Captains and Kings: The Royal Family and the Royal Navy, 1901-1981 by Winton John

Author:Winton, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2023-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH

In July 1939, the Royal Yacht visited the Dart, and the King, the Queen, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, visited the Royal Naval College, where one of those who helped to entertain and look after the Royal party was Cadet HRH Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip must have met before, at family occasions such as weddings, but this is the meeting which has attracted as much literary attention as that between Troilus and Cressida. He was eighteen and she was thirteen and it is hard to believe that anything significant happened. But after all, she was one of the most eligible young ladies, perhaps the most eligible, of the European Royal Families, and he certainly was one of the very few eligible young men.

Some of Prince Philip’s biographers and other writers have had fun at the expense of each other on the details of that day, on whether the weather was rainy or sunny, whether the cadets had chickenpox or mumps, and how many cadets had either ailment. There was talk of the Royal party attending morning service, so it must have been a Sunday, 23rd, not 22nd, July. When the Royal Yacht, Victoria and Albert, or Britannia (Britannia was not, actually, launched until April 1953) steamed slowly and majestically out of Dartmouth harbour (it was Weymouth, actually, in some accounts) and the cadets rowed frantically after her in their small boats, was it not Prince Philip who was the last to give up and turn back, and were the King’s precise words ‘Damned young fool’ or ‘This is ridiculous, he must go back’, or was it the ‘high-pitched but commanding’ voice of Lord Louis Mountbatten (who was certainly on board) which finally caused the Prince to desist?

However, as it turned out, the writers were quite correct to concentrate upon this meeting. Dartmouth was as good a place as any for a new naval member of the Royal Family to make his first publicly noticeable appearance. For here was a new kind of Royal figure. Here was somebody who did not bump along at or near the bottom of his term, thinking it in his family’s tradition to pass out 67th of 68, considering himself to have done well to make 48th place. He was top man at school and top cadet, winning the King’s Dirk and other prizes, at Dartmouth. He did not suffer from whooping cough, or measles, or mumps, or appendicitis, or stomach ulcers. He enjoyed excellent health. He was not seasick. He was an excellent helmsman. There was no question of his ‘not going aloft’ or having knock-knees. This was a runner, middle distance and long, a jumper, high and long, a thrower of javelins and cricket balls. He had no diffidence, or stammer, or speech impediment. He was a good and confident public speaker.

A certain amount of Royal woolliness had come to be expected. There was no woolliness here. This was a very able young man, difficult to beat, not at all apologetic, or careful to preserve a flawless facade.

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