This article was the top story in the Daily Mail’s royal section and it was being heavily promoted within the celebrity sections for some reason. I mean, it’s not a big mystery why: it involves the Duke and Duchess of Sussex being used as scapegoats because none of the royalists want to talk about the Princess of Wales’s sudden withdrawal from Ascot last week. Sidenote: that’s actually bad news for the Waleses, that Kate had this big storyline and most people just wanted to talk about whether the late Prince Philip hated the Duchess of Sussex. You know they’re desperate when they dust off Philip’s memory too! Previously, we’ve heard that Philip was “reminded” of Wallis Simpson when he met Meghan, and that Philip was “horrified” by Harry and Meghan’s decision to Sussexit. Well, enjoy another piece in “The Mail Remembers” series.
Although marrying into the Royal Family means living a life of privilege, there are also plenty of drawbacks to joining the Firm. No modern royal was more aware of theses sacrifices than Prince Philip. After becoming the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip gave up his birth citizenship, his naval career and even his surname. In many ways he accepted that his life would be spent in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth II. It is therefore unsurprising that Philip would expect a similar level of commitment to the family from others.
According to royal biographer Ingrid Seward, Philip couldn’t understand why Meghan Markle didn’t follow his example when she married Prince Harry in May 2018. Speaking to Sky News in 2020, Seward said: ‘I think he’s very, very disappointed because I think he feels he gave up his naval career in order to stand by the Queen and help the monarchy. And why can’t Meghan just give up her acting career, support her husband and support the monarchy? He just cannot understand why she couldn’t support Harry and help him rather than wanting to have her voice.’
Seward claims that the Duke just wanted to wash his hands of the whole sorry affair. Speaking in 2020 she said: ‘Of course, it irritates him hugely. And when they had the Sandringham Summit, Prince Philip was seen leaving the house very swiftly before they all arrived. He simply doesn’t want to get involved any more.’
Philip’s quiet fury, directed towards Harry and Meghan, came from his sense of duty and because of his own sacrifices. Even before Philip married Elizabeth and became the Duke of Edinburgh, he had to renounce his Greek and Danish citizenship in order to become a naturalised Brit. He also changed his name from Philippos Andreou of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glücksburg to Mountbatten.
Like… why are we still fighting over this stuff at this point? Why are they recycling 2020 quotes? But here goes: Meghan DID give up her acting career, she DID move to the UK to support Harry and the monarchy and she DID give up her voice in an attempt to make her life in the UK work. The monarchy proceeded to steal her passport, attack her, smear her, spread racist lies about her, refuse to give her mental health services and never once stood up to anyone on her behalf. ENOUGH!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- The 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh on 21st Nov 2007 Coverage of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip London, England – 21.11.1947,Image: 329738240, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no
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- The Duke of Ediburgh leaves St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.,Image: 515242207, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Royals walk to Sandringham Church on Christmas Day – l to r Prince William, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Philip, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.,Image: 521056040, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Malcolm Clarke / Avalon
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- Her Majesty The Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, accompanied by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry a and Ms. Meghan Markle, The Duke of York, The Princess Royal, The Countess of Wessex, The Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra will attend the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey on Commonwealth Day. Pic Shows HM The Queen and members of the Royal Family at the service,Image: 533856141, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- The Duchess of Sussex attended the opening of ‘Oceania’ at the Royal Academy of Arts Oceania’ is the first ever major survey of Oceanic art to be held in the United Kingdom. The exhibition will celebrate the art of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, encompassing the vast Pacific region including New Guinea, Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand. ‘Oceania’ will bring together around 200 works from public collections worldwide, spanning over 500 years. The exhibition also marks the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768 ?Äì the same year Captain James Cook set out on his first Endeavour expedition.,Image: 534070736, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Meghan Markle, together with Britain’s Prince Harry, arrives in Birmingham, Britain, March 8, 2018.,Image: 534151080, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II Archive John Shelley Collection Sri Lanka Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,Image: 534805064, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: John Shelley Collection / Avalon
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- Royal Ascot, United Kingdom, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,Image: 536132559, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Sorge / Andreas Bastian (Caro) / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh pictured 1/6/2020 in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle ahead of his 99th birthday on Wednesday. The Queen is wearing an Angela Kelly dress with the Cullinan V diamond brooch. The Duke is wearing a Household Division tie.,Image: 564022507, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: PA ROTA / Avalon
So the old man well known for his insensitive comments alot of which were flat out racist doesn’t understand why the biracial American woman didn’t want to be silenced.. smh
Right? He didn’t exactly give up his voice bc we know some of the racist comments he made in the past. And pretty sure as a male married to the Queen his situation was a little different. I’m sure he felt silenced but he wasn’t really was he. He did interviews saying that it’s a monarchy’s biggest supporters that leads to its downfall.
