Prince Philip to step down from active royal duties engagements

Buckingham, Thursday

The Duke of Edinburgh is retiring from royal duties this autumn, Buckingham Palace has announced. The decision was made by Prince Philip himself and is supported by the Queen, a palace spokesman said.

The duke, who turns 96 next month, will attend previously scheduled engagements between now and August but will not accept new invitations.

The Queen “will continue to carry out a full programme of official engagements”, the palace said. The duke carried out 110 days of engagements in 2016, making him the fifth busiest member of the royal family, according to Court Circular listings.

He is patron, president or a member of more than 780 organisations and will continue to be associated with them, but “will no longer play an active role by attending engagements”, Buckingham Palace said. In the statement, the spokesman said the duke “may still choose to attend certain public events from time to time”.

This is Prince Philip acting on his own advice, nearly six years later. When he turned 90 he told the BBC it was “better to get out before you reach your sell-by date”.

From the autumn, he will follow a path into retirement which is trod by many non-royals once they are in their sixties. Today’s announcement is a significant moment in the recent history of the British Royal Family.

A prince of Greece — with Danish, German and Russian blood — he has served the ancient institution, very publicly, for seven decades. As an outsider — who was viewed with suspicion by the aristocracy - he struggled at first.

To his critics, he is a gaffe-prone prince. His many supporters argue that this nonagenarian senior royal has played a crucial role sustaining the monarchy. It’s little wonder then that the Queen once called him her strength and stay. — BBC

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