Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth II

Philip Eade’s biography of the early life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, treads a careful middle ground. It is authoritative, but isn’t magisterial and academic in scope. By avoiding being syncophantic and including much that would displease the Royal family, this isn’t tabloid fare either. Overall, Eade’s journalistic background shows in careful sourcing and a well-balanced approach. I particularly appreciate that Eade didn’t indulge in the amateurish psychoanalysis which pervades biographical work these days. This highly readable and enjoyable result covers matters from Philip’s family background – none of whom were actually Greek – to Elizabeth II’s coronation.

Eade’s eye for the telling detail brings show more humanity and affecting life to people and times, most often frozen in black and white photographs. (My Early Reviewer Copy indicated that the finalized version would include 8 pages of pictures.) His grandfather’s (George I of Greece, b. 1845) family in Denmark was bumptious and informal, apt to “make funny noises and yell if they saw anyone trying to write a letter.” George I had such a tendency of rocking up onto his toes, that a visitor had to fight the hypnotic temptation to imitate him. At the time George had been invited as monarch, Greece had undergone 42 changes in government in 25 years. Meeting with his cabinet, his watch and inkstand were stolen while his back was turned. Such chaotic politics doomed the efforts of subsequent monarch’s such as Philip’s father, Andrea (or Andrew), to rule effectively. (It also illuminates present era upheavals in Greece!) Andrea had to flee the country to avoid possible execution. His family hastily joined him with a few belongings after burning papers and letters. Toddler Philip slept in a fruit crate as the ship took them to exile in France.

Eade also details Philip’s years at Gordonstoun, where he was a solid student, whose chief faults were intolerance and impatience, but he did not “know what boredom is” when intent on discharging his duties. It was there that his lifelong love affair with the sea and sailing developed. From there, he went on to a decorated career in the Royal Navy during WWII. I was particularly taken with the tale of how he ordered a raft with smoking pots to be set adrift as a decoy, helping his ship to float away and avoid a fatal nighttime air attack. There are touches of humor, too. During the Coronation rehearsal, the Duke of Norfolk cried, “If the bishops don’t learn to walk in step, we’ll be here all night.” Noel Coward identified a tiny Sultan, riding in an open carriage next to the huge Queen of Tonga as “Her Lunch.”

Most moving to me were those glimpses of human emotion behind the Royal masks. George VI’s great love for his daughter is so palpably evident. He was near tears when they signed the marriage register, saying “It is a far more moving thing to give away your daughter than to be married yourself.” Philip’s willing sacrifice to marry Elizabeth, renouncing his titles, religion and even family – his sisters, married to German nobility, were not allowed to attend his wedding. How hurtful, then, that it was decreed that the family would continue to styled the House of Windsor. Philip noted that he was only man in England who couldn’t pass his own name onto his children. While I would have appreciated more explication placing Philip’s early life into context with what occurred later, this detracted little from the book. show less

An enjoyable easy read biography of an interesting man. Eade seems to take a neutral view on his life with a fairly balanced account. I cannot imagine any of the royals are thrilled to be written about but being in the public domain as they are all is fair.

Focused primarily his early life up to the early married life to the Queen, Eade shows how this man of royal birth weathered a very turbulent upbringing being passed off from one relative to the other in the absence of his recovering mother and his unattached father. Through it all he seems to hold up quite well primarily through the close guidance of his devoted uncle, Dickie Mountbatten.

The sometimes awkward melding into the Royal Family of England took some maneuvering as there was show more certainly opposition from many quarters. It is clear though Queen Elizabeth had her sights set on him from an early age.

Despite some of his shortcomings such as his noted prickliness and resentment of forgoing his Naval career manages to perform well enough in his duties to the Crown. His much rumored dalliances outside of the marriage are glossed over leaving it up to deduction that in the day and age of this society it is fairly common. Ultimately is suggested that the Queen benefited most from having this man at her side and he brought quite a bit out of the shell to take on the many demands of her position. Sadly we in the news we here increasingly of his failing health, but in his early 90's now he can look back to having measured up quite well. show less

What most of know about Prince Philip comes from the movie "The Queen" and from the offensive, absurd, and/or silly soundbites we get to hear on the news. He's a bit of a PR nightmare. All of this paints a picture of him as curmudgeonly and not very bright. Because the royals are notoriously private, it should come as no surprise that the public has a very unbalanced view of Prince Philip. Eade's book is in large part an attempt to redress this imbalance. Even though this is a largely sympathetic view of Prince Philip, one can imagine that he would still be embarrassed to see the details of his early life in print like this. Nevertheless, kudos to Eade for attempting to offer a different view of a member of this very private family. show more It's a well-written account that is, thankfully, not overly dependent on gossip and the scant information that is already public knowledge. show less

Where goes Queen Elizabeth II, so goes Prince Philip, the love of her life and her husband for more than sixty years. This excellent biography of the young Philip--from his birth in 1921 until his wife's coronation in 1952--chronicles his formative years. It lends insight into how he has supported and influenced the Queen, not just by participating in public duties but also by sparking her self-confidence and helping her to achieve her full potential. He also applied intelligence and wit to the broader sphere of British life; some observers credit him with, for example, helping the British people to view themselves as modern and innovative.

When Philip was about ten years old, his family dispersed; his mother had a breakdown and left for show more the sanitarium, his four older sisters married and left for new homes in Germany, and his father just plain left. He attended boarding school and spent holidays shuttling among various members of his extended family, knowing no real family life until he married, and cultivating an ability to relate to others. Perhaps this extraordinary youth prepared him for a marriage that required exceptional sacrifice, most notably his promising naval career and his surname. Through it all, he has displayed an admirable devotion to Queen and country, and an amazing adaptability.

Philip Eade's outstanding biography is respectful, unsensational, and sympathetic without sacrificing objectivity. It is engagingly written and will appeal to readers who enjoy learning about the lives of others. For royal-watchers, it is a must. Highly recommended. show less

Not a great deal to say about this one. I've always found the royal family entertaining, and Philip is one of its most interesting members. This gives the reader a fine overview of his family life before his marriage to the future queen. I've read several biographies of Elizabeth, so I knew the basic details of Philip's life, but I didn't really know what a scattered and insecure life the young prince led. After reading Eade's book, I think I have a much deeper understanding of how Philip's character and personality were shaped -- how Philip got to be Philip. Although I'm not sure I'd recommend the book to everyone, I found it very enjoyable.

Philip Eade’s book Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth II is a fascinating account of the life of the man who gave up a promising and exciting military career in the British Navy to stand in the shadows behind one of the most famous women on earth, and to be relegated to walking 6 paces behind for the rest of his life.

If you were to cast actors to play the various parts of the people who filled Prince Philip’s life and then show the story on daytime American TV, no one would believe it wasn’t made-up. From his earliest days when his family was ousted from their royal seat as monarchs of Greece, to his mother’s total deafness and then her hospitalization in an asylum for a “nervous show more breakdown”, to his philandering father who abandoned his family and lived the high life in southern France and Monaco with various mistresses, and the deaths of his sister, her husband and children in a plane wreck, the marriage of two of his other sisters to Nazis (one of them in the SS), Philip’s education in Germany at a school that became increasingly pro-Hitler, to his having nowhere to call home until he married Princess Elizabeth, the heir to the English throne. Sounds like very creative soap opera material to me. But all of that disordered life helped form the strong and charming character of Philip Of Greece, otherwise known as Philip Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh and finally Prince Philip.

Philip is a complex man as is described in this statement “But as well as the quarrels [with Queen Elizabeth], there always seemed to be plenty of laughter, and, although some thought Philip something of a ‘cold fish’, others witnessed a great deal of sensitivity an tenderness.

I was grateful that the four pages of the genealogy of Philip’s and Elizabeth’s families were included in the book and I often referred to them as the story unfolded. American readers may still be confused by the titles which change as people die and others get married. There are also many other references to things unknown. For instance, on page 281, the author remarks that Philip “often attended dinners alone and gave speeches while she [Elizabeth] remained behind to work on her boxes or watch television or do the crossword”. Boxes? Is that an arts and crafts project or a reference to diplomatic documents?

Sometimes the book seems to be a collection of facts, all of which needed to be stuffed somewhere. At times, the sentences don’t hang together, with phrases inserted merely, it seems, because they existed on a note card having been jotted there during the research phase of the writing of the biography. But on the whole, the account is thorough and captivating, and I feel like I know what made Prince Philip who he is. show less

As a fervent royalty I was delighted to receive this new biography of Prince Phillip in his younger years as part of the Early Reviewers. Biographer Phillip Eade is clearly fond of his subject, but not to the point of fawning, and handle's Phillip/s early life with an even handiness not usually found in royal biographies.

The prince's family and early childhood can only be called dysfunctional. The Greek royal family that he was born into had never really been regarded as either legitimate or what we would call today "A-List Royalty." And Phillip was born the King's youngest and most rackety son, Andrea (known in England as Andrew). Through his mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg (now Mountbatten) he was also related to the English show more royal family. In fact, thank God or the two sets of family trees at the beginning of the book as it's hard to keep all the various relationships straight - and EVERYONE seems to be somehow related.

Exiled from Greece in one of the many political upheavals in that country (some things never seem to change in Greece) Phillip and his family go to live in Paris, sponging off relatives.The family home there, however doesn't last for long as Prince Andrea leaves his wife and the family home is broken up as Princess Alice suffers a total breakdown as a result and is institutionalized. Phillip's older sisters quickly marry (unfortunately to Germans who will all embrace the Nazi cause) but the much younger Phillip is shuttled from one set of his mother's relatives to another. Today his sad upbringing would be a cause to report the whole family to CPS for child abuse.

Phillip, however, was (and is) a survivor. He finds his feet at Gordonstoun, the spartan school in Scotland where his own son was to be so famously unhappy. He then, with his Uncle Dickie Mountbatten's help went on to forge a promising career in the Navy.

Handsome and charming, if a bit blunt spoken, Phillip meets his younger cousin Princess Elizabeth while he was at Naval college and she was only 13. She was clearly smitten with him on sight, and although he had several other romances, his Uncle Dickie, always a man with high dynastic ambitions clearly nudged the relationship forward - sometimes in ways way to obvious.

The treatment of the prince by Buckingham Palace's courtiers (the old gray men as Princess Diana called them) is reminiscent of the complaints of his son's wives as they entered palace life. It must be simply awful to marry into that family and have to endure the stultifying traditions that go along with it. But endure he did for more than 60 years.

As Queen Elizabeth prepares to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee next year, it's instructive to read about the man who has been at her side for all these years and to, perhaps get a fuller appreciation of the role he has played in her reign. show less