From the moment the Queen, as a prim young girl of 13, was shown around the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth by a dashing 18-year-old cadet, no other man really counted. His death yesterday severed a partnership that had lasted for eight decades.
As the Queen's oldest friend, the late Margaret Rhodes, once told the Daily Mail: 'She was the definitive one-man woman. There could never be anyone else.'
In fact, Princess Elizabeth had been only eight when they first met, at the wedding of his cousin Princess Marina of Greece to her uncle George, the Duke of Kent.
As the person closest to the sovereign, Prince Philip's outstanding qualities served her well — though they frequently upset the more conservative courtiers.