14 things Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t want you to know about Prince Philip

The retired naval hero, great-grandfather – and oh yeah, also the Queen’s husband – turns 98 years old on June 10. Prince Philip has always been a bit cheeky compared to his more reserved wife, so here are some little-known facts she probably wouldn’t want to share.

Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have come to represent Britain itself in the 67 years she has been on the throne. But the Queen might not want you to know that her husband isn’t exactly British – at least he wasn’t until he married her. Before he was the Duke of Edinburgh, the young Philip was Prince of Greece and Denmark, nephew of the Greek king, and born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921. He was not a British citizen, although his ancestry could be traced to multiple countries including Germany and England. “If anything, I’ve thought of myself as Scandinavian, particularly Danish,” he said in a 1992 interview. Although we may think of him as the quintessential English gentleman, he only renounced his titles and became a British citizen, choosing the name Philip Mountbatten, in preparation to marry then-Princess Elizabeth.

Read on for everything you need to know about Prince Philip.

In chin-up British fashion, the Queen and her husband aren’t very open about Prince Philip’s difficult early years. When the Greek royal family was ousted, his family fled the country with baby Philip lodged in a fruit crate. After settling in exile in France, Philip’s family went through more changes: his older sisters married and moved away, his father left, and his mother, who suffered from mental illness, entered a psychiatric hospital. “My mother was ill, my sisters were married, my father was in the south of France – I just had to get on with it,” the BBC reports he said. Young Philip was shuttled off to boarding schools in England, Germany, and Scotland for the rest of his childhood.

His older sisters didn’t just get married: they got married to Nazis, a fact Queen Elizabeth isn’t likely eager to have the world know. When Philip’s sister Cecile and her husband, both Nazi party members, died in a plane crash in 1937, young Philip was sent to Germany for the funeral and had to walk in the procession among Nazi soldiers. None of Philip’s sisters were invited to his wedding in 1947, but the royal couple reunited with his German relations in 2015. Prince Philip, of course, can’t help who his relatives are, and he himself went on to fight for the Allies as a Royal Navy officer in World War II. Also, Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, sheltered Jews during World War II when she was living in Athens. She was honoured with the title “Righteous Among the Nations on Princess Alice” by Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem for her actions and is buried in Jerusalem.

This is the true story of how Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip fell in love: the young Princess met the dashing Prince when she was just 13, and the two corresponded as friends for many years before their romantic relationship blossomed. But a Time magazine article from 1957 points out that the Princess’ father, King George VI, “strongly disapproved” of the match. “Despite Philip’s British background and his fine war record, George VI was deeply worried about how British opinion…would take to a Greek Prince as the husband of the heiress presumptive,” Time reported. “There was also something about his daughter’s brash young man with his loud, boisterous laugh and his blunt, seagoing manners that irritated the gentle King.” Plus, Philip was poor (by royal standards, at least), exiled, had German roots and Nazi relatives, and wasn’t considered a proper choice for the princess. The Queen might not want you to know she had to make the case for her Prince, but her wishes eventually won over her father – and the country. The couple wed on November 20, 1947.

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It’s true: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are secretly related. Intermarriage between cousins is something the Queen probably wants to downplay these days, although it historically tended to be commonplace: even the famously in love Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s family connection isn’t quite that close, but they are third cousins, as both are great-great-grandchildren of Victoria and Albert themselves. Historically, it was imperative to marry amongst royalty to secure power, and there were only so many options. And so today, it’s unlikely for any modern royal not to be descended from Queen Victoria: As her nine children were married off to royalty all over the continent, she’s known as ‘the grandmother of Europe’.

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Just because Philip and Elizabeth were in love, doesn’t mean there weren’t hurdles in their marriage. The Queen might not want you to know that although the Duke is rightly lauded for his naval career, he feels he had to give it up all too soon when she suddenly became queen. “I thought I was going to have a career in the Navy but it became obvious there was no hope,” he reportedly said. “There was no choice. It just happened. You have to make compromises. That’s life. I accept it. I tried to make the best of it.” He revealed in a 1992 interview in the Independent that instead of some of his royal charity positions, “I’d much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly.” Even his grandson, Prince William, admits it must have been hard for his grandfather to have given up his own ambitions to support the Queen. “But he does it fantastically well,” Prince William told ABC News. “He’s never complained. Well, he has complained a little bit, but not sort of too openly.”

Prince Philip also resented that his kids couldn’t even take his last name – or rather, that Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t allow it, as she wanted to keep to her name of the House of Windsor after their marriage. “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children,” he reportedly said. In 1960, the couple reached a compromise: although the royal house itself would remain as Windsor, their descendants, should they need a last name, would be called Mountbatten-Windsor.

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Even with their early squabbles, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth were very much in love – even if they didn’t, and still don’t, talk about it often publicly. “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,” Philip wrote in a personal letter to Elizabeth’s mother. Over the years, he’s given her gorgeous presents like a ruby and diamond brooch she favours for holiday occasions. In return, she recently gave him a knighthood for their 70th anniversary.

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Prince Philip is well-known for his straightforward (some might say rude) manner, wicked quips, and occasional habit of putting his foot in his mouth. A few of the gaffes the Queen wouldn’t want getting around? Speaking about a Scottish tartan, he said, “That’s a nice tie…Do you have any knickers [underpants] in that material?” To bombing victims, the Duke said, “After a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle,” referring to the 1992 fire. During a recession, he said, “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure…now that everybody’s got more leisure time they are complaining they are unemployed.” Then there’s this gem from 1961: “British women can’t cook.”