They were teenagers when it started. People forget that part. Before the decades of stoic waving and the heavy crown, there were two kids writing letters in the middle of a world war. Honestly, looking back at Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip young is less like looking at a royal archive and more like watching a high-stakes drama where the main characters aren't sure if they're actually allowed to be together. It wasn't just a "fairytale." It was a mess of family politics, Greek exile, and a very stubborn Princess who knew exactly what she wanted before she was even twenty.
The first time Elizabeth truly noticed Philip, she was thirteen. That’s it. Just thirteen. They were at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in 1939. Philip was eighteen, a blonde, athletic cadet who was tasked with entertaining the young Princesses because a mumps outbreak had cleared the schedule. According to Marion Crawford, the royal governess known as "Crawfie," Elizabeth couldn't take her eyes off him. He was jumping over tennis nets. He was showing off. It was classic teenage stuff, but for a girl who lived a sheltered, meticulously planned life, Philip was like a lightning bolt.
The Outsider from Greece
Philip wasn't exactly the "safe" choice. While he had the bloodlines—he was a Prince of Greece and Denmark—he was basically penniless. His family had been kicked out of Greece in a cot (literally, a fruit crate) when he was a baby. His father was living in Monte Carlo with a mistress, and his mother, Princess Alice, was struggling with her mental health in a sanatorium. Philip was a "homeless" prince who spent his school holidays rotating between various relatives' spare bedrooms.
To the stuffy "Old Guard" at Buckingham Palace, he was "the German." This was a massive problem. The UK was heading into a brutal war with Germany, and Philip’s sisters were literally married to German aristocrats with Nazi ties. It's kinda wild to think about now, but Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, was incredibly hesitant. He worried about what the British public would think of a son-in-law who seemed so... foreign.
Philip had no stable home, no massive inheritance, and a "rough" manner that didn't always sit well with the courtiers. They thought he was too blunt. They thought he was unpolished. But Elizabeth didn't care. She saw a man who had survived a chaotic childhood and come out of it with a sharp wit and a sense of duty that matched her own.
A War-Torn Long Distance Relationship
The letters were the lifeline. While Philip was serving in the Royal Navy during World War II—seeing actual combat in the Mediterranean and the Pacific—Elizabeth was keeping his photograph on her mantle. Well, she kept a photo of him with a beard so people wouldn't recognize him immediately. Sneaky.
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They didn't see each other for years at a time. Think about that. No FaceTime. No instant messaging. Just ink on paper that took weeks to cross the ocean. By the time 1946 rolled around, Philip was back in London and the chemistry was undeniable. He reportedly proposed at Balmoral that summer. Elizabeth said yes without even asking her parents first. Imagine being the future Queen and just deciding, "Yeah, this is the guy," before the King has even had his morning tea.
The King eventually gave in, but he had conditions. Philip had to ditch his Greek and Danish titles. He had to become a naturalized British citizen. He became Philip Mountbatten—taking his uncle’s name—and converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism. He basically had to strip away his entire identity to marry the woman he loved. It was a huge sacrifice that often gets overshadowed by the fact that he became a Duke.
The Wedding That Saved the Mood
London in 1947 was grim. Everything was rationed. The city was still covered in rubble from the Blitz. People were cold, tired, and hungry. Then comes this wedding.
Elizabeth actually had to use ration coupons to buy the material for her dress. The government gave her an extra 200 coupons, and hundreds of women across the country tried to mail her theirs (which was illegal, so she had to send them back, but it shows how much people loved her). The dress was a masterpiece—ivory silk decorated with 10,000 seed pearls.
When you look at photos of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip young on their wedding day, you see two people who look genuinely relieved. For a few hours, the world wasn't about geopolitical tensions or post-war poverty. It was about a 21-year-old girl and her 26-year-old Lieutenant.
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But the honeymoon phase didn't last in the way they expected. They thought they had years—maybe decades—to live a "normal" naval life in Malta. Philip was stationed there, and Elizabeth got to be a Navy wife. She drove herself around. She went to the hair salon. She hosted dinner parties. It was the only time in her life she tasted true independence. Then, the King’s health failed.
The Moment Everything Changed in Kenya
- Treetops Hotel. Kenya.
This is the hinge point of their lives. They went up into the trees as a Princess and a Duke, and she came down as Queen. Philip was the one who had to tell her. Her father was dead. Her life as she knew it was over.
There’s a famous story about Philip looking like "the world had fallen in on him." He knew what this meant for him, too. He was a man of the 1950s—an alpha male, a naval commander—and now he had to walk two steps behind his wife for the rest of his life. He had to give up his career. He had to give up his name for his children (initially, the House of Windsor name was kept, which Philip famously complained made him "the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children").
The transition was brutal. The early years of her reign were a massive adjustment period. Philip had to find a role for himself in a system that didn't really have a job description for "Husband of the Queen." He took over the estates, he modernized the palace, and he started the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. He stayed busy because he had to.
What We Can Learn from Their Early Years
Looking at the younger versions of these two icons reveals a lot about why their marriage lasted 73 years. It wasn't just about tradition.
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- Shared humor was the secret sauce. If you watch old footage closely, you'll see Philip whispering something to Elizabeth and her trying—and failing—not to laugh. He was the only person who treated her like a human being rather than a statue.
- Opposites actually do attract. She was shy, methodical, and cautious. He was loud, adventurous, and impulsive. He pushed her out of her comfort zone; she gave him a home he never really had as a kid.
- Adaptability is survival. They both had to pivot. Elizabeth had to take on a massive burden way too young, and Philip had to redefine what "manhood" looked like in a position of secondary power.
If you want to understand the modern monarchy, you have to look at these early years. They weren't born into a stable world; they built a stable world out of the wreckage of their own childhoods and a world war.
To really get the full picture, you should look into the letters of Princess Alice (Philip's mother) or read Sarah Gristwood’s Elizabeth and Philip: A Celebration of 70 Years of Marriage. It moves past the "Crown" dramatizations and gets into the actual logistics of how they navigated those first ten years.
Take a look at the 1953 coronation footage again, but don't look at the Queen. Look at Philip when he kneels before her to swear his allegiance. That’s the moment the "young" version of their lives ended and the historic one began. It was a sacrifice of their private selves for a public role, a trade they both seemed to think was worth it in the end.
Next Steps for History Buffs:
Check out the National Portrait Gallery's digital archives for the 1947 wedding photos—the high-resolution scans show details in the embroidery and their facial expressions that you usually miss in books. Also, if you’re ever in Malta, visit Villa Guardamangia; it’s currently being restored, and it’s the only place Elizabeth ever truly called "home" outside of the UK.