – December 14, 1940), married firstly Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and secondly Perikles Ioannidis;

Olga (April 7, 1880 – November 2, 1880);

Andrew (February 2, 1882 – December 3, 1944), he married Princess Alice of Battenberg, their children included Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; and

Christopher (August 10, 1888 – January 21, 1940), father of Prince Michael of Greece.

History of Male British Consorts Part XIV

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Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark; June 10, 1921 – April 9, 2021), was a member of the British royal family as the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born on the dining room table in Mon Repos, a villa on the Greek island of Corfu on 10 June 1921, the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. A member of the House of Glücksburg, the ruling house of Denmark, he was a prince of both Greece and Denmark by virtue of his patrilineal descent from King George I of Greece and King Christian IX of Denmark; he was from birth in the line of succession to both thrones.

Philip’s four elder sisters were Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie. He was baptised in the Greek Orthodox rite at St. George’s Church in the Old Fortress in Corfu. His godparents were his grandmother Queen Olga of Greece, his cousin Crown Prince George of Greece, his uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten, and the mayor of Corfu, Alexandros Kokotos

Even though Prince Philip was born in Greece, and into the Greek and Danish royal families, his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany and the UK, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18.

From July 1939, he began corresponding with the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, the daughter and heir of King George VI of the United Kingdom. Prince Philip had first met her in 1934. During the Second World War wherevhe served with distinction in the British Mediterranean and Pacific fleets.

After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth. Before the official announcement of their engagement in July 1947, he abandoned his Greek and Danish titles and styles, became a naturalised British subject, and adopted his maternal grandparents’ surname Mountbatten. Of course none of this was necessary because as a descendant of Electress Sophie of Hanover, Philip already was a British Citizen. It is speculated that this was done to make Philip appear less foreign.

He married Elizabeth on November 20, 1947. Just before the wedding, the King granted Philip the style His Royal Highness and created him Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. Philip left active military service when Elizabeth became queen in 1952, having reached the rank of commander, and was made a British Prince in his own right inn1957.

Philip was introduced to the House of Lords on July 21, 1948, immediately before his uncle Louis Mountbatten, who had been made Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Philip, like his sons Charles and Andrew and other royals (with the exception of the 1st Earl of Snowdon), ceased to be members of the House of Lords following the House of Lords Act 1999. He never spoke in the House. In fact, however, he attended Parliament only when escorting the Queen for the annual State Opening of Parliament, where he walked and sat beside her.

Philip had four children with Elizabeth: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex. Through a British Order in Council issued in 1960, descendants of Philip and Elizabeth not bearing royal styles and titles can use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which has also been used by some members of the royal family who hold titles, such as Anne, Andrew and Edward.

Contrary to rumours over the years, the Queen and Duke were said by insiders to have had a strong relationship throughout their marriage, despite the challenges of Elizabeth’s reign.

After Princess Elizabeth acceded to the throne, the Queen also announced that the Duke was to have “place, pre-eminence and precedence” next to her “on all occasions and in all meetings, except where otherwise provided by Act of Parliament”. This meant the Duke took precedence over his son, the Prince of Wales, except, officially, in the British parliament.

A sports enthusiast, Philip helped develop the equestrian event of carriage driving. He was a patron, president or member of over 780 organisations, and served as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a self-improvement program for young people aged 14 to 24.

The Queen referred to Prince Philip in a speech on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 as her “constant strength and guide” Their marriage was the longest of any British monarch, lasting more than 73 years until Philip’s death in April 2021.

Prince Philip was the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the longest-lived male member of the British royal family. He retired from his royal duties on August 2, 2017, aged 96, having completed 22,219 solo engagements and 5,493 speeches since 1952. Philip died on April 9, 2021, two months before his 100th birthday.

The Life of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh: Part V

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Prince Philip became the oldest-ever male British royal in February 2013, and the third-longest-lived member of the British royal family (following Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) in April 2019. Personally, he was not enthused about living an extremely long life, remarking in a 2000 interview (when he was 79) that he could not “imagine anything worse” and had “no desire whatsoever” to become a centenarian, saying “bits of me are falling off already”.

