Queen Elizabeth II spent her complete 70-year reign on the helm of Britain's royal household along with her long-time love Prince Philip by her facet. Their story started once they had been simply youngsters and lasted till April 9, 2021, the day Philip died.
This is a glance again on the couple's outstanding royal love story.
First assembly
The primary time Elizabeth and Philip crossed paths was on the 1934 wedding ceremony of Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark and Prince George, Duke of Kent. Philip was 13 and Elizabeth was simply eight years previous. At that time, she was not in line to ever inherit the throne. She solely turned the inheritor on the age of 10, when her uncle Edward VIII, who would have been king, abdicated to pursue his personal love story.
The 2 younger royals had been third-cousins, via their relations to Queen Victoria.
They met once more in 1939 — this time when Philip, then 18 and a Navy officer cadet, helped escort a 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth round Dartmouth's Royal Navy Faculty, in keeping with writer and historian Tina Brown. It was at this assembly, Brown mentioned, the place their love story actually started.
Following that encounter, Elizabeth advised her father King George VI that Philip was, "the one man I may ever love," in keeping with The New York Instances.
A royal wedding ceremony
The couple was engaged simply eight years later, with an official announcement made on July 9, 1947, in keeping with the royal household's web site. Based on Brown, he proposed to her at Balmoral Citadel — the identical royal property in Scotland the place the queen died on Thursday. The ring included diamonds from a tiara that belonged to his mom.
The royal household was unsure of their match initially, Brown mentioned, as Philip, born in Greece, had what the household has described as a "turbulent" childhood. He and his mother and father — Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg — had been exiled when Andrew was accused of treason. Philip was simply 18 months previous when his household left Greece.
However the royal household clearly got here round, as a result of simply 4 months later, a royal wedding ceremony was held on November 20, 1947, at London's Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth was the tenth member of the royal household to be wed on the iconic church, though hers would make historical past as the primary to ever be televised.
It was a spectacle for a brand new, international viewers.
Elizabeth's gown was designed particularly for the event, however due to ongoing World Battle II rationing measures, she had to make use of clothes ration coupons to pay for it. The satin gown was embroidered in crystals and 10,000 pearls imported from the U.S. and had a 15-foot silk tulle practice.
The extravagant wedding ceremony additionally noticed a nine-foot-high cake, 2,500 presents — together with one from India's paragon of democracy and peaceable protest Mahatma Gandhi.
Instantly after the ceremony, then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, now the Duke of Edinburgh, went to Buckingham Palace, the place they stood on the balcony to wave to hundreds of people that had crowded the realm to have a good time the official begin of their life collectively.
The couple then set off for a honeymoon in Hampshire, England, and on the Balmoral property, all alongside Elizabeth's beloved corgi, Susan.
Household issues
It wasn't lengthy earlier than Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip assured new successors within the royal line.
In November 1948, simply days earlier than their first anniversary, Elizabeth gave start to her first son Charles.
Charles went on to famously wed, after which divorce, the late Princess Diana, and finally married Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, in 2005. Upon Elizabeth's loss of life on Thursday, Charles mechanically ascended to the throne to turn out to be King Charles III.
The couple had their second youngster and solely daughter, Anne, in 1950. She was referred to as Princess Anne till June 1987, when the queen gave her the title of The Princess Royal. Anne married her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, in 1973, and was among the many first of her three siblings to get divorced, with the separation finalized in 1992. She remarried that very same yr.
Following her coronation in 1953, Elizabeth gave start to Prince Andrew, Duke of York, in 1960.
Andrew has been extensively criticized lately for his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and has been accused by Virginia Roberts Giuffre of sexually abusing her when she was 17. The prince has at all times denied the allegations, however he and Giuffre reached an out-of-court settlement earlier this yr.
Buckingham Palace then introduced that Andrew's navy affiliations and royal patronages had been revoked. He has not been permitted to conduct public duties on behalf of the royal household since 2019.
Elizabeth and Philip's fourth and last youngster, Edward, was born in 1964. He was referred to as Prince Edward till he married his spouse Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999, at which level they had been named the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
He's thus far the one of Elizabeth and Philip's youngsters to not break up.
Taking the throne
Elizabeth turned the queen instantly upon the loss of life of her father, King George VI, in February 1952.
Prince Philip stood by Elizabeth's facet all through her coronation ceremony in June the subsequent yr.
"I, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, do turn out to be your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship... so assist me God," he swore to Elizabeth as he knelt at her ft, in keeping with Brown, the royal historian.
A lifetime of love and laughter
Brown advised CBS Information on Thursday that over the course of their marriage – the longest in British royal historical past – Philip was recognized for protecting the queen regular, completely happy and laughing.
"Philip saved the queen actual, that is why she cherished him so," Brown mentioned. "He had a robust humorousness. He was extremely irreverent. He at all times made her snicker and he at all times advised her the reality, and that's what she cherished about him."
On November 20, 1997, to mark their fiftieth anniversary, Queen Elizabeth II mentioned of her husband: "He's somebody who would not take simply to compliments, however he has fairly merely been my power and keep all these years, and I and his entire household, and this and lots of different nations, owe him a debt better than he would ever declare or we will ever know."
In 2017, the couple turned the primary within the royal household to have a good time their platinum anniversary – 70 years of marriage. Since making their vows many years earlier, their household had grown to incorporate eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
A last goodbye
The Duke of Edinburgh died in April 2021 at 99 years previous, simply seven months wanting what would have been his and Elizabeth's 74th anniversary.
Philip spent a lot of his last months in isolation with the queen at Windsor Citadel, because the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the world. In considered one of their last main acts collectively, the couple obtained vaccinated towards COVID-19 in January 2021.
At his funeral, a solemn queen sat alone within the pews as her beloved husband was memorialized.
Brown mentioned that within the last yr of Philip's life, he and the queen "spent collectively extra time than they've ever spent of their complete life, as a result of they had been locked down collectively at Windsor Citadel of their bubble."
"It was virtually like kind of the start of their courtship, once they had this sort of fantastic, kind of intimate, final days collectively there," Brown mentioned, calling it an "sudden blessing."