This is so pathetic. If we’re going to go ahead and be all the way petty, Meghan gave up more. Philip was British,for all intents and purposes. Meghan was from an entirely different continent.
She would have made the same choice, because unlike Sainted Philip, Meghan married for love, not a job. This idiotic comparison needs to die.
Exactly! To some extent he was a product of his time, but as the consort to the head of all the commonwealth countries, who was still a young man during the genocide of millions of Jews, he really should have worked to overcome his white suprematist tendencies.
He was quite mild compared to some of the people George VI had around him. Coco Chanel became a Nazi sympathizer after her affair with the notoriously awful Duke of Westminster who harbored pro-Nazi views and her immersion in his aristocratic clique.
Note: In the article Seward writes about what Prince Philip “thinks.” I doubt very much that he would have talked to her about Meghan.
Philip was poor and an aristocrat without a country. The best thing that ever happened to him was QE2 taking a shine to him. He wasn’t king but damn did he have literally everything jn the world that he ever wanted. Including tons of long ass relationships with carriage racers.
While I’ll take these supposed quotations with the grain of salt, who cares about the things that you gave up? You also received immense privilege in exchange. Wealth, access, power, and protection from the government and media about your various and wise spread peccadilloes. If this was truly the mindset it just goes to show what’s really wrong with that family. Things sucked for me so it’s not fair they don’t suck for you? I gave up stuff for this institution, I don’t like it and think it’s unfair that you chose not to give up your livelihood for ” inclusion” as well?
Negating the fact that Meghan didn’t get 10% of the protection that Philip received, it greatly ignores the difference between being a white male and a black female in treatment. They made fun of him for being poor, they treat her like she doesn’t deserve to exist. It’s not the same.
It’s particularly illuminating that with the exception of the criticisms of Philip’s origins in the family, the male married-ins are treated quite well despite bad behavior (Lord Snowdon, Mike Tindall, etc).
@Crystal, aren’t they also almost all cheaters? Men get away with everything.
Patriarchy, or something…
He had to trade his country of citizenship and change his last name? Who GAF?
This guy was holed up with Penny Knatchbull at Wood Farm ignoring his family for years, I really doubt he cared at all about this and the stories were basically just him shrugging at the time more or less. Didn’t he even request his family not to visit during one of his later illnesses? Anyway I think by this point he’d retired from “family management”.
Deflection time! And typical, they use a dead person again. Surprised they didn’t trot out QE2.
They’re rewriting history again. Philip hated giving up his ‘agency’, his identity, his voice. It’s because of his bitching and moaning that Mountbatten was added to the family name. It’s why he was given the role of organizing QEII coronation (he was eventually sidelined by Churchill). So let’s not allow history to be written here. Philip took a while to accept the role of an emasculated spouse, which is why he wound up rather ‘friendly’ with Penny Knatchbull.
These people should be careful. I don’t think they would want people to start digging through Philip’s closet. Social media is ruthless at times with unearthing and publicizing people’s ‘secrets’. 🤷🏽♀️
If I remember correctly, the first two seasons of The Crown were about Philip having difficulty accepting his role within the family.