In 2008, Philip was admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital, London, for a chest infection; he walked into the hospital unaided, recovered quickly, and was discharged three days later. After the Evening Standard reported that Philip had prostate cancer, Buckingham Palace – which usually refuses to comment on health rumours – denied the story and the paper retracted it.

In June 2011, in an interview marking his 90th birthday, he said that he would now slow down and reduce his duties, stating that he had “done [his] bit”. His wife, the Queen, gave him the title Lord High Admiral for his 90th birthday. While staying at Sandringham House, the royal residence in Norfolk, on December 23, 2011, the Duke suffered chest pains and was taken to the cardio-thoracic unit at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, where he underwent successful coronary angioplasty and stenting. He was discharged on December 27.

On June 4, 2012, during the celebrations in honour of his wife’s Diamond Jubilee, Philip was taken from Windsor Castle to King Edward VII’s Hospital suffering from a bladder infection. He was released from hospital on June 9. After a recurrence of infection in August 2012, while staying at Balmoral Castle, he was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for five nights as a precautionary measure. In June 2013, Philip was admitted to the London Clinic for an exploratory operation on his abdomen, spending 11 days in hospital. On May 21, 2014, the Prince appeared in public with a bandage on his right hand after a “minor procedure” was performed in Buckingham Palace the preceding day. In June 2017, he was taken from Windsor to London and admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital after being diagnosed with an infection. He spent two nights in the hospital and was unable to attend the State Opening of Parliament and Royal Ascot.

Retirement

Prince Philip retired from his royal duties on August 2, 2017, meeting Royal Marines in his final solo public engagement, aged 96. Since 1952 he had completed 22,219 solo engagements. Prime Minister Theresa May thanked him for “a remarkable lifetime of service”. On November 0, 2017, he celebrated his 70th wedding anniversary with the Queen, which made her the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary.

On April 3, 2018, Philip was admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital for a planned hip replacement, which took place the next day. This came after the Duke missed the annual Maundy and Easter Sunday services. On April 12, his daughter, Princess Anne, spent about 50 minutes in the hospital and afterwards said her father was “on good form”. He was discharged the following day. On May 19, six weeks later, he attended the wedding of his grandson Prince Harry to Meghan Markle and was able to walk with the Queen unaided. That October, he accompanied the Queen to the wedding of their granddaughter Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank, with The Telegraph reporting that Philip works on a “wake up and see how I feel” basis when deciding whether to attend an event or not.

Philip died on the morning of April 9, 2021 at Windsor Castle, aged 99, two months before his 100th birthday. He was the longest-serving royal consort in British history. In private, the Queen described her husband’s death as “having left a huge void in her life”.

The cause of death has not been disclosed, though the palace said Philip died peacefully. Philip’s daughter-in-law, the Countess of Wessex, confirmed the official statement, describing his death as “…so gentle. It was just like somebody took him by the hand and off he went.” His death led to the commencement of Operation Forth Bridge, the plan for publicly announcing his death and organising his funeral. The funeral is scheduled to take place on April 16, 2021 at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The Life of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh: Part IV

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Commonwealth, Duke of Edinburgh, Patron, Prince Philip, Privy Council of Canada, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Royal Society, Royal Tours, State Dinners, State Opening of Parliament

Duties

As consort to the Queen, Philip supported his wife in her duties as sovereign, accompanying her to ceremonies such as the State Opening of Parliament in various countries, state dinners, and tours abroad. As chairman of the Coronation Commission, he was the first member of the royal family to fly in a helicopter, visiting the troops that were to take part in the ceremony. Philip was not crowned in the service, but knelt before Elizabeth, with her hands enclosing his, and swore to be her “liege man of life and limb”.

In the early 1950s, his sister-in-law, Princess Margaret, considered marrying a divorced older man, Peter Townsend. The press accused Philip of being hostile to the match, to which he replied “I haven’t done anything.” Philip had not interfered, preferring to stay out of other people’s love lives. Eventually, Margaret and Townsend parted. For six months, over 1953–1954, Philip and Elizabeth toured the Commonwealth; as with previous tours the children were left in Britain.

