Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were married for over 73 years, officially making them the longest-married couple in royal history. However, in a bombshell biography released this month, historian Hugo Vickers alleges the marriage was all but over during their final years.
In the new tell-all, Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History, Vickers suggests the iconic love story was much frostier than the public realized. For nearly three years, the couple lived over 100 miles apart, leading many to wonder: Was Prince Philip “banished,” or was his freedom a final gift?
The Loose Cannon: Why Philip Was Too Risky to Keep Around
Queen Elizabeth II was more than just Philip’s wife. As the reigning monarch, she was her husband’s boss in every legal and military sense. According to Vickers, she eventually used that power to keep the Prince away from the public eye.
She had good reason for doing so. Prince Philip was a notorious “loose cannon” whose career was defined by high-profile gaffes. Vickers—who met the Queen more than 40 times over 55 years—writes that Philip possessed a “volatile nature and restless spirit” that “chafed against the rigid, corporate structure of the Palace.” This friction explains why the Queen may have been eager to send an aging Philip away to the isolation of the Norfolk coast.
Separate Lives: The Truth About the ‘Exile’
By age 96, Prince Philip was more than ready for retirement. He had been battling inoperable pancreatic cancer for years and was desperate to retreat from the “golden cage” of London. He knew exactly where he wanted to spend his final days: Wood Farm.
The modest farmhouse was more than just a cozy retreat; it was a sanctuary for a man who famously lamented that he felt like a “bloody amoeba” within the royal bloodline. At Wood Farm, the Prince finally stopped “pretending to be a courtier.” He pottered around in pajamas, cooked his own breakfasts, and successfully spent his days gardening—even becoming the first person to grow black truffles in British soil.
While the Queen allegedly told a friend that her husband had “earned the right to be himself,” the move effectively ended their domestic romance. From his retirement in 2017 until early 2020, they lived entirely separate lives with very little contact. It was an arrangement that likely would have continued until his death, if not for the global pandemic.
The Royal Bubble: A Forced Reunion
After years apart, it took a lockdown to reunite the couple. In March 2020, Philip left his beloved farmhouse to join the Queen at Windsor Castle in what was dubbed “HMS Bubble.” Surrounded by a skeleton staff of just 20 people, the couple spent their final 13 months together before Philip passed away on April 9, 2021. True to his “unconventional” personality, his death was a final act of rebellion.
The Prince famously loathed long-winded goodbyes and what he called the “yak, yak, yak” of social convention. On his final night, he reportedly dodged his nursing team to sneak away for a solo beer in the Oak Room. He passed away quietly in his sleep the next morning, reportedly leaving the Queen “absolutely furious” that he had slipped away without a formal farewell.
While they never planned for such intense togetherness in the end, it was a fitting finale for the world’s longest-running royal couple.
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