That’s why I never got past the first season of The Crown – it was all about Philip whining about how hard it was for him to have to have a wife who was the real breadwinner/had the top job, and essentially being like, “even if you’re the monarch you’re second to me at home bc I’m a MAN!”
Ugh it was intolerable to watch since instead of critiquing his gross misogyny, it felt like the show itself was sympathetic to poor wittle Phillip.
Barf.
I don’t think it was a hardship for Philip to take British citizenship. His family had been exiled from Greece when he was very young and he was pretty much without a permanent home. He did well in the British navy, but he was still a penniless prince without a country. How is it a hardship to give up what you don’t want in favor of something that you do want?
Agreed. Unlike Meghan, he was an orphan who no longer had a home in Greece to return to. He did however bitch and moan about the circumstances of his new life as husband to QEII. Meghan on the other hand, returned to her homeland where she was welcomed by friends and a community with strangers and friends willing to support her and Harry. The biracial American woman and her husband knew her worth and did not submit to a system that sought to devalue and malign her for being different than them.
Thank you. Philip was a prince in his own right, but he was a voiceless exile without a country of his own. Marrying Elizabeth and following behind her was a great opportunity for him. He might have had a good military career, but he wasn’t anything special until he married Elizabeth. Unlike Meghan. Meghan was already something special when she married into this family, and Harry knew it.
But wait, I thought Penny was just his carriage-riding companion who he just happened to live with privately. Please. Phillip was PROTECTED. Meghan was not. End of story.
Yes Penny was the best kept ‘secret’ companion galavanting with Philip on carriage rides in Sandringham to appease his bitching and moaning about the circumstances of his life as Consort to QEII. 🤷🏽♀️
I couldn’t take this seriously as soon as they called Phil a “modern royal.”
Who are they going to dust off next? A whole series of articles on what the queen mother would have thought of it all?
I’m actually surprised that they haven’t started channeling the Queen Mother yet. She was a notoriously rabid racist. Surely the rota will use that toxic deceased royal as a stick to beat Meghan.
Margaret. She’s always the next one they dust off for their, “it was only Meghan who didn’t have the spine to cut it in the monarchy” memory lane. Margaret died a miserable drunk, utterly alone, but sure.
As far as I can tell, Meghan is the only one of these people who has ever known true happiness.
PP was no fan of Charles/Camilla. Both the Queen and Philip understood Charles innately. They endured his tellall doc and book in the 90s (and chronic leaks demanding the Queen abdicate), which were much more scathing than anything Harry has ever said publically. Of all the rota tactics (other than targeting the Sussex children), putting critical words into dead people’s mouths who cannot dispute the reporting is the most dubious. PP would not have dragged his near 97 year old bones to their wedding if he disliked Meghan. The Queen went out of her way to have a couple photo ops with Meghan. Both Harry and Meghan have spoken highly of them both and maintained contact with them after they left the UK in 2020. Neither QE or PP were the royal racists, which says a lot when both Charles and Keener made racially insensitive comments. Willy, Charles, Camilla and Keen are bigly jealous and pathological. The rota need to focus more scorn on them and stop dragging up dead people to badmouth people the left behinds don’t like.
At the end of the day, he was still zooming with Harry, Meghan and Archie. So IF he was big mad, which I’m not sure he even was, he didn’t let it get in the way of still keeping contact with the sussex family. You know what’s weird. We NEVER hear a peep about what Phillip thought of William. Now that would be interesting. Bc in some ways, Phillip could likely foretell what Harry’s life would be like with William at the helm.
Do we know how Henry VIII would have felt about Meghan? It would be as relevant as dusting off Philip’s imagined thoughts about her.
Philip was marrying someone who would be Queen Regnant in 5 years. Meghan was marrying a spare heir who was already being pushed down the line. Huge difference.
