THE PRINCE PHILIP YEARS

At their wedding in 1947, Princess Elizabeth vowed to love, cherish and obey Philip Mountbatten – the Duke of Edinburgh, as he’d become the previous day. The use of the word “obey” by the future monarch raised some eyebrows at the time, though the respective ranks of the couple were spelled out six years later at the Queen’s coronation, when Philip knelt before his wife and swore “to become your liege man of life and limb”. It was, said the Daily Mirror, “one of the ceremony’s most moving moments”.

This action wasn’t entirely unprecedented, but you had to go back to the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702 to find the only other example of a royal husband paying such homage in public. And this time it truly was public. It was estimated that some 20 million people in Britain watched the television coverage of the service (there were only 2 million licences at the time), and that 88 per cent of the nation was watching or listening to the BBC’s broadcasts. At the sight of a man kneeling before his wife, reported one newspaper, “a noticeable stir ran through the congregation”, and there was a similar frisson in households around the country.

It was one of the many ways Prince Philip’s life reflected wider changes that were happening in the 20th century. From changing gender roles to an increasing focus on protecting the environment, huge cultural shifts took place in the Duke of Edinburgh’s lifetime – shifts that he was a part of.

In the case of gender roles, the symbolism of Philip’s deference to the Queen was out of keeping with the times. Women were neither seen nor heard very much in public