Prologue Prologue I first met the Duke of Edinburgh in the late 1970s. He was in his mid-fifties and no longer the dashing polo-playing prince, simply a man in a suit. I was one of a group of girls involved in raising monies for a theater of which Prince Philip was a patron, and we went backstage afterward to meet him. He was charming, polite, and funny, and only now when looking back do I realize how wary he must have been of being photographed with a bunch of young girls. The next time I met him was in Amman, in March 1984. I had moved on from PR and was working for Majesty magazine. He was with Queen Elizabeth on a state visit to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as guests of King Hussein and Queen Noor. On the first afternoon there was a reception for the royal press corps, of which I was one, to meet Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip--this was standard in those days.
As we walked into the British Embassy, all of us visiting media journalists and some of the heavy-hitting Middle East foreign correspondents lined up to shake hands as if we were at an old-fashioned wedding reception. I clearly remember the master of ceremonies calling out Ingrid Seward from Hanover Magazines, who then published Majesty . It was my first royal tour and I hadn''t a clue what to do, so I just stuck around Michael Shea, Queen Elizabeth''s press secretary, who told me where to stand and wait to be introduced to the Queen. Before this happened I was approached by an equerry who said to me, "His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh would like to meet you." I nodded vaguely, and before I could do anything, Prince Philip walked up to me and asked me in his crisp, dry voice if I was German. I suppose with a name like Ingrid and working for an organization called Hanover Magazines it was a possibility. As soon as I replied in the negative, he turned on his heel and walked away. I was humiliated--I couldn''t understand what I had done, but I later learned it was standard behavior for the duke.
According to behavioral psychologists, people in a position of power such as Prince Philip frequently don''t terminate a meeting properly. They just walk away if they are not interested. They know people only want to talk to them because of who they are, not as a real person, so they have no sensitivity toward the other individual''s feelings. Years later, when I was introduced to the duke again, this time by his then private secretary and friend Brian McGrath, at a small party in the grounds of Home Park during the Windsor Horse Show, he looked straight at me and walked away without uttering a word. Brian, looking flustered, came over to apologize, saying that the duke had thought I was from the Daily Mirror not Majesty magazine, which was why he had walked away. I met him again a few days later, when perhaps he had been briefed I was not from a tabloid newspaper, and we had what I imagined he would think was a civilized conversation about carriage driving. Realizing I was not the enemy, he was charm personified and put me in touch with his head groom, at that time David Muir. He had allowed David to take me out with his carriage ponies so I could see for myself what it was like.
I still couldn''t quite believe it when I found myself sitting on the Balmoral tartan-covered box seat being driven from the Royal Mews to the showground at Windsor with the Queen''s four Fell ponies pulling us along. With Windsor Castle behind us, we clopped past the carefully trimmed lawns and flowering trees to Home Park and the nine-hole golf course where Prince Andrew used to practice his golf swing. We trotted beside the river Thames and the railway track on to the showground, where it was much rougher, and when a train roared past, the ponies quickened their pace, but they responded immediately when told to stop. I used the moment to ask David Muir about his boss. "People that don''t know the duke are intimidated by him," Muir admitted. "It can be like the parting of the Red Sea. As the duke walks up everyone stands back, but if you are honest with him, he is honest with you. He can spot a fake a mile away.
" I have seen him dancing at the Squadron Ball at Cowes, expertly wrapped around Penny Romsey (now Countess Mountbatten of Burma) without a care about who would see them, so I presumed rightly or wrongly it was totally innocent. I have seen him being unpleasant and brusque, but I have also seen him lifting little children out of a crowd and over a barrier so they can give the Queen a posy. I have seen him feeding sugar lumps to his ponies after they have competed in a marathon. With his intellectual rigor goes a great generosity of spirit. Practically everyone who has worked for him has unqualified affection for him, even though he continually shouts at them. He also has a capacity for intense dislike: of the press, his critics, and fools. His best relationships are those based on mutual respect such as he has for the Queen; his daughter, the Princess Royal; and his youngest son, the Earl of Wessex. He is also surprisingly unstuffy, although he has more blue blood running through his veins than his wife, the Queen.
