Queen Mother pushed back against Queen and Philip engagement as royal was 'very cynical'
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip's engagement was publicly announced in July 1947.
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The late Queen and her husband, Philip, first met in 1934 and became engaged over a decade later, when Elizabeth was 21. Speaking on the latest episode of Palace Confidential, historian Dr Tessa Dunlop discussed the late Queen Mother's distaste over the engagement.
Speaking to host Jo Elvin, Dr Dunlop said: "A lot of the courtiers and those around the young Princess, and even the Queen Mother, she was the Queen then, were very cynical.
"They didn't like that chthonic blood coursing through Philip's veins."
She added: "He was a Greek Prince, they didn't like Greece, it was perfidious, it was always in a mess, it had flirted with a fascist.
"He didn't actually have any Greek blood, but he had lots of Germanic blood and of course, we didn't like that."
She continued: "I mean, Britain was so, kind of, thin-lipped that we couldn't even see fit to let Philip invite his sisters to the wedding in 1947 because they were married to Germans."
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Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield previously stated that the Queen’s parents were “devastated” by the union between Elizabeth and Philip.
However, Ms Schofield told Nicki Swift in 2021 that the Queen's parents were “devastated" when Princess Elizabeth married Philip but not because they didn't like him, but because "they loved the chemistry of their tight-knit family and didn't want anything to change".
Ms Schofield, the founder of Los Angeles-based royals site ToDiForDaily.com, claimed that the Queen's father "called their family 'us four'”.
She added that “when it comes to Prince Philip, their relationship drastically changed when King George VI suddenly died.”
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The Queen Mother's dislike of Philip were anything but quiet.
The former Queen, who died in 2002, reportedly had an “arsenal” of nicknames for her son-in-law.
Ms Schofield claimed the former Queen had an "arsenal of cringe-worthy nicknames [for Philip] behind closed doors."
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In a 2021 Channel 4 documentary, titled 'Queen Elizabeth: Love, Honour and Crown', author Sarah Gristwood said that the Queen Mother would refer to Philip as 'the Hun', adding that this is "not altogether jokingly either."
The nickname stemmed from Philip’s membership of the German house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and was chosen because of the Queen Mother's anti-German views.
Queen Elizabeth II and Philip went on to welcome four children together, including the current reigning monarch, King Charles III.
The couple were married for over seven decades, until Philip's death in April 2021. Queen Elizabeth died in September 2022, just shy of 18 months after her beloved husband.
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