Exactly. HARRY was supporting Charles and William, had no power to follow a career of HIS choice, and had no voice of HIS own. And Meghan was expected to be even more subservient and powerless than Harry.
Philip could think what he wanted, but he was born into European aristocracy so marrying the Queen of England was a pinnacle feat for him. Meghan like most middle-class Americans do not dream of marrying royalty, we’re trained to dream of an actual career and hustle to achieve it, and she did and was very successful at it.
This all goes back to this bizarre British idea that anyone else in the world gives a shit about their royals and would do anything to be one of them. They cannot fathom why Meghan would be so ungrateful to reject something that they — and only they — covet.
Right? You ever notice how they never compare Harry and Meghan to other spares but only to monarchs like Elizabeth or David or monarch consorts like Wallace and Philip? Its because crying its your “duty to uphold the monarchy” and you’re “obligated to suffer” about the 6th in line doesn’t have the same impact as pretending a monarch resigned.
Lets be real they should be comparing Harry and Meghan to Elizabeth’s sister and Chuck’s siblings. Lol but if they did it’d be hard not to notice how much more impressive Harry and Meghan are so they’ll keep pretending a future King and his Wife resigned instead of the future king’s brother and sister in law.
Meghan did give up her voice, she just realized that the cost wasn’t worth it and took it back.
I have sympathy for Phillip bc while the majority of his life was enormously privileged, his wife’s early accession to the throne changed the trajectory of both their lives quite a bit. Even if there was no abdication, she still would have been queen but it would have happened 20 years later. And I do think for someone like him always having to walk a step behind his wife grated, especially as a younger man. But that was the tradeoff for the enormous privilege and he decided it was worth it. Meghan decided it was not.
(and lets not forget that Phillip was the head of the family so had a lot more control in many aspects of their lives than Meghan did, and he was also not financially dependent on a selfish and oblivious father.)
Especially as Charles didn’t even want to fund her and told Harry she should go back to acting! I mean, come on.
What is that mushroom cap Kate is wearing on top of her head?
this is the ultimate bad faith argument, because we have no idea what the man thought about any of it. if he thought anything he might contribute would make the melodrama go away, he would have chosen to contribute, but privately. This is the real difference between generations: Brenda and Phil (private eye dubbed them) did not leak. On each other. Or their kids, or their respective paramours, of which there were many in Phil’s case, one suspects. They kept watertight seals. Charles and Diana both leaked like sieves, but their marriage had been a fiasco, and they were fighting out a divorce on a public stage. So you could kind of understand. William and Kate??? What’s their excuse??? They don’t like their BIL / SIL? Hardly cause to lift the lid on family business, which is private. That is the ultimate sin, it’s the aristo omertà. And the unseemly way they went about scapegoating Meghan was grotesque. I’m continually reminded of Van der Leyden’s line in the Age of Innocence: “if a member of a prominent family is backed by that family, that should be the end of it.” That would have been Phil’s line, too. He might not have liked Meghan on a day-to-day frequency, but he would never have leaked about her to the Daily Fail. Egads. That’s just infra dig. I’m betting he and the late Queen both despaired of Charles and William and were putting all their money (literally, dynastically) on George.
Right, and some were putting all their money on William some years ago and look how that turned out. With his parents, I wonder about George…
I agree that the RF was to blame for Meghan’s mental health crisis, but what I don’t understand is why she was then seeking their permission to get treatment? I would never ask my HR department or boss for permission to get treatment. I’d find a trustworthy therapist I clicked with and hope my insurance paid, and if not I’d pay out of pocket. If I needed to be inpatient to save my life, I’d go get it and explain my absence from work on a need to know basis. Why was Harry telling her to jump through flaming hoops instead of just putting her in a Bentley and taking her for help when she was so vulnerable?
It was probably much more complicated than Harry taking her to a doctor in the car. Diana’s “help” when she had bulimia and a difficult pregnancy was for some doctor to be brought in to give her valium.
