EDITORIAL: A familiar figure around the world as the longest serving royal consort to the longest serving monarch in British history, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who passed away at the age of 99, short of just two months of his 100th birth anniversary, had a life well lived. A former prince of Greece and Denmark he met his future wife at a wedding in 1934. Five years later as a dashing naval cadet he attracted the attention of the then 13-year-old princess Elizabeth when she visited a naval facility along with her parents. They wedded in November 1947. After Elizabeth II ascended the throne on the sudden demise of her father in ’52, he stayed in her shadow, always walking a step behind her at ceremonial events. According to friends, as the Queen’s closest confidante he brought wit, inpatient intelligence and unflagging energy to the monarchy. In a rare public expression of love for her husband on their 50th wedding anniversary, the Queen said: “he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years,” adding that “I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know.”
However, Prince Philip, a product of an age of deference to monarchy, was believed to be hindering the monarchy from adapting to modern times. As royal consort he did not have a well-defined role though he was associated with some 800 charities. He had an abrasive style that sometimes caused embarrassment to his wife and the country, like when he made the “slitty eyes” comment during a visit to China and some similar racial remarks about certain other people. Prince Philip was the royal family’s most controversial figure until his children grew up and became the staple of tabloid gossip. He attracted a lot of criticism when during a 1961 visit to India he shot an eight-foot tiger, and the same year became president of the World Wildlife Fund, the UK, going on to head the World Wildlife Fund for Nature for 20 years. Even so, he continued to support fox hunting and bird shooting for which he earned the ire of nature conservationists. Unruffled by strident censure he told an interviewer, “I think that there’s a difference between being concerned for the conversation of nature and being a bunny-hugger.” As for his legacy, when preparing for retirement from active public life he was asked whether he felt he had been a success in his role, his unsurprising answer was that “I couldn’t care less, who cares what I think about it.”
Many in the world needed to care because of his status. Past and present monarchs, heads of state and government have paid the departed prince tributes, though mostly by way of a ritual obligation. US President Joe Biden described him as “a heck of a guy” whose lifetime service to the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth was visible to everybody for a long. The more genuine seemed to be the 78-year-old president’s comment that “ninety-nine years old, he never slowed down at all. Which I admire the devil out of.” In his condolence message, Prime Minister Imran Khan said Prince Philip had been a “wise leader” and his “role in promoting Pakistan-UK relations will be always remembered.” The most fitting tribute came from former US president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama in these words, “he showed the world what it meant to be a supportive husband to a powerful woman.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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