Congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

I just want to say happy 60th wedding anniversary to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

The Royal Family
The Royal Family

I wish I had an invite to the thanksgiving service, which was held at London’s Westminster Abbey. Two thousand guests were invited, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which is more significant than an actual wedding. Well, I guess it is the Queen, after all. The Queen’s dress was made of satin woven from silk from Chinese silkworms and decorated with 10,000 pearls! There was a bit of gossip at the Queen’s wedding, well her tiara broke on her big day when someone placed it on her and not to mention one of the bouquets was left behind so someone had to run back and get it. Glad to hear it happens to everyone! I came across this from the royal expert James Whitaker and wanted to share it with you all.

  • 1. They sealed their friendship over ginger biscuits and lemonade, and then Philip demonstrated his athleticism by jumping over the nets of the college tennis courts.
  • 2. Although a prince of Greece, Philip comes from Danish, Russian, German and English stock. Before marrying, he had to be naturalised as British, which took three years.
  • 3. In 1956, the Queen and the Duke introduced lunches at Buckingham Palace to meet distinguished people from all walks of life. There are usually six to eight guests.
  • 4. Together, the two have sent nearly 40,000 Christmas cards during her 55-year reign.
  • 5. Their first London residence was Clarence House, where Charles and Camilla now live.
  • 6. The royal couple have been separated once on an overseas tour. In 1974, the Queen had to return home from Australia when an election was called. Philip was rejoined by his wife in Indonesia.
  • 7. The Prince’s favourite tipple is lager.
  • 8. Every week, without fail, Prince Philip gets flowers for the Queen.
  • 9. The Queen’s former private secretary, Lord Charteris (1972-77), said of Philip: “He is the only man in the world who treats the Queen as a human being.”
  • 10. The teenage Princess Elizabeth kept a photo of Philip on her mantelpiece. When her nanny Marion Crawford asked if it was wise as people would gossip, Elizabeth replaced it with one of the princes with a naval beard and said: “I defy anyone to recognise who that is!”
  • 11. During their engagement, they played a parlour game called Murder, often ending up in dark spots when the lights went out.
  • 12. Not as religious as his wife, Philip conspicuously read a book during Prince Charles’s confirmation. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, Michael Ramsay, said: “Bloody rude, that’s what I call it.”
  • 13. Philps pet name for his wife is “sausage”.
  • 14. The Queen Mother used to refer to Philip as The Hun as he is a member of the German house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg.
  • 15. When the pair honeymooned at Broadlands, the Mountbatten’s country home near Romsey, Hants, the bride had 15 suitcases, the groom two.
  • 16. Under pressure from his wife-to-be, Philip quit smoking on the morning of his wedding.
  • 17. Princess Elizabeth and Lieut Philip Mountbatten had an inauspicious start to married life. None of his sisters were allowed to attend the wedding as they had all married high-ranking German officers, and the war was “too fresh in people’s minds”.
  • 18. When Philip’s cousin Patricia Mountbatten ten remarked on Elizabeth’s flawless complexion, the Prince joked: “Yes, and she’s like that all over.”
  • 19. George VI’s private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, spoke for many when he described Philip as “rough, uneducated and would probably not be faithful”.
  • 20. The princess first met Philip when she was 13 during a tour of the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon.
  • 21. Philip was born a prince of Greece and became a prince of the United Kingdom in 1957
  • 22. In traditional upper-class fashion, Elizabeth and Philip had connecting bedrooms. When he walked into Philip’s bedroom one morning, royal valet James MacDonald was embarrassed to find Elizabeth in a silk nightgown and Philip naked. “Prince Philip didn’t care at all,” said MacDonald. “Pyjamas? Never wear the things,” Philip once said.
  • 23. When they first moved into Buckingham Palace, Philip had a direct phone line installed so that he could talk to his wife without going through the switchboard.
  • 24. War rationing was in force when they married, and Elizabeth had to save her clothes coupons for her Norman Hartnell wedding dress. It cost £1,200 and used up 300 coupons.
  • 25. Once, when the Queen repeatedly sucked in her breath at his fast driving, Philip told her: “If you do that once more, I shall put you out of the car.”