In 1956, the Duke, with Kurt Hahn, founded The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in order to give young people “a sense of responsibility to themselves and their communities”. In the same year, he also established the Commonwealth Study Conferences. From 1956 to 1957, Philip travelled around the world aboard the newly commissioned HMY Britannia, during which he opened the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and visited the Antarctic, becoming the first royal to cross the Antarctic Circle.

The Queen and the children remained in the UK. On the return leg of the journey, Philip’s private secretary, Mike Parker, was sued for divorce by his wife. As with Townsend, the press still portrayed divorce as a scandal, and eventually Parker resigned. He later said that the Duke was very supportive and “the Queen was wonderful throughout. She regarded divorce as a sadness, not a hanging offence.” In a public show of support, the Queen created Parker a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

Further press reports claimed that the Queen and the Duke were drifting apart, which enraged the Duke and dismayed the Queen, who issued a strongly worded denial. On February 22, 1957, she granted her husband the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom by Letters Patent, and it was gazetted that he was to be known as “His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”.

Philip was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada on October 14, 1957, taking his Oath of Allegiance before the Queen in person at her Canadian residence, Rideau Hall. Remarks he made two years later to the Canadian Medical Association on the subject of youth and sport were taken as a suggestion that Canadian children were out of shape. This was at first considered “tactless”, but Philip was later admired for his encouragement of physical fitness.

Philip was patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. His first solo engagement as Duke of Edinburgh was in March 1948, presenting prizes at the boxing finals of the London Federation of Boys’ Clubs at the Royal Albert Hall. He was president of the National Playing Fields Association (now known as Fields in Trust) for 64 years, from 1947 until his grandson Prince William took over the role in 2013.

He was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. In 1952, he became patron of The Industrial Society (since renamed The Work Foundation). Between 1959 and 1965 Prince Philip was the President of BAFTA. He helped found the Australian Conservation Foundation in 1963 and the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and served as the latter’s UK president from 1961 to 1982, international president from 1981, and president emeritus from 1996.

He was also president of the Zoological Society of London for two decades and was appointed an honorary fellow in 1977. Despite his involvement in initiatives for conserving nature, he was also criticised for practices such as fox hunting and shooting of game birds. He was president of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and served as chancellor of the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales.

In 1965, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Philip became chair to a scheme set up for awarding industrial innovations, which later became known as the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. In the same year, Philip became president of the Council of Engineering Institutions and in that capacity he assisted with the inception of the Fellowship of Engineering (later the Royal Academy of Engineering), of which he later became the senior fellow.

He also commissioned the Prince Philip Designers Prize and the Prince Philip Medal to recognise designers and engineers with exceptional contributions. In 2017, the British Heart Foundation thanked Prince Philip for being its patron for 55 years, during which time, in addition to organising fundraisers, he “supported the creation of nine BHF-funded centres of excellence”. He was an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

The History of the Title of Duke of Edinburgh.

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Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Earl of Wessex, Frederik Louis, King George II, King George III, Peerage, Peerage of Great Britain, Prince Alfred, Prince Charles, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Queen Victoria

Duke of Edinburgh: Dukedom in the Peerage of Great Britain and the United Kingdom

The Dukedom of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, is a substantive title that has been created three times for members of the British royal family since 1726. A substantive title is a title of nobility or royalty acquired either by individual grant By the sovereign or inheritance. It is to be distinguished from a title shared among cadets, borne as a courtesy title by a peer’s relatives, or acquired through marriage.

The title of Duke of Edinburgh has been created three times and has been borne by five princes of the Royal Family. The current holder of the title, Duke of Edinburgh, is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales who inherited the title on the death of his father Prince Philip on April 9th 2021.

The title was first created in the Peerage of Great Britain on 26 July 26, 1726 by King George I of Great Britain who bestowed it on his grandson Prince Frederick Louis, the eldest son of the future King George II and his wife Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (from the collateral branch of the Prussian royal House of Hohenzollern)

At the time King George I created Prince Frederick Louis Duke of Edinburgh, Frederick Louis’s parents were the Prince and Princess of Wales. King George I died the very next year and Frederick Louis’s parents became King George II and Queen Caroline and Prince Frederick Louis was created Prince of Wales.

