Analysis: Popular, outspoken and a downright larrikin … how Prince Philip changed the royals

Prince Philip suffered a litany of serious health scares in recent years but the resilient royal bounced back time and again.

Popular, outspoken and a larrikin — this is how Prince Philip is being remembered. Picture: Getty Images

The call was as sudden as it was alarming.

“You are going to be very busy tonight — Prince Philip is going to die,” a top Westminster source solemnly told me during a frantic ring-around to media bureau chiefs in the British capital.

This was April 2008 when the then 86-year-old had missed several public appointments for what was initially a chest infection but that later saw him admitted to hospital.

Word spread and such was the state of the nation bracing for a royal funeral, Buckingham Palace was prompted to issue an extraordinary statement denying his death was imminent.

But the palace statement and indeed the Westminster call-around to journalists 13 years ago was telling of just how popular the prince was and the then expected impact his death would have not just in Britain but throughout the Commonwealth.

Prince Philip and the Queen were married for 47 years. Picture: Getty Images

Yesterday that impact was realised and reverberated across both sides of the hemisphere.

It seemed for a time he had come through so many health and other trials in his long life newspapers around the world were permanently updating prewritten obituaries for “the Iron Duke” who as one royal courtier remarked to News Corp Australia after another health scare in 2016, he was “simply too stubborn to die”.

He proved all wrong for a long time but yesterday at the age of 99, passed away quietly at Windsor Castle.

Prince Philip rides through the grounds of Windsor Castle during the Royal Windsor Horse Show at Home Park in 2014. Picture: Getty Images

The prince lived much of his adult life in the shadow of the Queen, both physically and metaphorically but like the Monarch herself, he represented stability and longevity for the nation and through it the Commonwealth when it needed it most during crisis and scandal.

He had such a zest for life that gave him the confidence to say publicly almost anything he wanted that while usually labelled gaffes, were recognised and appreciated more broadly as the authentic wit of a man who has lived a long colourful life. While he was known for his off-the-cuff musings his contribution to the Commonwealth went far beyond that in not only being the “rock” and confidante to the Queen for more than half a century but his passion for youth notably through his Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.

Prince Philip during his last tour of Australia in 2011. Picture: AFP

His affection for Australia was well known and he visited the country more times than any other royal starting from when he was 19 years old with a trip to Sydney and later including for the Melbourne Olympic Games where more than 100,000 people lined the streets to see him, a stay at Tennant Creek in the Top End where he shot a 1.8m crocodile, he even flew himself here as a qualified pilot in the late 1950s.

His larrikin sense of humour appealed to Australia and vice versa. He loved the bush and was greatly troubled when there were deadly fires particularly the 2009 Black Saturday inferno. When he couldn’t visit he relied on his huge art collection by some of Australia’s most famed artists, notably Sidney Nolan and Albert Namatjira to remind him of his beloved nation on the other side of the world. His last trip here was in 2011.

Prince Philip’s larrikin sense of humour appealed to Australians. Picture: Getty Images

Through his long life he saw Australia mature but his attitude to its standing was best summed up in 1967 when he said pragmatically of his own position: “If the monarchy is of value retain it … if not get rid of it.”

He found reports over the years of his greatly exaggerated imminent demise amusing, and while a private man who declared to the palace courtiers when he did finally pass he wanted “no fuss” made, his inspiring dedication to the realm will this week be fondly and appropriately remembered.

Originally published as Analysis: Popular, outspoken and a downright larrikin … how Prince Philip changed the royals