Home » Philip, the life of the prince in four weddings and two funerals

Philip, the life of the prince in four weddings and two funerals

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LONDON – Four weddings and two funerals: the almost one hundred years of Prince Philip’s long life can also be summed up in this way. Everything else mattered less, they were just hands to shake, ribbons to cut, ceremonies to participate in, or it happened before he became the queen’s husband, therefore out of the spotlight, like military service in the Navy during World War II. To understand who the Duke of Edinburgh was, and the affection or at least the interest of many even outside England towards him, after all, six moments are enough: four happy, at least temporarily, two fatal.

The first is his wedding with Elizabeth, on November 20, 1947. “Am I crazy or am I brave?”, He confides to a friend about a decision that forces him to change his name, religion, nationality and to remain one step behind his wife forever. not quite in keeping with its exuberant and adventurous character. Not to mention the renunciation of other conquests: he has always liked women. For seventy-four years, sixty-nine of which with Lilibet – as he called her – on the throne, he is an impeccable husband and companion: “My rock”, the sovereign defines him. Faithful and deferential, without losing the image of an alpha male.

The second event is the wedding between Charles and Diana, on July 29, 1981. Renamed “the wedding of the century”, televised worldwide from St. Paul’s Cathedral, but already marked by bad omens. Of the four children, the eldest son is the one with whom Filippo has less harmony: “Carlo is a romantic”, he says with a touch of contempt, “I’m a pragmatist”. Instead, he develops an important relationship with Lady D. He writes her confidential letters, signing “pà”. In one of these, after the divorce, he confesses: “I can’t understand how a man can leave you to fall in love with Camilla”. A severe, old-fashioned father with his own offspring, with the exception of Anna, a favorite not because she is female but because she is the only one with her own combative and irreverent character. An affectionate father-in-law, especially with his daughters-in-law (except Sarah Ferguson, Andrea’s wife, who he couldn’t stand).

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At Diana’s funeral in 1997 (afp)

Then there is Diana’s funeral, on 6 September 1997, two thousand people in Westminster Abbey, where the coffin arrives after a procession from Kensington Palace. At the royal palace there is intense discussion as to whether William and Harry, at the time of 15 and 12 years, should also follow their mother’s coffin through the streets of London. His father Carlo, who fears being ruined forever by the tragic end of his ex-wife, is afraid that the two boys will not be able to hold back the tears. The queen herself is uncertain. Philip decides: “I’ll go with them”. In the row of five behind the wagon with Lady D’s remains, in the middle is the Earl of Spencer, Diana’s brother, separating William and Harry. Carlo, on one side, next to Harry, looks embarrassed. Philip, on the other side, next to William who will one day be king, is the anchor that holds everyone firm and united.

Years go by, even decades. On April 29, 2011, in the same abbey where he said goodbye to his mother, William marries Kate Middleton. Arriving in a carriage with the queen, in military uniform, Philip greets the radiant crowd. She is already 89, but still looks in great shape. Seven years later, on May 19, 2018, for Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle, he is already in his nineties: this time in plain clothes, a tailcoat worn with the style that made him be awarded the title of most elegant man in all England. He laughs with Harry, he seems enchanted by Meghan’s beauty, he is the only one who turns around in the church to look curiously at the somewhat incandescent homily of the black American preacher chosen by the newlyweds. Always him, in both weddings: candid, spontaneous, incorrigible. Now patriarch of a brood of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, mischievous grandfather and great-grandfather for the whole nation.

At Harry and Meghan’s wedding

He could not know the date of his own funeral, but he knew it would arrive and had prepared it in every detail: from the Land Rover he himself modified for the last trip to the Navy march for the last farewell. Although he was immersed in it for almost his entire life, he did not like pomp and did not want it for his funeral: “No fuss”, no frills, without making a fuss, was his favorite expression. Another of his contradictions: but it is precisely these that have made him human and popular, in spite of the gaffes. The alpha man is always one step behind the sovereign, a feminist in his own way. The strict father and affectionate father-in-law. The expatriate and cosmopolitan par excellence, the Greek-Danish who had to change his identity to adapt to his new nation, who has become a symbol of English patriotism. The ex-military without frills, however, surrounded by pages and footmen. As revealed by the four weddings and the two funerals of the prince that lasted a century.

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