A case of “phallic swagger”? (Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
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Was Prince Philip a player right up until the end of his life? That’s the implication made, albeit discreetly, in the latest series of The Crown, which depicts the Duke of Edinburgh’s appreciation for Penny Romsey (later Countess Mountbatten) during his latter years.
In episode two, Jonathan Pryce’s Philip tells his (much) younger blonde friend Penny: “The one thing human beings do the minute they make a commitment to a life together” is “grow in separate directions”. His imagined advice to the vulnerable Diana (preparing to detonate her Andrew Morton “bomb”) is even more incriminating: “Be creative… you can do whatever you want, you can make whatever arrangements you need to find your own happiness”, as long as “you remain loyal to your husband and loyal to this family in public”. But the show doesn’t dare go further.
Likewise Philip’s marriage to Elizabeth has always been a tough subject for biographers. There is no hard evidence that Philip was unfaithful, and while Her Majesty was still alive the issue was all the more sensitive. This may explain the strange detour in Gyles Brandreth’s otherwise excellent biography Philip, the Final Portrait. Promising an interrogation of the Duke’s reputation as a womaniser, Brandreth seeks to establish what Freud would have made of Philip’s female-heavy early childhood. (He was a longed-for son arriving late into a family of four girls.)
Brandreth explores the hypothetical possibility of Philip having “penis awe”, perhaps even “phallic swagger” — both conditions which apparently stem from disproportionate female attention and devotion when young. He tells us what we already know: that Philip liked the company of young attractive women, but his discussion with a Freudian psychologist is inconclusive. Apparently, men with “phallic swagger” aren’t always serial adulterers.
Had Brandreth really wanted to land a psychobabble blow, he would have looked into the male role models in Philip’s life. There was his father’s failed marriage and glamorous lady friends in the Riviera, his uncle Lord Mountbatten’s notoriously “open” marriage, not to mention his Greek uncle Big George and Marie Bonaparte’s “unconventional” relationship. Monogamy did not have much currency in the Duke’s wider family.
In many respects Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage was in keeping with the pair’s pedigree, upbringing and exceptional status. What went on behind closed doors in their marriage is a moot point and one which has disproportionately focused on the importance of monogamy at the expense of arguably greater goals — an enduring marriage and stable family monarchy.
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SubscribeNormally I would read an article before commenting on it. However, in this case I will not waste my time reading speculative tittle tattle about the marriage of a well respected and recently deceased couple. It is simply not a decent subject for an article in Unherd and I am sorry it was commissioned.
That’s a shame, because the title is clickbait and the article is about so much more– the changing expectations of marriage and the ramifications of that. Best not to comment at all when you don’t have all the information.
Nah I’m with Jeremy – it’s tittle tattle. This is Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph material, not Unherd.
An article like this would be featured in PEOPLE magazine in the USA…perhaps it’s your HELLO?
Well it’s 2 months since the Queen died, and 18 months since the death of Philip, the subject of the article. I’ve no doubt that Philip had affairs in his younger days – of course they were rumours, as no one would dare to publish! And anyway, this piece is more about the change in relationships over the past 70 odd years.
I always found it fascinating that the late Royal couple were considered “untouchable” by a MSM which generally displays the morality of a festering ulcer?
The casualty rate in modern marriages is far too high, partly, perhaps, because successful men have every opportunity to meet attractive, often younger, women in the workplace and women, whose instinct is to make themselves attractive, are attracted to successful men.
Could it not be that women were Prince Philipiisers?
Let me shorten this by altering the title and adding a less analytical, but equally insightful, response:
Was Prince Philip a product of his time and status? Yes.
That was really all that was necessary, and now can we focus on journalism, please?
I’m willing to bet Philip was a busy boy throughout his life. The more interesting question, for me, is whether the Queen ever strayed, as hinted in The Crown. For what it’s worth, my respect for the late Queen would not be in any way diminished if it eventually came to light she’d had an affair. Perhaps that was part of the source of her “tolerance in abundance.”
