"His mother was institutionalized when he was nine. His father abandoned him for a mistress. His sisters married Nazis. When asked what language he spoke at home, he said: ""What do you mean—at home?""
Prince Philip was born on June 10, 1921, on a kitchen table in a villa on the Greek island of Corfu. His family—Greek royalty by title, European refugees by circumstance—was already in crisis. Eighteen months later, in 1922, Greece's revolutionary government forced the royal family into exile. Philip's father, Prince Andrew of Greece, was nearly executed. The family fled the country. Baby Philip was carried to safety in a makeshift cot fashioned from an orange crate. He would never have a home again.
The family settled briefly in France, but there was no money, no stability, and no unity. Prince Andrew, Philip's father, was a weak, selfish man. He blamed everyone else for his failures. He took up with a mistress and effectively abandoned his wife and children. Philip's mother, Princess Alice, was the real tragedy. Alice was deaf from birth. She had learned to read lips in multiple languages and was intelligent, compassionate, and deeply religious.
But in 1930, when Philip was nine years old, Alice suffered a severe mental breakdown. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia—though many historians now believe she was misdiagnosed, possibly for political convenience. Her family wanted her out of the way. Alice was forcibly committed to a Swiss sanatorium. She was institutionalized against her will and subjected to experimental treatment, including a procedure developed by Sigmund Freud.
Philip was nine years old. No one told him where his mother went. She just disappeared. He thought she had abandoned him. Meanwhile, his father moved to Monte Carlo with his mistress and rarely contacted Philip. Prince Andrew sent no money, no letters, no support. Philip's four older sisters—Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie—married German princes and moved to Germany. Three of their husbands were members of the Nazi Party. Philip was alone. Passed between relatives. Sent to boarding schools. No fixed address. No parent to claim him.
He spent school holidays with his British relatives—his maternal grandmother, Princess Victoria, and his uncle, George Mountbatten, the Marquess of Milford Haven. They gave him structure, discipline, and a British identity. But they couldn't give him a family.
Philip attended Cheam School in England, then Gordonstoun in Scotland—a harsh, austere school founded by Kurt Hahn, a Jewish educator who had fled Nazi Germany. At Gordonstoun, Philip learned resilience, self-reliance, and emotional control. He learned to bury feelings. To never complain. To keep moving forward.
In 1937, when Philip was 16, his sister Cecilie died in a plane crash. She, her husband (a Nazi officer), their two young sons, and her unborn baby were killed when their plane crashed into a factory chimney in Belgium. They had been flying to a wedding—another Nazi wedding. Philip was devastated. But he wasn't allowed to attend the funeral. The British royal family—his mother's relatives—forbade it. The optics were too risky. A British prince attending a Nazi funeral in Germany in 1937, as war loomed? Unthinkable.
So Philip mourned alone.
Just 2 years later, in 1939, World War II began. Philip joined the Royal Navy and fought for Britain. His brothers-in-law—his sisters' husbands—fought for Nazi Germany. Philip's family was literally on opposite sides of the war. He never talked about it. He buried it. He kept moving forward.
In 1947, Philip married Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of England. To do so, he gave up his Greek and Danish titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and took his maternal grandfather's surname—Mountbatten. He became Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, Royal Navy. He had no country, no family name, no identity except what he built himself.
When Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, Philip's identity shrank further. He was no longer a naval officer. He was ""the Queen's husband."" The consort. The man who walked two steps behind. He gave up his career. His independence. His sense of self. And he was never allowed to forget it.
Meanwhile, his mother reappeared.
In the 1960s, after spending years in a sanatorium, then in Athens, Princess Alice reemerged as a Greek Orthodox nun. She had founded a nursing order. She had survived the Nazi occupation of Greece, hiding Jewish families in her home. She was a hero. But Philip barely knew her. They had an awkward, distant reunion. Too much time had passed. Too much had been left unsaid.
Alice moved to Buckingham Palace in her final years and died in 1969. Philip mourned her—but the relationship had never been repaired. Philip's father, Prince Andrew, had died in 1944 in Monte Carlo, still with his mistress, having never reconciled with his son. Philip never forgave him. And Philip became a father himself—but he didn't know how. He and Elizabeth had 4 children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.
Philip was a distant, harsh father. He expected discipline, toughness, resilience—the same things he'd learned at Gordonstoun. He sent Charles to Gordonstoun, despite Charles hating it. He mocked Charles for being sensitive. He couldn't show affection. Philip had never received affections. He didn't know how to give it. Charles has spoken about his difficult relationship with his father. Anne was tougher, more like Philip, and they got along better.
But the emotional distance Philip had learned as a child—the survival mechanism of never needing anyone—he passed down to his own children. When asked once what language he spoke ""at home"" as a child, Philip replied: ""What do you mean—at home?"" It wasn't a joke. It was the truth. He had no home. No language. No place he belonged.
He built a life anyway. He served the Queen for 73 years. He performed tens of thousands of public engagement. He supported over 800 charities. He was sharp, funny, occasionally offensive, and utterly unsentimental. He refused to dwell. He refused to complain. He refused to show vulnerability. Because vulnerability, in his childhood, had meant abandonment.
Prince Philip died on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99.
Queen Elizabeth died 17 month later, on September 8, 2022. They had been married for 73 years.
Philip's life was extraordinary. He survived exile, war, and loss. He rebuilt himself from nothing. But he never fully healed. The boy who had no home became a man who couldn't create one emotionally—not even for his own children. His mother was taken when he was nine. His father abandoned him. His sisters married Nazis. He fought a war against his own family. He gave up everything to marry the Queen. And he spent 99 years never looking back. Because looking back meant remembering he never had a home."
