--- title: How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband description: Prince Philip's unusual background allowed him to help his Queen and wife become the monarch who defined a new era for her nation. canonical: https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-09T12:26:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:52.783Z article:section: History og:title: How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband og:description: Prince Philip's unusual background helped his Queen and wife become the monarch who defined a new era og:url: https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc93d41a7fd34d447/698a175386f68ec3e16efbd3/princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband twitter:description: Prince Philip's unusual background helped his Queen and wife become the monarch who defined a new era twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc93d41a7fd34d447/698a175386f68ec3e16efbd3/princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 9, 2021 12:26 PM UTC  Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten on the occasion of their engagement at Buckingham Palace in London. Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten on the occasion of their engagement at Buckingham Palace in London.Fox Photos/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 9, 2021 12:26 PM UTC [Prince Philip](https://time.com/5054229/the-crown-season-2-prince-philip/), who [died Friday at the age of 99](https://time.com/4766497/prince-philip-dies/), fulfilled his royal duties [alongside his wife](https://time.com/4555148/queen-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage-crown-netflix/), [Queen Elizabeth II](https://time.com/tag/queen-elizabeth-ii/), over the course of seven decades. During that time he redefined the strange role to which he had not been born but for which, it sometimes seemed, he was just the right fit. He was not the first Queen’s Consort in British history—[Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert](https://time.com/5495141/lucy-worsley-historian-interview-queen-victoria/) will likely remain the most famous for centuries to come, thanks for example to the [museum](https://www.vam.ac.uk/) that jointly bears their names. But, in a century in which the [British monarchy](https://time.com/5282035/abolish-britain-monarchy-republic/) faced a modernity that did not always accord easily with its traditions, he helped his Queen and wife become the monarch who defined a new era for her nation.  Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Balmoral, Scotland, 1972. Fox Photos/Getty Images Much of the credit for that role, TIME posited in a 1957 cover story about the First Gentleman of the Realm (one of his several titles), could go to Philip’s unusual background for someone in his position. Though not Greek by lineage or upbringing, he was the only son of the brother of the King of Greece, a descendant of the Danish royal house and, more distantly, of Queen Victoria. Brought up in Paris and at English schools, he was “a relatively impoverished princeling,” as TIME put it, “\[and\] was reared like a commoner, has washed dishes, fired boilers, even played on a skittles team organized by the owner of a local pub.” (His outside-the-palace-walls youth would perhaps be reflected in later years, in what TIME once [noted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1965-07-16/page/38/) was a common occurrence he referred to as ” dontopedalogy—opening his mouth and putting his foot in it.”) But it was only after he entered the Royal Naval College that his destiny became clear. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](https://pages.email.time.com/newsletters/?source=article-history)  TIME reported what happened next, in that[ 1957 cover story](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-10-21/page/32/): --- > “” --- **_Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Queen’s Husband](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-10-21/page/1/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/"},"headline":"How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband","datePublished":"2021-04-09T12:26:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:52.783Z","description":"Philip's unusual background allowed him to help his Queen and wife become the monarch who defined a new era for her nation","url":"https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/","keywords":["remembrance","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc93d41a7fd34d447/698a175386f68ec3e16efbd3/princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc93d41a7fd34d447/698a175386f68ec3e16efbd3/princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"princess-elizabeth-prince-philip-marriage","caption":"Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, on the occasion of their engagement at Buckingham Palace in London.","creditText":"Fox Photos/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/remembrance/","name":"remembrance"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4768147/prince-philip-queen-unlikely-husband/","name":"How Prince Philip Became Queen Elizabeth's Unlikely Husband"}}]}] ```