With Queen Elizabeth getting ready to celebrate her 60th year on the throne, it’s a good time for a romantic look back at the beginning of the young Princess Elizabeth’s blushing love for her soon-to-be prince. In a love story that isn’t that distant from Kate and William’s beginnings, the 17 year-old daughter of the King was awestruck with a dashing 22 year-old Naval Lieutenant, who was her distant cousin. From placing his picture on her mantle to slipping his ring on her finger, Elizabeth's life with Philip had romantic beginings, according to a review in the New York Times.
The setting of this story is very different from the Kate Middleton and Prince William beginning, as Elizabeth and Philip’s love bloomed against the background of the
"long and bleak post-war era" in Britain. After four years of courtship, Elizabeth and Philip were married with Winston Churchill calling this marriage, “a flash of color on the hard road we have to travel,” as the remnants of the war were everywhere.
The newlywed Princess and Prince stayed very much in the spotlight, just like Kate and William. After only five years of marriage Elizabeth and Philip were called home from a vacation in Kenya as King Edward, Elizabeth’s father, had died and she was to step into his place, making her the Queen of England.
This was the day that Philip immediately needed to adjust himself into playing a supporting role in his family life, now that he was married to the Queen. This must have been difficult for this war veteran, as it would for any man of that day and age, which was still a time in history when the husbands ruled the roost in most households.
These were the beginnings of a long monarch and through it all the Queen and Philip have remained by each other’s side. They seem to be the best of friends and their quiet admiration for each other is often overlooked, but it’s there. Long before the love story of Kate and William, there was Elizabeth and Philip, who scripted the original.
Their very private story is told in two new books, “Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth II.” By Philip Eade and “Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch,” By Sally Bedell Smith.
Reference: The New York Times
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