This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/world/europe/buckingham-palace-meeting-uk.html

The article has changed 13 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
Prince Philip to Step Away From Public Duties For a Frenzied Media, a Letdown: Prince Philip Is Retiring
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — Prince Philip, the 95-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II, will step back from his royal duties and stop carrying out public engagements this autumn, Buckingham Palace said in a statement on Thursday, although the role of the queen will be unchanged. LONDON — As dawn broke following a frenzied, middle-of-the-night scramble by the global news media for strategic real estate outside Buckingham Palace, the much anticipated announcement finally came: A 95-year-old man was retiring.
The announcement came after members of the royal staff were summoned to a meeting on Thursday in London, a development that touched off alarms about the health of the queen and her husband. A dozen television news crews headed to Buckingham Palace in the early morning, and the website of one tabloid reported, in an article that was quickly taken down, that the prince had died. That would be Prince Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, the gaffe-prone but grumpily endearing and loyal husband of Queen Elizabeth II, who has been her consort for 70 years — the longest royal union in British history — and has served the country for nearly as long.
The response was a reflection of increasing concern about the health of the queen and of Prince Philip, who is also known as the Duke of Edinburgh. The prince was ill during the holiday period, while the queen, who is 91, was not seen in public for nearly a month after missing church services on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day because of what Buckingham Palace described as a persistent cold. “His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has decided that he will no longer carry out public engagements from the autumn of this year. In taking this decision, the duke has the full support of the queen,” read the terse statement from the palace, which gave no reason for the retirement. It added that the queen’s role would be unchanged, and that while Prince Philip would retreat from public view he may occasionally attend public events.
But both performed royal duties on Wednesday: The queen met Prime Minister Theresa May, and the prince cut a ribbon to open a new stand of seats at a cricket ground. “His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has decided that he will no longer carry out public engagements from the autumn of this year,” the palace statement said. “In taking this decision, the duke has the full support of the queen.” Only minutes earlier, outside the palace, more than a dozen television crews and assembled journalists from Britain, the United States, France, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia had been watching for even the slightest clue about what was happening. Speculation was rife — unfounded speculation, as it turned out — that either Prince Philip or the queen might be dead.
Prince Philip will attend previously scheduled engagements until August, the palace said, but will then retreat from public view, although he may attend events from time to time. The statement gave no reason for the decision. “Her Majesty will continue to carry out a full program of official engagements with the support of members of the royal family,” the palace said. The flag atop Buckingham Palace was at full mast, signaling that the queen was fine and at home. Beyond the possibility that there would be an announcement of a royal death – an event that would be carefully choreographed after years of preparation — various other possibilities were discussed in whispers. Could it be an abdication crisis? Some sort of security threat at one of the queen’s many lavish homes? A palace decoration emergency?
Brusque, avuncular, and with a reputation for plain — in fact overly plain — speaking, Prince Philip has for seven decades been the formidable presence by the side of Elizabeth as she has made the endless round of dinners, ceremonies and other engagements expected of a British monarch. At one point, a group of royal-looking horses trotted by, galvanizing a flock of photographers into action. False alarm.
Yet this essentially diplomatic role as royal consort — their marriage is the longest of any royal couple in British history — did not come naturally to Prince Philip, as he has conceded. When interviewed by the Independent in 1992, he reflected with characteristic bluntness on his various honorary functions, including roles on a committee on coinage and at the wildlife charity WWF. “This is more exciting than the election,” mused Rachael Venables, a reporter for LBC, a London-based talk radio station, alluding to Britain’s somewhat lackluster upcoming general election, which Prime Minister Theresa May and the Conservatives are widely expected to win handily.
“It was not my ambition to be president of the Mint Advisory Committee. I didn’t want to be president of WWF. I was asked to do it,” he said, adding: “I’d much rather have stayed in the navy, frankly.” The media scrum had been touched off by a report in The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, that all members of the queen’s staff had been ordered to a meeting in London, and that employees from royal residences across the country would be in attendance.
His long-ago naval career may have helped form some of Prince Philip’s saltier language, as well as the politically incorrect opinions that have periodically caused outrage in Britain. The Daily Mail described the meeting as “highly unusual,” and Buckingham Palace’s silence on the matter early in the morning allowed rumors to flourish. A palace official said such gatherings happened every now and then, and that there was “no reason for alarm.”
In 1986, while on an official visit to China, he told a group of British exchange students living in the city of Xian that if they stayed much longer “you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” Twelve years later, he said to a Briton who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea, “You managed not to get eaten, then?” The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid, erroneously published an unfinished obituary of Prince Philip on its website for a few minutes on Thursday morning. The headline read: “Prince Philip dead at 95, how did the Duke of Edinburgh die, etc etc.” “We are mortified this happened,” a Sun executive later said.
