“ELIZABETH THE QUEEN” by Sally Bedell Smith

“During a month-long stay at Balmoral late in the summer of 1946, Philip proposed to Elizabeth, and she accepted on the spot, without even consulting her parents.

None of the criticism of Philip’s German blood or cheeky attitude was of any concern to Princess Elizabeth.
A man of ideas and appealing complexity, he was a breath of fresh air to the heiress presumptive.
It was clear he would not be easy, nor would he be boring, as might have been the case with one of her mother’s chosen suitors.
He shared her commitment to duty and service, but he also had an irreverence that could help lighten her official burdens at the end of a tiring day.
His life had been as unfettered as hers had been structured, and he was unencumbered by the properties and competing responsibilities of a landed British aristocrat.

According to their mutual cousin, Patricia Mountbatten, the princess also saw that behind his protective shell, “Philip had a capacity for love which was waiting to be unlocked, and Elizabeth unlocked it.”

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At their  fifty years wedding anniversary commemoration (2007):

With the Queen seated next to him, Philip observed that “tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage…It is absolutely vital when the going gets difficult.” His wife, he said, “has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

In her speech, the Queen not only praised her husband but she said she had done her best “with Prince Philip’s constant love and help to interpret it correctly” and assured her audience that they would “try together to do so in the future.”
She closed with a frank but tender homage to Philip, who “all too often, I fear…has had to listen to me speaking.” She acknowledged his help in crafting her speeches–expressing his views “in a forthright manner.”

Admitting his unwillingness to “take easily to compliments”, she said he had, “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 know.”

Publisher: Random House, New York, 2012