He maybe shouldn’t be driving
Prince Philip still likes to get behind the wheel – but the Queen might not want everyone to know that like many older people, maybe he shouldn’t. In early 2019 he got into a bad accident when he pulled out of a driveway and hit another car, flipping his own. Bystanders helped the shaken but unhurt Duke out of his vehicle. In an apology letter to a passenger in the other car who broke her wrist, he noted the sun was in his eyes. “I would like you to know how very sorry I am for my part in the accident,” he reportedly wrote. After the incident, the Duke voluntarily gave up his driver’s license but is still allowed to drive on his own estates’ grounds, as he was recently seen doing.
He’s the most popular royal among the palace staff
Queen Elizabeth might not want it getting out that’s she’s upstaged in her own household. But according to Matt Smith, who played Prince Philip in the Netflix series The Crown, the Duke is the favourite royal among the staff. “In the royal house he’s the most popular of all of them – if you’ve talked to any of the staff, Philip’s the one they all love really,” Smith said in a Variety interview. “I think more than a lot of them, he’s a bit more of a man of the people. The royal protocol hasn’t dogged him in quite the same way his whole life, and there’s a sort of rebellion in him and a naughtiness and a cheekiness. I think he’s quite affable and open by all accounts with the staff. They all love him.”
He met his newest great-grandchild before the Queen
Another way Prince Philip has broken royal protocol? He met his latest great-grandchild, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, before the Queen – although by accident. Queen Elizabeth and her husband weren’t supposed to be introduced to the new royal until later in the day, but Prince Philip ran into Prince Harry and wife Meghan on their way to talk to the press. “We just bumped into the Duke as we were walking by, which was so nice,” the Duchess told photographers.
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