Queen and Prince Philip celebrate anniversary 71 years after Duke made huge sacrifice

The royal couple’s blissful marriage has gone from strength to strength over 71 years which has seen Elizabeth transform from Princess to Queen, have four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. When a then Princess Elizabeth’s father King George VI gave his blessing for the couple’s marriage in 1946, Prince Philip admitted he had “fallen in love completely and unreservedly”. The prince’s undying love for the future monarch would lead him to sacrifice his military career after he vowed to act as the future monarch’s “eyes and ears” when the pair tied the knot at Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. Philip had hoped to enjoy a life overseas in high command for the Royal Navy before his royal duties got in the way. 

But when it became clear his father-in-law King George VI was in ill health, the Duke resigned as a Royal Navy commander in 1951.

The Duke instead threw himself into “modernising” the royal family to overcome the disappointment of the premature loss of his professional career in the Royal Navy after Elizabeth was crowned Queen of the country.

Royal expert Richard Fitzwillams previously told Express.co.uk: “Philip would have far preferred a naval career than to be in a supporting role.”

READ MORE: The Queen and Prince Philip celebrate 71 years in pictures 

Prince Philip joined the Navy from school in 1939 aged 18 and went on to serve with distinction in the Mediterranean.

He also saw battle in the Second World War and many royal insiders tipped him to go all the way in the senior service and become its chief or First Sea Lord.

Philip, who is now 97, was formally made a British prince in 1957 by his wife, after he became the Baron Greenwich, Earl of Merioneth and Duke of Edinburgh just before his wedding to the Queen.

And after nearly seven decades by the side of his wife Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip certainly made his mark, only retiring at the grand old age of 96 in August last year.

He has since been seen in public on rare occasions, opting to retreat to the family’s home on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk instead.

Philip was most recently seen at his granddaughter Princess Eugenie’s Royal Wedding to Jack Brooksbank in October.

The Duke and the Queen share four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, soon to be eight when Meghan Markle gives birth to her royal baby next year.

The couple will mark their wedding anniversary at home in private after the Queen, 92, attends an official engagement at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London to mark its own 150th anniversary.

The love story of Philip and Elizabeth, who are distant cousins, began in 1939 when the young princess was just 13-years-old.

The couple met during a royal visit to his naval college in Dartmouth. It was love at first sight and they started to write to each other.

Dashing, blond-haired, athletic 18-year-old Philip is said to have caught her eye as he entertained her by jumping over tennis nets.

Elizabeth was just 21 and Philip, who had renounced his Greek royal title and become a naturalised British subject, was 26 when the pair became engaged.

It has been suggested that they became unofficially engaged in summer 1946 while they were staying at Balmoral.