  • 26. To the delight of Philip, the Queen refuses to wear a riding hat (she wears a scarf) and will not belt up in the car.
  • 27. The Queen and Prince Philip dislike duvets and prefer sheets and blankets.
  • 28. The wedding reception was a low-key affair for 150 at Buckingham Palace. The King decreed there should be no long speeches as he hated making and listening to them.
  • 29. The Queen has never revealed how Philip proposed to her.
  • 30. On the wedding day, a footman lost the bride’s bouquet, and her tiara snapped as it was put on.
  • 31. In the year of their wedding, the Queen and Philip attended a fancy dress ball. She dressed as a maid, he as a waiter.
  • 32. While courting, the couple’s favourite tune was People Will Say We’re In Love from the musical Oklahoma!
  • 33. Philip has nothing to do with his wife’s life as sovereign but does deal with family problems, of which there have been many.
  • 34. “It is not unknown for the Queen to tell Philip to shut up,” Lord Charteris once revealed.
  • 35. The first “Royal Walkabout” was in 1970 in New Zealand and Australia. The idea, thought to have been put forward by Philip, was to meet ordinary people.
  • 36. Philip designed his bride’s engagement ring using diamonds given to him by his mother, Alice.
  • 37. Although the Queen has sat for 141 official portraits during her lifetime, only two were with her husband.
  • 38. The Queen took her favourite corgi, Susan, on their honeymoon.
  • 39. On the day of his wedding, a relative of the nervous Philip told him to enjoy the “great day”. He replied: “I don’t know if I’m being brave or foolish.”
  • 40. The Queen still carries in her handbag a silver make-up case given to her by Philip as a wedding gift.
  • 41. All the Queen’s major decisions – paying tax, giving up the royal yacht, urging Charles and Diana to have an early divorce – were taken after consulting Philip.
  • 42. At the Coronation in 1953, Philip was the first layman to pay homage to the Queen. He knelt at her feet and kissed her left cheek.
  • 43. After the death of King George VI in February 1952, the royal couple did not want to move into Buckingham Palace, but Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted.
  • 44. The Queen and Philip still have blazing rows. One courtier said: “You can hardly believe what you are seeing. There are cries of ‘Rubbish’ and ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.'”
  • 45. When Philip, encouraged by the Queen, mooted the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme in 1956, the then Education minister, David Eccles, said: “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth movement.”
  • 46. Like her late mother, the Queen loves a gin and Dubonnet for lunch but actually drinks very little.
  • 47. Philip was not allowed to give son Charles his surname, Mountbatten, he protested loudly.
  • 48. Philip has not missed a single key event of the Queen’s long reign.
  • 49. Philip could never have a bath with his wife because a maid is always in attendance.
  • 50. The Queen loves to do impersonations and does a very good one of Philip.
  • 51. Philip stays fit by using coiled-metal chest expanders, taking them with him wherever he goes.
  • 52. Although they still sleep in the same bed most of the time, they stay in separate rooms if one of them has to get up early.
  • 53. The couple received 2,500 wedding presents from around the world. Among them was a piece of cloth from Mahatma Gandhi which Queen Mary, the Queen’s grandmother, thought was a loin cloth.
  • 54. Because of post-war rationing, most of the ingredients for the four-tier wedding cake were donated as a wedding gift by Australian Girl Guides.
  • 55. A picture of Prince Philip wearing naval uniform, as above, has pride of place on the Queen’s writing table.
  • 56. Malta is the only country other than the UK where the royal couple have lived. Philip served there with the Navy between 1949 and 1951, during which time his wife would visit.
  • 57. The Queen finds video recorders complicated so Philip is in charge of taping her favourite programmes.
  • 58. They eat breakfast together with cereals on the table in plastic Tupperware containers.
  • 59. If rowing with her husband, the Queen’s technique is to talk in riddles to confuse his logical mind.
  • 60. The 60th wedding anniversary is being celebrated with Royal Mint gold and silver 5 coins, featuring a joint portrait of the Queen and Philip on one side and an engraving of the rose window of Westminster Abbey, where they married, on the other. With thanks to the royal expert James Whitaker for researching these 60 facts.

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