Prince Philip: 3 royal visits to India and a tiger controversy

Britains Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh the husband of Queen Elizabeth II who passed away at the age of 99 on Friday morning made three memorable royal visits to India in his long years of accompanying the 94yearold monarch during her nearly 69year reignThe UKs longestserving royal consort joined the Queen in India in 1961 1983 and 1997 during which he made quite an impression with his sense of humour which often also got him into some controversyDuring his 1961 visit to India he was pictured with the Queen and the Maharaja and Maharani of Jaipur with a dead eightfoot tiger he had shot while on a hunt It happened to be the same year he became president of the World Wildlife Fund UKHe also shot a crocodile and mountain sheep on that trip but it was the photograph of the tiger that caused ripples around the worldLater in life he went on to reinvent himself as an environmentalist and champion of the natural world as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson referred to him in his tribute on FridayDuring Prince Philips last visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of independence in 1997 he joined the Queen on a visit to Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar Punjab where the royals laid a commemorative wreath at the site associated with General Dyers orders to open fire on a large Baisakhi gathering in April 1919As someone known for his gaffes among his many infamous ones includes his query of the death toll at the Jallianwala Bagh massacreTwo thousand It wasnt was it he questioned as he passed by a plaque at the memorial which read This place is saturated with the blood of about two thousand Hindus Sikhs and Muslims who were martyred in a nonviolent struggleThats wrong I was in the Navy with Dyers son Thats a bit exaggerated it must include the wounded he is reported to have saidAmong his other gaffes included a quip at Indianorigin entrepreneur Atul Patel during a Buckingham Palace reception for hundreds of successful British Indians in 2009 Theres a lot of your family in tonightTen years earlier while inspecting a factory in Edinburgh and coming across an oldfashioned fuse box he said It looks as if it was put in by an IndianIt had become common practice for the UK media to regularly compile a list of the Dukes many gaffes many of which were believed to have been made in a lighthearted veinPhilip was born on June 10 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu the youngest child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg That heritage made him a Prince of Greece and Denmark but the following year the family was expelled from Greece after a coup and a British warship carried them to safety in Italy with baby PhilipHis childhood was turbulent and in 1930 when he was eight years old his mother was committed to a secure psychiatric centre after suffering a nervous breakdown a story most recently covered in the Netflix series The CrownWhen Philip left school in Scotland Britain was on the verge of war with Germany and he joined the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth the UKs naval academy He went on to serve with distinction in World War II seeing military action for the first time in the Indian OceanWhen King George VI paid an official visit to the naval academy in July 1939 Philip was charged with entertaining his young daughters Princesses Elizabeth later to be Queen and Margaret He made an impression on the then 13yearold Elizabeth and the couple were to later get married after a courtship through lettersThe erstwhile Prince of Greece and Denmark became a naturalised British subject formally joined the Church of England and gave up his foreign titles On his wedding day November 20 1947 he was made Duke of Edinburgh aged 26 The couples marriage was to last 73 years during which the Queen described him as her strength and stay and they had four children the eldest and heir to the throne Prince Charles Princess Anne Prince Andrew and Prince Edward He is also survived by eight grandchildren and 10 greatgrandchildrenAs the Queens consort his primary function was to support his wife and he accompanied her extensively alongside his own royal charities and patronages until his retirement from royal duties in 2017This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever