Britain’s Prince Philip Dies at 99

Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, has died at age 99, Buckingham Palace announced on Friday.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburg,” the Royal Family said. “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

Earlier this year Philip, the longest-serving consort of any British monarch, spent a month in the hospital before being released on March 16.

Before his retirement from his public role in 2017, Philip participated in more than 20,000 royal engagements to bolster British interests at home and abroad. He led hundreds of charities and founded programs that helped British schoolchildren participate in challenging outdoor adventures.

He supported the queen for 65 years and played a large role in raising their four children, including their eldest son, Prince Charles, who is heir to the throne.

Philip was born on June 10, 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu and was a member of both the Greek and Danish royal families, though he was not Greek.

He was the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. His uncle was forced to abdicate the throne when Philip was a baby, with the family fleeing to Paris. Philip was brought along in a crib made from an orange box.

When he was 7 years old he moved to England to live at Kensington Palace with his paternal grandmother, Victoria Mountbatten. At 18 he joined the Royal Navy, graduating from the Britannia Royal Naval College as a top cadet. He served in a number of places, including the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. He was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II in 1945.

He met his future wife in 1934 at a family wedding — the two are both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

They married in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. Philip renounced his Greek royal title and became a British citizen, as well as the Duke of Edinburgh.

Philip was known to occasionally make comments that some criticized as racist and insensitive, including a remark about British students getting “slitty eyes” during a visit to China in the 1980s.

One of his grandsons, Prince William, celebrated his grandfather’s unfiltered way of speaking, saying in 2004 that he “will tell me something I don’t want to hear and doesn’t care if I get upset about it. He knows it is the right thing to say.”

Philip is survived by the queen and their four children — Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward — as well as eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.