According to Major General Sir Michael Hobbs, a former director of the Duke of Edinburgh Award who has worked with the duke since 1988: "He is reserved by nature and not a demonstrative man. He meets discomfort absolutely head-on and isn''t worried by it. He is a loner, utterly happy within himself." The duke claimed it was his mentor, Kurt Hahn, who persuaded him to become involved with the award: "Kurt Hahn came along one day and he sent for me and I went to see him at Brown''s Hotel, where he always stayed, and he said, ''Boy, I want you to start an awards scheme.'' "I said, ''Thanks very much!'' We had a badge scheme at Gordonstoun, and if you qualified throwing and running and jumping, you got a badge for it. I said, ''I can''t start it, but if you put together a committee of the great and the good, I am perfectly happy to chair it, which is what happened.''?" Philip''s relationship with Kurt Hahn was forged in the crucible of Gordonstoun School, where, under Hahn''s tutorship, Philip developed his adult self. Because of his respect for Hahn, anything the elder man needed, Philip would consider very carefully.
"His dream was that one day the award that bears his name wouldn''t be necessary. It was a genuinely altruistic dream, and he believed and hoped it would become part of the development process of young people," said Michael Hobbs. Philip likes a lot of people for specific parts of what they are, but he does not have many complete friends. Not surprisingly many of those he did have are dead, but Philip is pragmatic and doesn''t dwell on the past or what might have been. As a high achiever himself, he expects the same from his friends when they are helping him, and yet when they disappoint him he is always fair. It was the same with his children. In his youth his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was frightened of him, and although they now have great respect for each other, it took years of misunderstanding. The late Diana Princess of Wales said he was an amusing dinner companion but she would never look to him for sympathy or go to him for help as opposed to advice or guidance, which he gave her.
But at the end of her life she declared she hated him. In a conversation I had with her on the subject, she informed me she had warned her sons, William and Harry, never to shout at anyone who couldn''t answer back the way their grandfather did. As is often the case between younger and older generations, the duke''s grandchildren find him easier than his children, in particular the Princess Royal''s son, Peter Phillips, who has always been a particular favorite. According to a member of staff, as the duke became more cantankerous in his old age, the only one who could cheer him up was Peter, who used to love to go duck flighting with his grandfather, and they still play games together and tease each other. His numerous physical impairments and auditory problems may have made him increasingly bad tempered, and according to research lowered testosterone also plays a part in making older men more irritable and moodier. Regardless, even in his late stage of life, Prince Philip still takes huge pleasure in defying convention. When the Queen was hosting a tea for President Donald Trump of the United States in July 2018, Prince Philip got himself into a helicopter to make the two-hundred-mile journey from Wood Farm in Sandringham to Romsey in Hampshire to stand at the font at Romsey Abbey as a godfather to six-month-old Inigo Hooper, his first cousin three times removed. Inigo, son of Lady Alexandra Hooper and her husband Tom, will one day inherit Broadlands, and ninety-seven-year-old Philip wanted to be there among the Mountbatten family, not at Windsor Castle with the US president.
Prince Philip continues to enjoy his life. He spends most of his time at the refurbished Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, where if he has to do the occasional family get-together, he does it with good heart and a huge amount of the willpower he has always possessed. His determination to be at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle''s wedding in May 2018, despite having a hip operation only six weeks beforehand, was an example of his fortitude. As always, he walked ramrod straight into the chapel and sat through the long service without displaying a flicker of discomfort. Although he didn''t attend the reception afterward, he did turn up at Lady Gabriella Windsor''s wedding to Tom Kingston when they married in May 2019, and he attended their reception at Frogmore House. At Christmastime he always hosts his staff party a.