Lord Porchester?
The marriage of our late Queen and her husband, whilst the subject of the article, is not the most important aspect to be considered. The wider point about the changing context in which marriage is considered is the real issue, and the writer is well aware of this.
It’s significant, for instance, that the weight of female expectations has become greater alongside female emancipation. Not having too high an expectation (by both parties) seems to me an eminently sensible approach. Perhaps the much-condemned divorce rate, and its lamented effects on the offspring of marriages, wouldn’t be anywhere near as high if greater tolerance of human nature (which isn’t going to change in any significant way) were factored in, and unions maintained despite the perfectly natural desire to seek alternative sexual and emotional engagement.
Of course, plenty of married couples remain faithful, in deed if not in thought. My own.marriage lasted almost twenty years before i finally strayed, which led to divorce. As the writer quotes, the temptation started almost as soon as the knot was tied. Am i an exception? I very much doubt it, and if i describe myself as happily married for much the greater part of it, that doesn’t change the basic imperative to seek other experiences. It’s hard-wired into us; the only restraining factor is opportunity.
I’m fully aware of the implications for husbands whose wives stray too; that they might become the upbringers of children not their own. Well, the old jokes about a child looking like the milkman didn’t arise from nowhere! So be it, i say. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, especially when contraception makes it much less likely!
People stray for egotistical reasons and out of the entirely unreliable impression that it will make them happier. Marriage is designed to subordinate the ego to something larger than oneself. This is not a bad thing given all great religions and streams of philosophical thought suggest the subordination of the ego is the only possible path to happiness.
Thanks for your little homily. I’m very happy.
No, you are not the exception.
Young men and women need to sow their wild oats.
I met my wife when I was 19 and dated her for 10 years before marrying her.
It didn’t help that aged 23 I discovered that I was an exceptional software developer who could earn £3K – £4K per week on the contract market, with international travel.
As such, I had a perfect excuse for straying, and I did, but only with escorts in posh hotels, which in my male dominated logic meant it was OK because there was no chance of forming an emotional attachment.
I jacked that in after marriage but was probably helped by kids taking up all my energy.
Would I be OK if I found out my wife had been doing the same prior to marriage? I can honestly say “probably … maybe … “.
Implicit in my response, though is that marriage is a promise to forgo all that stuff, which it seems that by more luck than judgement on my part that my long courtship has absolved me from (more male dominated get out of jail free card logic).
In the USA, it’s said that women initiate most divorces – around 70%, for sure, for all kinds of reasons But to your point, clearly expectations have soared in recent decades, at the same time that women’s abilities to be self-supporting have also risen. ‘She’ just doesn’t have to ‘take it’ anymore.
I was told by a Frenchman that his father, a homosexual, had seen Prince Philip in a gay nightclub in Paris. Of course, even if this story is true it doesn’t prove anything, but I found it amusing.
Trust the French!
But don’t trust the Mountbattens………
Indeed, a more pusillanimous bunch of cretins would be hard to imagine.
Compared to who?
The Kennedy clan.
Before he was married Prince Philip was stationed for a while near Pwllheli in North Wales at what later became a Butlins holiday camp. There he was rumoured to have fathered a son by a local girl. It is said that the reason Madge never made him Prince Consort is because she was aware of his proclivities.
“Who could resist the outspoken Duke in his dotage, stumbling around Sandringham, riding carriages with his sometime blonde companion and driving when dangerously old?”
???
If he cheated throughout his life and left no “hard evidence,” that’s quite a feat.
If he cheated throughout his life and left no “hard evidence,” that’s quite a feat.
It didn’t take long. Sad title. Not read.
Who gives a fork?
Why is this vacuous article being printed on this website?
Gossip: story and comments.
I found Branreth’s ‘Portrait of a Royal Marriage’ insghtful.
A
why do we care?