Prince Philip Once Insinuated That He Regretted Marrying Queen Elizabeth

It may seem like Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth’s marriage is perfect, but it’s not. Although their marriage is one of the most enduring in the history of the royal family, their relationship isn’t always a bed of roses. In fact, there was a time when Prince Philip insinuated that he regretted marrying Queen Elizabeth.

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth have been married for more than 70 years now, and their love story started when they were still young. Then-princess Elizabeth was only 8 and Philip was only 13 when they first met, but their relationship did not blossom until years later.

In her biography, Queen Elizabeth admitted that Prince Philip had caught her eye when they met again when she was 13. That time, Philip was an 18-year-old handsome young military man who was about to embark on a career in the Royal Navy.

When Prince Philip asked Elizabeth’s hand in marriage in 1946, he knew it would come with a lot of sacrifices on his part. Philip was enjoying his time in the military when he fell in love with Elizabeth, and he knew that marrying the future Queen of England would mean having to sacrifice his career to attend to his royal duties alongside his wife. Ultimately, he still chose to marry Elizabeth.

Years after they got married, it dawned on Prince Philip that his life could have been totally different had he not married Queen Elizabeth. His marriage to the Queen changed the trajectory of his life forever and had him leave his greatest dream of becoming a military man on the back burner. According to royal expert Richard Fitzilliams, had Prince Philip chosen not to marry Queen Elizabeth, he certainly would have been a successful military man now enjoying his illustrious career.

“Philip’s role as Consort is far from the role he would ideally have chosen,” he said. “In the Navy, he would probably have risen high had not the King’s failing health forced him to terminate a promising career,” he added.

How his life turned out to be may have been good, but given another chance to choose, Prince Philip admitted that he’d rather not have a royal life. In an interview in 1992, a reporter asked the Duke of Edinburgh how he generally felt about his life, and Prince Philip gave a straightforward answer.

“I’d much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly,” he said. While he didn’t explicitly say that he regretted marrying Queen Elizabeth, it’s clear that he regretted trading his military career for royal life.