Prince Philip, husband to Queen Elizabeth, dies at 99

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and husband to Queen Elizabeth II, has died at the age of 99 after an illness that kept him in the hospital for a month.

The Royal Family’s Twitter account posted the news on Friday morning.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. pic.twitter.com/XOIDQqlFPn

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) April 9, 2021

In recent years, Philip suffered from heart disease and other ailments including a bladder infection, and had largely stepped out of the public eye since he announced his retirement from royal duties in 2017. He had only just returned home, presumably on hospice, having been transported in an ambulance.

To many Americans, they had only become relatively familiar with his life through the Netflix series, The Crown. But his life served, along with the Queen, as a bedrock of British society for seven decades.

In early March of 2021, the then-99-year-old underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the U.K. He spent more than a month in the hospital “resting” and recuperating.

Before his surgery, Philip’s most notable public occurrence since he left royal duties was in 2019, when he was involved in a car accident near Sandringham estate. The crash resulted in the duke’s Land Rover being flipped on its side, and the woman in the other vehicle was left with a broken wrist. He was not injured, and not prosecuted after he willingly surrendered his driver’s licence.

Born in Corfu, Greece, on June 10, 1921.

–Wire services