That’s exactly why they should have been finding treatment for her on their own, and not asking the grey suits to do it.
This is something Meghan explained in detail in the Oprah interview I believe. The courtiers were reluctant to even let her out of the house so to speak because she was “everywhere”, and she spoke of the fact she didn’t have her documents or even keys I believe. Her request wasn’t for generic mental health help but to be hospitalized basically – inpatient treatment in private (that’s how bad it was). That’s what was refused by the palace, which makes sense considering that kind of move would have blown up in the press and they had her documents anyway.
Of course someone can correct me if that isn’t what she said.
It would be easy to assume Harry could have gone over the heads of these men but without the backing of Charles it couldn’t happen. These courtiers have an even older legacy/heritage than some of the royals they serve and even the Queen basically obeyed them. It’s all surreal.
The BRF can’t find treatment on their own. Everything, literally EVERYTHING, has to go through approval processes by a legion of courtiers. Plus the BRF has this “Oh just suck it up” attitude that if you look weak they double their efforts to pick on you. It’s like bullying the runt at grammar school. They’re not like us, they can’t just pick up a phone and call some Harley Street doctor to drop by the castle for a chat.
She was not “asking for permission” to get treatment, she was requesting their assistance in finding a suitable place at which she could get treatment, privately. The HR department instead leaked it to selected royal rota hacks (e.g. Valentine Low), who subsequently ramped up the abuse while boasting that they knew that she was “struggling” (even though they later called her a liar when she tearfully admitted in the SA tour interview that she was not okay). In the meantime, the real powers that be – including some of the royals, presumably – told her that it would not be a good look for the institution. The royals told her that it was an institution matter and the HR woman told her that she was not “staff” so they could not help. She was in distress, asking for help, trying not to burden her husband and being gaslit every step of the way by the very people who were causing her distress.
Instead of repeating tabloid talking points lambasting her and especially Harry “for telling her to jump through flaming hoops”, perhaps you could try actually reading and listening to Harry’s own words about it (his book Spare and several interviews) and listening to Meghan’s own words about it (the Oprah interview)?
The royals are NOT like “ordinary people”, no matter how much they pretend, and no matter how much the rota tell you that they are. You know the saying, “until you have walked a mile in someone’s shoes…?” MOST people will NEVER, EVER experience what Meghan went through, under the circumstances in which she went through them.
I’ll just add that Harry did the ONE thing he could do: he decided to move his family to a whole other country on a whole other continent in the hopes of saving the lives of his wife and child – and STILL, all these years later, they are being attacked, largely because the people who brought his wife to the brink are furious that they did not get to finish the job and that the Sussexes are thriving.
Well, Meghan is a woman and a woman of color, so Philip must have been doubly appalled by her refusal to be a mute mannequin. Actually, that IS Kate’s role, but she just keeps refusing to show up for it.
Ingrid needs to retire–she did this treatment to Diana and now it’s Harry and Meghan’s turn. was more or less rescued by his Uncles, the Mountbatten. They were responsible for his education and Philip had a great career in the Navy which was curtailed when his wife became Queen. I don’t think Phillip was “furious” at Meghan, he was quite ill then and spending time with Penny much of the time in any case. If he had been a few years younger he might have told off his incandescent grandson William and told him to stop interfering in his brother and sister in law’s life. Charles directed his negativity to his parents in that authorized biography something that Ingrid chooses to ignore. Philip and Elizabeth were said to be upset and their other children complained about what Charles told his biographer.
Philip spoke out and called himself a “bloody Amoeba” when there was opposition to the family name to be changed to Windsor-Mountbatten. He was not censored.
Because: White, male.
. I doubt he called Meghan , “Wallis,” He actually had met the real Wallis and Meghan should not be compared with her. Harry did not abdicate nor was every King. Philip might have told William to back off when he started interfering in Harry’s relationship with Meghan.
