What Prince Philip gave up for Queen Elizabeth II’s love

Prince Philip, who was 99 years old, has died.

He was the Queen's longest-serving consort, having devoted more than half a century to support her.

In 1939, when Philip was 18 years old and began writing to his 13-year-old second cousin once removed, Princess Elizabeth, he had no idea what he might have to give up for a life of service.

Philip was born into the royal families of Greece and Denmark and attended Gordonstoun School in Scotland and the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.

He enlisted in the British Royal Navy at the age of 18 in 1939 and served in the Mediterranean and Pacific fleets during WWII.

When King George VI gave Philip permission to marry Elizabeth, he made his first sacrifice.

Philip Renounced His Title

Philip, who was born in 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu and remained there until the age of 18 months, committed significant compromises in order to marry Princess Elizabeth in 1947.

To gain British citizenship, he had to give up his titles of Prince of Greece and Denmark, and in exchange, he became Duke of Edinburgh shortly before his marriage, and Prince of the United Kingdom in 1957.

When his wife was crowned queen after her father, King George VI, died in 1952, Philip had to leave active duty as a naval officer. He was forced to switch from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and he officially stopped smoking shortly before the wedding to impress his bride.

Philip gave up his Greek and Danish royal titles as a part of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksberg and took the surname Mountbatten before the formal declaration of their engagement in July 1947.

Retired from the Navy

When his wife became Queen Elizabeth II, Philip was compelled to give up his naval career. Instead, he focused his efforts on assisting her. He accompanied her across the world and assumed control of the royal estates.

He did, though, find his own causes to champion, such as establishing a non-competitive activity initiative that helps young people to appreciate their own talents. He was a painter, a collector of decorative art, and a fan of industrial design. “The arts world thinks of me as an uncultured, polo-playing clot, ” he once said.

Because of George VI's premature demise in 1952, Elizabeth became queen, pushing her spouse to make yet another sacrifice earlier than any of them should have expected.

As Elizabeth became Queen, Philip retired from active military service at the rank of Commander, ultimately foregoing a promising naval career that might have led to the position of First Sea Lord.

Some suspect that he had hoped to invest more time in the service before fitting in at the Queen's side and being “the world's most experienced plaque unveiler,” as he put it.