By Babatunde Odubanwo
The world, especially the British Royal Family today bid farewell to Prince Philip, beloved husband of Queen Elizabeth for 73 odd years! In a solemn ceremony at the famed Windsor Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland, the legendary Greek immigrant who won the heart of the future British sovereign and for more than seven decades served as her source of strength was laid to rest. Babatunde Odubanwo, a royal watcher pays tribute to the iconic royal.
The gleaming sun of Prince Philip: a leading world leader, war veteran, respected statesman, Father to millions of Britons, a humanist, prominent member of the British royal family and heartthrob of the Queen Elizabeth II shone on June 10, 1921 in the ancient land of modern knowledge, Greece.
At a year and some months old, his family was deprived of their lofty realms of Greek and Danish inheritance leaving them no other choice than to seek refuge in faraway lands. If only the masterminds of the dastardly act knew that there was amongst the exiled royals, a little Joseph that would shine on as a beacon, perhaps they would have giving their thoughts a deeper introspection.
Destiny forged a path for him amidst the thistles and thorns of elitist animosity, the young Prince Philips earned for himself good academic attainments during his formative years before joining the Army. He soldiered on in the jungles of life’s ironies – fighting in the Royal Navy and getting for himself a successful military career until he plucked a beauteous rose flower, the amiable Princess Elizabeth, from the courtyard of Buckingham Palace under the watchful gaze of King George VI. The lovebirds got married at Westminster Abbey in the year 1947, a union blessed with amazing offsprings.
It was Apostle Peter that noted in one of his sacred writings in 1 Peter 1:24 that ‘For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away’. Indeed, this submission by one of the earliest founders of the Christian faith, a belief in which the deceased British leader devotedly followed for his over nine decades of existence, summarised the mortal reality. The poet Henry Scott-Holland re-affirms the Jack Reaper’s incredulous role in every mortal’s existence when he wrote:
’Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was.
There is the absolute and unbroken continuity
What is this death but a negligible accident’’?
It is often said that as a man is born, so he dies: the fast clock of existence ticking in fleeting seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. Yet, man must begone. An abiding faith in little things reassures the gift of something greater in return. Death, the return path of all flesh to mother earth – decimates all the glittering arrays of beauty and prestige one possessed while he yet lived.
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the revered playwright wrote:
‘When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of prince.’
The solemnity of Shakespeare reflects the mood along a morose Windsor High Street on April 17, 2021 at 3pm, official commencement time for the funeral of one of the longest serving members of the British Royal Family. Coinciding with the time was a national tribute that spanned 6-minutes preceded by the prodigious military gun salutes to the departed Prince.
Quite unlike funerals of such magnitude, the Late Prince Philip’s funeral was sparsely attended due to covid-19 protocols. However, no less than 790 military officers stood in line to pay their last respect to one of the nation’s heroes. Also, about 30 members of the royal household were admitted into the St. George’s Chapel at the Windsor’s Castle, venue of the farewell service of the deceased Duke of Edinburgh.
The St. George’s Chapel mammoth edifice which is 900 years old has played host to several royal ceremonies, the recent being the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markel in 2019. Nevertheless, the gloom that pervaded the hallowed halls didn’t prevent the rite of passage for the dearly departed Prince Philips who has been married to Queen Elizabeth for 73 years. The exquisiteness of St. George was no remedial to resurrect the once famed British ruler back to life.
Shortly before the ceremony started, the body of the Prince was conveyed into the palatial Windsor Castle grounds in a specially designed green coloured Land Rover hearse the construction of which the late Prince Philips had personally supervised between 2003 when he turned 82 and 2019. The hearse had a semblance of a military vehicle, a suggestion that the departed Prince was leaving the world something to ponder about long after he passed on. I think it worked out perfectly.
The Dean of Windsor, David Conner who conducted the funeral service for the Late Prince Philip gave words of commendation as the body of Prince Philips was lowered into the royal vault at St. George.
Life teaches us all that we are connected in the circles of common humanity, irrespective of colours or stratification. Prince Philips has lived an exemplary leadership lifestyle. May posterity remember him in good fate!
