The prince’s death is the monarchy’s dress rehearsal for the far more consequential passing of the queen, a reckoning that seems likely to reverberate in British history.
Elizabeth and Philip were married the year I was born — 1947 — when Britain’s deference toward its royal family had not yet been exposed to the merciless shredding that was to come. Back then, my own family might almost have seen itself reflected, albeit remotely, in their lives. Like Prince Philip, whose funeral is on Saturday, my father had served in World War II, on deployments that were so protracted that, my mother recalled, she went three years without seeing him. In London, Buckingham Palace was bombed. So, too, were the rowhouses in Barrow-in-Furness in northwestern England where my aunts, uncles and grandparents lived, close to the shipyards targeted by the German Air Force. When Elizabeth was crowned Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, we clustered around a small black-and-white television at a neighbor’s home to follow what was billed as the country’s first coronation to be broadcast live. Certainly, it was a moment of pomp that seemed to fete Britain’s re-emergence from postwar deprivation. But by the time Prince Philip died last week, Britons had long ceased to march quite so closely in step with the royals. The mirror had become distant, supplanted by the oft-voiced questions: When did the sovereign family and its subjects begin to go their separate ways? And what does that bode for the future of the monarchy? At first it might have been difficult to distill an answer from the reverential coverage that swamped Britain’s national broadcasters as Prince Philip’s myriad achievements were chronicled in profiles and commentaries and interviews: his war record; his presence on the national stage as the longest-serving royal consort; and, not least, the Duke of Edinburgh award program that gave millions of young people a chance to build self-confidence and hone their outdoor skills. The word extraordinary was uttered so frequently in connection with his stewardship of his family, his charities and his many military affiliations that it became a kind of incantation. But some Britons saw it differently.
