Prince Philip had a walk-on part in the royal drama, but he played it to perfection | Simon Jenkins
It is not disparaging of Prince Philip, who has died aged 99, to say he was always a walk-on part in the pantomime of monarchy. It was a part in which he was a star. Plucked from the ranks of lesser European royalty as the “suitable” husband for a queen, he was perfectly cast. Nephew of the king of Greece, safely naval and effortlessly gracious, he took to his assigned role as if to the manner born. He served in the war, but when his wife became queen in 1952, he gave up a naval career. While known as the Queen’s consort, he did not hold the title Prince Consort, one confined to Victoria’s Albert.
The monarchy in the 1950s faced not a crisis but
