Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip have been married for 71 years, and GLOBE reports the couple’s marriage isn’t what it seems.
According to the US publication, the royal couple are “living apart”, with the 97-year-old Duke of Edinburgh spending his days in the country as Her Majesty continues her royal duties from Kensington Palace – and palace insiders have insisted they’re “better off apart.”
A new book by society diarist Kenneth Rose, who died at 84 in 2014, reveals Philip called the Queen “stupid” in front of a group of officials back in 1961.
According to Rose, Sir Austin Strutt, then Deputy Under-Secretary of the Home Office, claimed he and other bureaucrats were cruising in teh Chanel Islands aboard the royal yacht when the trip had to be cut short due to bad weather.
When Elizabeth couldn’t grasp the reason for the voyage change, Rose states Philip as saying: “Haven’t you got the intelligence to understand?”
Strutt reportedly disliked the “pompous prince” to the point of writing, “He will bring the whole monarchy down in ruins,” GLOBE reports Rose writing.
However, a palace insider notes that Queen “gives as good as she gets”, often referring to her husband as “annoying.”
Sources tell GLOBE some of Philip’s nasty attitude may be due to the fact that he’s had to accept deferring to his wife in public, even walking behind her, which he feels is a “challenge to his manhood.”
In a rare moment during a toast to his wife at a lunch for their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, Philip admitted his faults, saying that “tolerance is the one essential ingredient in any happy marriage…You can take it from me, the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”
