The queen of England’s gaffe-prone husband has a wacky past, according to a new book. Tom Sykes on Philip’s UFO-spotting days, his rocky courtship with Elizabeth—and his rumored affairs with showgirls.
Prince Philip Was a UFO Spotter
Philip Eade writes in the foreword to his new book, Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth II, that he first became interested in authoring a bio about Prince Philip when he “briefly toyed with writing a book about prominent ufologists in the period just after the Second World War.” During the course of that research, Eade discovered not only that Prince Philip was a subscriber to the magazine Flying Saucer Review, but that he once sent his equerry, Sir Peter Horsley, “to meet an extraterrestrial humanoid at a house in Ealing.” Eade writes, “A number of witnesses were invited to Buckingham Palace to discuss their experiences, as Horsley later explained, to ‘put them on the spot’ and to test their honesty in the presence of royalty, a method as effective as any truth serum.” Horsley was on the prince’s staff from 1952 to 1955 before climbing to great heights in the Royal Air Force. When Horsley published his memoirs in 1997, a senior official at the Ministry of Defence commented, “How unfortunate that the public will learn that the man who had his finger on the button of Strike Command was seeing little green men.”
Prince Philip’s Mum Was Sent to a Mental Institution
Philip’s father, Andrew, was the brother of the king of Greece, and his mother, Alice Battenberg, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Alice was very beautiful but almost completely deaf. She camouflaged her disability by learning to lip-read in multiple languages. In December 1922, Philip’s parents were compelled to leave Greece in a hurry after his uncle was deposed, and the 1-year-old was given a crib made out of a fruit crate. His father subsequently spent most of the rest of his life living the playboy lifestyle in the south of France, but his mother was committed to a mental institution in Germany in 1930. Alice was “diagnosed” with a “neurotic-pre-psychotic libidinous condition” and, on the recommendation of Sigmund Freud, was subjected to “an exposure of the gonads to X-rays, in order to accelerate the menopause.” They rarely saw Philip, who spent his childhood at boarding schools or with his maternal uncle Dickie Mountbatten.
Philip Had No Last Name
Philip’s father, Andrew, was the brother of the king of Greece, and his mother, Alice Battenberg, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Alice was very beautiful but almost completely deaf. She camouflaged her disability by learning to lip-read in multiple languages. In December 1922, Philip’s parents were compelled to leave Greece in a hurry after his uncle was deposed, and the 1-year-old was given a crib made out of a fruit crate. His father subsequently spent most of the rest of his life living the playboy lifestyle in the south of France, but his mother was committed to a mental institution in Germany in 1930. Alice was “diagnosed” with a “neurotic-pre-psychotic libidinous condition” and, on the recommendation of Sigmund Freud, was subjected to “an exposure of the gonads to X-rays, in order to accelerate the menopause.” They rarely saw Philip, who spent his childhood at boarding schools or with his maternal uncle Dickie Mountbatten.
Philip Had No Last Name
Philip was mocked at prep school for having no surname. He was only ever known as “Philip of Greece.” He took the last name Mountbatten when he became a naturalized British citizen before marrying Elizabeth.
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