For 70-plus years, the Duke of Edinburgh went against his instincts and stood in the Queen’s shadow
Whatever your thoughts on Prince Philip, it can’t have been easy trudging in the Queen’s shadow all those years. A few careful steps behind, but a galaxy away in status. He famously erupted (“I am nothing but an amoeba”) when at first he couldn’t give his children his own surname. For a man of that generation and temperament, you can see how it must have been frustrating, even maddening. You can understand how sometimes he may have felt emasculated by his secondary supportive role.
Despite everything – despite himself – perhaps we could cast Philip as an early prototype of the “new man”. His great achievement was that, all things considered, he bore it well. And while occasionally he lost it, he could have lost it more often.
