Prince Philip, the longest-serving royal consort in British history is dead.
He died on Friday, according to the royal family. He was 99 years old.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces 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,” the family said in a statement.

Philip married the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947. He and the queen have four children, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip retired in 2017 and rarely appearred in public. Before his hospitalization, he had been isolating at Windsor Castle, west of London, with the queen.

Prince Philip was born in Greece in 1921. He was the nephew of the then Greek King, Constantine I, although confusingly he has no Greek blood. He is of German, Danish and Russian descent. In 1922 his family was forced to flee after a coup deposed the royal family. A baby Philip was rushed off the island of Corfu sailing away on a British ship (HMS Calypso), reportedly in an orange crate as a make shift crib. They moved to France but after his parents’ marriage unravelled and his mother had a nervous breakdown, Philip had an itinerant childhood. He was moved from relation to relation during the holidays from his boarding schools in the UK.

He joined the British navy in 1939 and had a successful career, and a “good war” but gave it up in 1951 to accompany his wife in her duties. He first met Elizabeth in 1934 at a wedding, but they caught each other’s eye in 1939 when she visited his naval academy.

He was known as Prince Philip of Greece until he became a British subject in 1947 and dropped his titles, becoming Philip Mountbatten. Despite this he was met with animosity from some members of British high society as he was considered foreign and penniless. Upon his marriage he became the Duke of Edinburgh. In 1957 the Queen made Philip a “Prince of the United Kingdom.” The prince was a devoted companion to the Queen, accompanying her on official engagements well into old age. During her Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012, when Philip was 90, he stood by her for an 80-minute journey along the Thames, and the prince then suffered a bladder infection which meant he had to miss other events.