Guardian - His life didn’t start too badly, in a lovely house on Corfu. But then Philip’s father, the king’s brother, was sentenced to death. The family managed to get out of that one, and out of the country, to Britain, where they were mistrusted and unwelcome – not for the last time for Philip. France next, where Philip’s mother was packed off to a mental institution, though it’s unclear whether there was really anything wrong with her or whether her husband just wanted her out of the way so he could shack up with his mistress, which he did, in Monte Carlo.
So young Philip, who has already done exile and upheaval, is now effectively an orphan. And it gets worse: he is sent to boarding school, in Scotland, and is now being looked after – managed really – by his uncle Louis Mountbatten, who is ferociously ambitious for him, and wants him married to the girl who is going to be queen.
Others don’t, though. They mistrust and dislike Philip, for not being English (specifically for being German), for not having gone to Eton, for not being one of us. It doesn’t matter that he is in the Royal Navy and on our side in the war; his sisters are mostly married to high-ranking Nazis, so he’s at war with his own family. Even when he does, eventually, get the girl, it doesn’t become much easier for him. He has to give up his career, his name, his balls, and spend the rest of his life sulking around two paces behind his missus, swatting away irritants such as the press, “slitty-eyed” foreigners, women, mosquitoes, etc. No wonder he can be a bit tetchy...
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