Husband of 73 years to Queen Elizabeth, “he outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him,” wrote BBC royal correspondent Johnny Dymond in a tribute.

Born on the Greek island of Corfu on 10 June 1921, Philip was the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. When he was one, his family was banished from Greece following a coup, and travelled to Italy. He was later raised by his mother’s relatives in the UK, adopting their surname, Mountbatten. Upon completing school, Philip joined the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth and graduated top of his class.

He met then Princess Elizabeth when King George VI paid an official visit in July 1939. The two kept in touch and subsequently married eight years later, on 20 November, 1947. When Princess Elizabeth was coronated following her father’s death in 1952, Philip had to relinquish his naval commitments.

According to the BBC, Prince Philip spent his time conducting 22,191 solo engagements until he retired from royal duties in 2017. He also visited 143 countries in an official capacity making use of his fluent French and German. He will be fondly remembered for founding the Duke of Edinburgh’s award, in 1956, a volunteer and skills based training for 14 to 25-year-olds that remains popular today. “If you can get young people to succeed in any area of activity, that sensation of success will spread over into a lot of others,” he once told the BBC.

In a speech to mark their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, Queen Elizabeth said: “He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know.”