The Queen Mother's Secret Hatred for Prince Philip — And the Insults Staff Heard

Westminster Abbey, 20 November 1947. Philip Mountbatten—formerly Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark—stood at the altar in the uniform of the Royal Navy as the BBC broadcast the ceremony to an estimated two hundred million people worldwide. Two thousand guests filled the Abbey, including heads of state, senior military officers, foreign dignitaries, and the full machinery of post-war British ceremony, while outside, despite the November cold and ongoing rationing, crowds who had camped overnight lined the streets for a glimpse of the occasion. At just twenty-six years old, Philip had spent the previous eight months dismantling the legal architecture of his own identity to reach that moment. In March 1947, he formally renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles through publication in the *London Gazette*, ceasing to be a prince of either country and sacrificing the status into which he had been born so he could marry the future Queen Elizabeth II.