Kinshasa, April 12th, 2021 (CPA).- The President of the Republic, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, offered his condolences to Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Family of the United Kingdom, the British government and people, following the death on Friday of Prince Philip, husband of the Queen of England.
The Head of State, who indicated this the same day, via his twitter account, said he was saddened by the death at the age of 99 of Prince Philip of German descent, but of Orthodox religion, Philip was born Prince of Greece and Denmark on June 10th, 1921, on the island of Corfu (Greece).
He is the fifth child, but the only son, of Prince André of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Following his parents’s exile, he was tossed from boarding school to boarding school all over Europe, notably in Saint-Cloud, France, and Germany. Between the ages of 8 and 15, he did not see his mother, who was schizophrenic, nor received any mail from him. In 1939, boosted by his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, the Greek aristocrat joined the British Navy as a cadet and took an active part in the Second World War.
Prince Philip’s life at court
On November 20th, 1947, the young prince, blond and attractive, married Crown Princess Elizabeth, whom he had met during his studies at the naval college in Darmouth.
Queen Victoria’s great-great-grandson, through his daughter Alice who had married a German Grand Duke, he was also one of Elizabeth’s distant cousins. For this marriage of love, he renounces his nationality and his former noble titles, takes the name of Philip Mountbatten and embraces Anglicanism, the state religion.
Prince Philip with Queen Elizabeth II of England, his wife
Throughout his life, despite this conversion, the prince kept certain values inculcated by his orthodox faith, such as a sense of hierarchy, conservatism in matters of mores and ecological concerns.
In February 1952, the untimely death of his father-in-law, King George VI, ended a passionate career as a Navy officer. “This charming and distinguished man was central to the democratization of the monarchy against the establishment. His foreign origins probably explain his openness.
Intelligent, resolute, efficient, he has put a little salt in the life of the queen, a conservative and traditional woman, without ever attempting to overshadow her, « said royal biographer Robert Lacey. After the accession to the throne of Elizabeth in 1952, the interested party breathes a little novelty in the court, then stiff, by sending his children, whose education Elizabeth II entrusted to him, to school instead of them entrust to preceptors. In 1969, he opened the kingship on television, and let it film his daily life in the report “Royal Family”, which was a great success.
It was also he who forced the queen, whose shyness is legendary, to practice the walkabout. Very early on, keen on defending the environment, Philip headed the World Wide Fund, the world fund for the preservation of nature, from 1981 to 1996. It is mainly thanks to the prince that the Loire has remained the last wild river of Europe. He is also responsible for the creation, in 1956, of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme to help young people in difficulty.