Prince Philip joined the royal family when he and the Queen married over 70 years ago, and the The Duke of Edinburgh regularly performed royal duties from that point up until the grand age of 96.

• Prince Philip, who went from ‘of no fixed abode’ to nation’s pater familias, dies at 99
• A timeline of his extraordinary life, from Corfu to his tenth decade
• The story of how Prince Philip and the Queen met, and their 70-year romance
• Boris Johnson leads political tributes to ‘devoted husband’ and ‘steadfast’ public servant

But very few people know that the Duke had strong ties to the British monarchy before his marriage, through his ancestry.

Although born in Greece, Philip’s network of relatives spans the whole of Europe, and he had connections to almost every royal house on the continent.

Prince Philip’s family

The Duke’s father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark – who himself was was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece.

Philip was a Prince in both Greece and Denmark by virtue of his father’s relation to George I of Greece and Christian IX of Denmark.

Philip was born in Greece, but his family was exiled from the country when he was an infant because of anger towards the monarchy, and he spent most of his youth in the UK.

His mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, who was also a European noblewoman.

Through his maternal lineage, Philip was a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria, whose daughter, Princess Alice, married Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

The couple’s daughter was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, and she married Prince Louis of Battenberg – Philip’s maternal grandfather.

He is also related to the Russian royal House of Romanov through both of his parents and is a direct descendant of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.

Philip spent much of his early life with his maternal grandmother, Victoria Mountbatten, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven and his uncle George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven.

He went on to serve in the Navy during the Second World War, despite the fact that two of his brothers-in-law, Prince Christoph of Hesse and Berthold, Margrave of Baden, were fighting for the Germans.

Philip has four children from his marriage to the Queen, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward.

As of this year, Prince Philip and the Queen have eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Related to the Queen

Regular viewers of The Crown will also know that Philip and the Queen were also distantly related.

They were both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, and were third cousins through different lines of their family trees.

Queen Victoria’s eldest son was Prince Edward, whose second-eldest son became King George V.

King George V’s second son was King George VI, the Queen’s father and royal predecessor.

The distant relationship with Queen Victoria made Philip and the Queen third cousins. They were also second cousins once removed, through King Christian IX of Denmark.

Prince Philip’s father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, was the son of King George I of Greece, whose father was Christian IX of Denmark.

Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather King George V was the son of Alexandra of Denmark, and Alexandra’s father was Christian IX.

How did they mark their anniversary?

The Queen and Prince Philip were married in on 20 November, 1947, making last last year’s landmark their 73rd wedding anniversary.

The Duke spent lockdown in England isolating at Windsor Castle, and the couple’s anniversary celebrations were reportedly a low-key affair.

On their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, the Queen paid a touching tribute to her husband, saying: “He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years.”

Philip used the occasion to praise the Queen for her abundance of tolerance.

“I think the main lesson that we have learnt is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage,” he said.