How Queen Elizabeth II's Teenage Crush Blossomed Into The Longest Marriage In British Royal History

Apr 22, 2020 by apost team

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s romance began in July 1939. The royal couple will celebrate 73 years as husband and wife this November.

Queen Elizabeth was just 13 years old when she met Prince Phillip for the very first time in 1939 – way before anyone even thought she would ever take the British Throne. Although the fact might make a few people feel iffy today, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip are distant cousins, sharing Queen Victoria as their great-great-grandmother. 

Right before their wedding in 1947, Queen Elizabeth wrote letters to a woman named Betty Shaw in which she described her first meeting with her future husband. 

“The first time I remember meeting Philip was at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in July 1939, just before the war. (We may have met before at the coronation or the Duchess of Kent’s wedding, but I don’t remember),” she wrote, as cited by Express.

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“I was 13 years of age and he was 18 and a cadet just due to leave,” the future Queen added. “He joined the Navy at the outbreak of war, and I only saw him very occasionally when he was on leave - I suppose about twice in three years.”

The two young lovebirds would continue to write letters to one another for many years to come until Prince Phillip finally asked King George for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage in 1946.

"To have been spared in the war and seen victory, to have been given the chance to rest and to re-adjust myself, to have fallen in love completely and unreservedly, makes all one's personal and even the world's troubles seem small and petty," reads a letter Philip wrote to Elizabeth that year, according to O Magazine.

"If I am asked what I think about family life after 25 years of marriage, I can answer with equal simplicity and conviction, I am for it," the Queen said at the silver wedding anniversary speech. And with over 7 decades of marriage in their bag, we can assume her feelings haven’t changed.

Did you know that the Queen and her husband are third cousins? What do you think about that? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this along to your friends and family.