In Cardiff, Wales, in 1999, he said to a group of children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing near to a Caribbean steel band, “If you’re near that music it’s no wonder you’re deaf.” And the list goes on. An announcement was rumored to be forthcoming at 8 a.m., and when it failed to come BBC television news said its top story of the morning would be the sharp rise in eating disorders among men. Palace gardeners could be seen jovially going about their chores. Bemused tourists near the palace asked what all the fuss was about.
But of late, Prince Philip’s pure stamina as he approaches 100 has blunted the criticism, dimming the memory of earlier embarrassments. Mrs. May, the head of the Conservative Party, offered Prince Philip “our deepest gratitude and good wishes,” and the leaders of Britain’s other main political parties expressed similar sentiments. Adding to the confusion was the fact that both the queen and Prince Philip had performed duties on Wednesday: The queen met Mrs. May and the prince cut a ribbon to open a new stand of seats at a cricket ground. If a royal personage had died, the palace was behaving with remarkable stoicism.
For a generation of Britons, his name is (sometimes unconsciously) synonymous with hiking and other outdoors activities through a program for teenagers that carries his name, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. The royal family are beloved fixtures in Britain and speculation about royal health has been simmering for months. The prince was ill during the holiday period while the queen, who is 91, was not seen in public for nearly a month after missing church services on Christmas and New Year’s Day because of what Buckingham Palace described as a persistent cold.
The nephew of King Constantine I of Greece, Prince Philip was born in 1921 on the dining room table of a villa on the Greek island of Corfu, but he came to symbolize many of the values of an era in which Britons prided themselves on their lack of visible emotion, or “stiff upper lip.” That style has been blamed for making him a distant figure in the lives of his children, particularly Prince Charles, the heir to the throne. A former naval officer, Prince Philip has earned a reputation as a royal workhorse and a steadfast spouse to the queen, even as he has sometimes come under criticism for making rude and occasionally out-of-place remarks.
Not only has he been portrayed as an irascible, remote and dysfunctional father, there was also speculation about his marriage to the queen. When asked by the Independent about rumors of infidelity, he produced the following reply: “Have you ever stopped to think that for the last 40 years, I have never moved anywhere without a policeman accompanying me? So how the hell could I get away with anything like that?” During a trip to Canada in 1976, he had this to say: “We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves.”
But his longevity has solidified affection in Britain for a foreign-born pillar of the British establishment. As he steps down from his royal duties, Prince Philip seems to represent a link to a fast-fading past in which telephones sat on desks, computers had yet to be invented, and Britain ruled large parts of the world. In 1986, while on an official visit to China, he told a group of British exchange students living in the city of Xi’an that if they stayed much longer “you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”
The news about his retreat from public life capped a bizarre morning in which journalists from around the world had gathered outside Buckingham Palace watching for any sign that something was amiss. When a group of horses trotted in front of the palace, a scrum of photographers furiously clicked their cameras. It was a false alarm. In 1995 on a visit to Scotland, he met a driving instructor. “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” he asked.
The speculation was touched off by a report in The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, that all members of the queen’s staff had been ordered to a meeting in London, and that employees from royal residences across the country would be in attendance. Yet despite his propensity for political incorrectness, on Thursday he came in for praise, the memory of earlier embarrassments perhaps blunted by the sheer stamina and longevity of the foreign-born prince as he approaches 100. Mrs. May, the leader of the Conservative Party, offered him “our deepest gratitude and good wishes.”
The Daily Mail described the meeting as “highly unusual,” and Buckingham Palace’s silence on the matter early in the morning allowed speculation to flourish. A palace official, speaking on condition of anonymity in exchange for providing information about the meeting, said such gatherings happen every now and then. Prince Philip’s essentially diplomatic role as royal consort did not come naturally, even as he has served as a patron, a president or a member of over 780 organizations. When interviewed by the Independent in 1992, he reflected with characteristic bluntness on his various honorary functions, including roles on a committee on coinage and at the wildlife charity WWF.
The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid, erroneously published an unfinished obituary of Prince Philip online on Thursday morning, with a headline that read, “Prince Philip dead at 95, how did the Duke of Edinburgh die, etc etc.” “It was not my ambition to be president of the Mint Advisory Committee. I didn’t want to be president of WWF. I was asked to do it,” he said, before adding: “I’d much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly.”
The piece, which was published because of a production error, was up for less than a minute on the tabloid’s website, but the headline and introduction continued to appear on Google. “We are mortified this happened,” a Sun executive said. The paper declined to comment formally. A nephew of Greece’s King Constantine I, Prince Philip was born in 1921 on the dining room table of a villa on the Greek island of Corfu. Known for his passion for the rugged outdoors, he represents an era when Britain ruled large parts of the world and gentlemen wore their lack of visible emotion like a badge of honor. That style has been blamed for making him a distant figure in the lives of his children, particularly Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.
There has also been speculation about his marriage to the queen. When asked by the Independent about rumors of infidelity, he replied wryly: “Have you ever stopped to think that for the last 40 years, I have never moved anywhere without a policeman accompanying me? So how the hell could I get away with anything like that?”