PRINCE PHILIP REVEALED
Ingrid Seward
Simon & Schuster
REVIEWED BY CLIVE TROTMAN
Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, author of more than a dozen books about royalty, could hardly be better better placed to write this comprehensive account of Prince Philip’s life so far.
Unsurprisingly the biography is essentially chronological, but the author, having met her subject several times, has been able to enrich the stories with considerable insight into Philip’s mind and manner. He has a practised ability to size up people rapidly and to decide if there is about to be a genuine conversation with him as a person, or merely with his position. His apparent abruptness in sometimes terminating conversations, or avoiding them altogether, can be seen against an obvious obligation to meet as many people as possible at functions, combined with an understandable wariness of the media, especially the more scurrilous end of the spectrum.
The aristocratic circumstances of Philip’s ancestry and upbringing, together with his Royal Navy career, are well enough known. Nevertheless, Seward’s skill elevates factual history into engaging reading. The intricate interweaving of European, Scandinavian and Russian royalty since Victorian times never ceases to intrigue, as does the laughable snobbishness of the time towards interlopers.
For instance, it turns out that the father of both Philip’s mother (Princess Alice of Battenberg) and uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten (the surname anglicised) was Prince Louis of Battenberg, whose father was Prince Alexander of Hess and by Rhine. Now the gossip: in 1851 Prince Alexander had married Julia, a lady in waiting to his sister the Empress of Russia, and Julia was born a commoner (which doubtless worked wonders for the royal gene pool).
An experienced naval officer, Philip was impatient with the archaic workings of the Palace systems and staff, but in the invidious position that they were answerable to the Queen, not to him. His efficiency drives were viewed as meddling with the way it is always been done, but his way usually prevailed.
The more analytical chapters give clear and often fresh insight into Philip’s role, and views, concerning landmark events of the Queen’s reign. The author probes Philip’s involvement from one of the earliest, the machinations leading up to Princess Margaret’s decision not to marry Peter Townsend, through to the decision of the Sussex’s to ‘‘escape from the intrusive European media’’, detailing how Philip was manoeuvred away from the crucial meeting, chaired by the Queen, that settled Harry and Meghan’s departure from the inner circle.
Were the seeds of the Diana tragedy sown because she married ‘‘the prince not the person’’? If, as seems likely, Charles and Diana each had considerable misgivings about the match, did Philip, in supporting it, put his impatience with his son’s dithering, and concern for Diana’s reputation, ahead of the more sober analyses offered by other close confidantes?
Seward explains in depth how, as Diana found her position increasingly untenable, Philip’s initially supportive relationship deteriorated after he suggested she look for her own shortcomings. Philip and Charles, so adept at understanding, ultimately concluded Diana was ‘‘a woman beyond both their understanding’’.
Clive Trotman is a Dunedin scientist and arbitrator
