PHILIP, DUKE OF EDINBURGH

born June 10, 1921, Corfu, Greece in full Prince Philip, Duke Of Edinburgh, Earl Of Merioneth And Baron Greenwich, also called Philip Mountbatten, original name Philip, Prince Of Greece And Denmark husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Philip's father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (1882-1944), a younger son of King George I of the Hellenes (originally Prince William of Denmark). His mother was Princess Alice (1885-1969), who was the eldest daughter of Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st marquess of Milford Haven, and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Reared chiefly in Great Britain, Philip was educated at Gordonstoun School, near Elgin, Moray, and at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. From January 1940 to the end of World War II, he served with the Royal Navy in combat in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. On Feb. 28, 1947, Philip became a British subject, renouncing his right to the Greek and Danish thrones and taking his mother's surname, Mountbatten. (His father's family name had been Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glcksburg.) His marriage to his distant cousin Princess Elizabeth took place in Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947. On the eve of his wedding he was designated a royal highness and was created a Knight of the Garter, Baron Greenwich, earl of Merioneth, and duke of Edinburgh. He continued on active service with the Royal Navy, commanding the frigate "Magpie," until Elizabeth's accession on Feb. 6, 1952, from which time he shared her official and public life. In 1957 she conferred on him the dignity of prince of the United Kingdom, and in 1960 his surname was legally combined with the name of her family as Mountbatten-Windsor as a surname for lesser branches of the royal family.