The subsidiary titles of the dukedom were Baron of Snowdon, in the County of Caernarvon, Viscount of Launceston, in the County of Cornwall, Earl of Eltham, in the County of Kent, and Marquess of the Isle of Ely. These titles were also in the Peerage of Great Britain. The marquessate was apparently erroneously gazetted as Marquess of the Isle of Wight although Marquess of the Isle of Ely was the intended title. In later editions of the London Gazette the Duke is referred to as the Marquess of the Isle of Ely.

Upon Frederick Louis’s death in 1751 the title Duke of Edinburgh and it’s subsidiary titles of the dukedom were inherited by his son Prince George. When Prince George became King George III in 1760, the titles “merged into the Crown”, and ceased to exist.

1866 Creation

Queen Victoria re-created the title, this time in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, on May 24, 1866 (her 47th birthday) for her second son Prince Alfred. Creating him Duke of Edinburgh was a departure from the long held tradition of creating the title Duke of York for the second son of the Monarch.

The subsidiary titles of the creation of this dukedom were Earl of Kent and Earl of Ulster, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. When Alfred became the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1893, he retained his British titles. His only son Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, committed suicide in 1899, so the Dukedom of Edinburgh and subsidiary titles became extinct upon the elder Alfred’s death in 1900.

1947 Creation

The title was created for a third time on November 19, 1947 by King George VI, who bestowed it on his son-in-law Philip Mountbatten, when he married his eldest daughter and heir, The Princess Elizabeth. Philip was born a Prince of Greece and Denmark, being a male-line grandson of King George I of the Hellenes and male-line great-grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark).

Subsequently, Princess Elizabeth was styled “HRH The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh” until her accession to the throne in 1952. The subsidiary titles of this creation of the dukedom are Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, of Greenwich in the County of London.

Like the dukedom, these subsidiary titles are also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Earlier that year, Philip had renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles along with his rights to the Greek throne. In 1957, Philip became a Prince of the United Kingdom in his own right.

Upon Philip’s death on April 9, 2021, his eldest son Charles, Prince of Wales, succeeded to all of his hereditary titles. The current heir apparent to the dukedom is Charles’ eldest son Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.

When Prince Charles succeeds to the throne as king this third creation of the title Duke of Edinburgh will merge with the crown and cease to exist. The plan, set forth in 1999, is to create the title for a fourth time for Prince Charles’s youngest brother, Prince Edward the Earl of Wessex.

The Life of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. Part I.

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Born on June 10, 1921 to HRH Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark and HSH Princess Alice of Battenburg. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was a member of the House of House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and a great-great grandson of Britain’s Queen Victoria and great grandson of Denmark’s King Christian IX of Denmark.

Philip’s father was Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark the fourth son of George I of Greece and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, a member of the Romanov dynasty, she was the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich of Russia and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg.

Philip’s mother was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse. Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Despite his Danish and German ancestry the Duke of Edinburgh was very British and lived the overwhelming majority of his life in the United Kingdon. In 1939 he joined the British Navy and on his 90th birthday Her Majesty the Queen awarded her husband with the rank of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom.

Philip was first educated at The Elms, an American school in Paris run by Donald MacJannet, who described Philip as a “know it all smarty person, but always remarkably polite”. In 1928, he was sent to the United Kingdom to attend Cheam School, living with his maternal grandmother, Victoria Mountbatten, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, at Kensington Palace and his uncle, George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, at Lynden Manor in Bray, Berkshire.

In the next three years, his four sisters married German princes and moved to Germany, his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed in an asylum, and his father took up residence in Monte Carlo. Philip had little contact with his mother for the remainder of his childhood.

In 1933, he was sent to Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, which had the “advantage of saving school fees” because it was owned by the family of his brother-in-law, Berthold, Margrave of Baden. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, Salem’s Jewish founder, Kurt Hahn, fled persecution and founded Gordonstoun School in Scotland, to which Philip moved after two terms at Salem.

In 1937, his sister Cecilie, her husband Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, her two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander, her newborn infant, and her mother-in-law, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, were killed in an air crash at Ostend; Philip, then 16 years old, attended the funeral in Darmstadt. Both Cecilie and her husband were members of the Nazi Party. The following year, his uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of bone marrow cancer.

Press Release: Funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh

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