I’m sure he found the real Wallis distasteful and avoided her like the plague. Harry was close to his grandparents and I’m sure Philip had a soft spot for Meghan’s intelligence, charisma and tenacity. They continued Zooming with him after they decamped to California.
Philip Charles and the queen visited Edward and Wallis and were cordial to them. Wallis was quite sick after Edward died and had dementia
Yeah, Meghan didn’t sell herself out for institutional obedience and allowing herself to be crushed (for dubious ‘honor’ and ‘duty’).
She had more gumption, authenticity, self-worth, self-reliance, dignity, and grace than having to crawl to a bunch of institutionally-wealthy low achievers
I think Philip was very fond of his grandson Harry and probably found him the most compatible. Harry is probably quite like his grandfather. And he would be able to recognize Harry’s hard work and success in his royal work.
FFS the modern day royals really do want history to look back on this moment and remember how obsessed they were with Meghan. They want history to believe, that in his final days on this Earth, nothing meant more to Prince Philip than obsessing over Meghan…but also that she’s irrelevant. Sure Jan!
The stress came from Andrew. But of course no writer wants to talk about that. Andrew was hiding out because the FBI wanted to talk to him.
Pretty rich coming from a man who NEVER gave up his voice. He ridiculed, belittled and made fun of whoever he wanted. As I said, pretty rich.
No lies detected. 😉
I call BS. Prince Philip might have been a prince but it is a well known fact he spent his early years couch surfing and dating glamour girls who wouldn’t marry him because he had no money. He didn’t give up anything to marry the future Queen Elizabeth. Especially when you consider that they had a notoriously open marriage.
Yep. I’m not certain Philip was thrilled to marry Elizabeth in the first place, but “Dickie” Mountbatten basically told him this was his best option since Elizabeth was so set on him, and to take it. Who knows what his future would have been if he hadn’t married Elizabeth? They managed to make their marriage work and he was instrumental in bringing the court somewhat forward, but his situation was not like Meghan’s, pre-marriage.
Clearly a journalist that doesn’t understand research. Meghan did give up her acting career. She wanted to be a full time working royal, but the rest of the family couldn’t cope with her being harder working and better at the job than the future Queen, they weren’t very keen on the 43% either.
It’s news to me that Meghan didn’t give up acting or support Harry in his role. It’s also news to me that Phillip made massive sacrifices when he married in. He was penniless when he married Elizabeth. He died a very wealthy man.
A lot of revisionist history going here. The Royal Family made Meghan give up everything including her name on Archie’s birth certificate.
“Help” the monarchy? These people think like children and write like children, for people with similarly child-like minds.
Dude was married to the queen for 60 years, and doesn’t understand a strong woman? Nonsense. The stuff they make up is farcical.
You know, one of the funniest things in Kitty Kelley’s book about the royals is an anecdote from the early years of the late Queen and Philip’s marriage, when he was complaining to some aristo that Elizabeth would not stop pestering him for sex, she just wanted to jump into his bed, morning, noon, and night, and he was exhausted and feeling like an overused stud horse. I mean…. LOL. The aristo in question was so appalled by his indiscretion, he deputised a Duke of some domain somewhere to give him a dressing-down, one does NOT air one’s laundry like that. So he went on to have any number of flings, but on the down low. But I get the impression that he only had one other serious relationship, which was with Princess Alexandra, daughter of the Duke of Kent, whose wedding to Angus Ogilvy the royals all attended in 1964, the same year, I believe, that Prince Edward was born. See if you can find photos of Philip in the pews at the ceremony: he’s absolutely furious and steaming. Alexandra was the Queen’s cousin, which makes it much better or worse, depending on your standard, for the courtiers, better, because easier to cover up, from the Queen’s perspective, worse, cause she could not avoid her. I’m assuming after ‘64 they had a platonic relationship but a genuine bond. They respected each other. They were fond of each other. The Duchess of Abercorn and Penny Knatchbull were not a threat to the basic equilibrium they maintained.