LONDON — After a frenzied, middle-of-the-night scramble by the global news media for strategic real estate outside Buckingham Palace and an hourslong wait in the cold, the much-anticipated announcement finally came: A 95-year-old man was retiring.
That would be Prince Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, the gaffe-prone but grumpily endearing and loyal husband of Queen Elizabeth II for almost 70 years — the longest royal union in British history — and has served the country for nearly as long.
“His royal highness the Duke of Edinburgh has decided that he will no longer carry out public engagements from the autumn of this year. In taking this decision, the duke has the full support of the queen,” read the terse statement from the palace, which gave no reason for the retirement.
It added that the queen’s role would be unchanged, and that while Prince Philip would retreat from public view, he might occasionally attend public events.
Only minutes earlier, outside the palace, more than a dozen television crews and assembled journalists from Britain, the United States, France, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia had been watching for even the slightest clue about what was happening. Speculation was rife — unfounded, as it turned out — that either Prince Philip or the queen might be dead.
The flag atop Buckingham Palace was at full staff, signaling that the queen was fine and at home. Beyond the possibility that there would be an announcement of a royal death — an event that would be carefully choreographed after years of preparation — various other possibilities were discussed in whispers. Could it be an abdication crisis? Some sort of security threat at one of the queen’s many lavish homes? A palace decoration emergency?
Prince Philip with his son Prince Charles, left, and grandsons Prince Harry, right, and Prince William, in the background, during a pageant for the queen’s diamond jubilee in London in 2012.
Pool photo by John Stillwell
At one point, a group of royal-looking horses trotted by, galvanizing a flock of photographers into action. False alarm.
“This is more exciting than the election,” said Rachael Venables, a reporter for LBC, a London-based talk radio station, alluding to Britain’s somewhat lackluster coming general election, which Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party are widely expected to win handily.
The news media scrum was touched off by a report in The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, that all members of the queen’s staff had been ordered to a meeting in London, and that employees from royal residences across the country would be in attendance.
The Daily Mail described the meeting as “highly unusual,” and Buckingham Palace’s silence on the matter early in the morning allowed rumors to flourish. A palace official said that such gatherings happened every now and then, and that there was “no reason for alarm.”
The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid, erroneously published an unfinished obituary of Prince Philip on its website for a few minutes Thursday morning. The headline read: “Prince Philip dead at 95, how did the Duke of Edinburgh die, etc etc.”
“We are mortified this happened,” a Sun executive later said.
An announcement was rumored to be coming at 8 a.m., and when it failed to arrive, BBC television news said its top story of the morning was the sharp rise in eating disorders among men. Palace gardeners could be seen jovially going about their chores. Bemused tourists near the palace asked what all the fuss was about.
Journalists outside Buckingham Palace in London on Thursday.
Victoria Jones/Press Association, via Associated Press
Adding to the confusion was the fact that both the queen and Prince Philip had performed duties on Wednesday: The queen met with Mrs. May, and the prince cut a ribbon to open a new stand of seats at a cricket ground. If a royal personage had died, the palace was behaving with remarkable stoicism.
Members of the royal family are beloved fixtures in Britain, and speculation about royal health has been simmering for months. The prince was ill over the holidays, while the queen, who is 91, was not seen in public for nearly a month after missing church services on Christmas and New Year’s Day because of what Buckingham Palace described as a persistent cold.
A former naval officer, Prince Philip has earned a reputation as a royal workhorse and a steadfast spouse to the queen, even as he has sometimes come under criticism for making rude and occasionally out-of-place remarks.
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