Flags across the UK are flying at half mast this weekend as the country mourns the death of the Queen’s “rock”, Prince Philip.
His death was announced by the royal family yesterday morning and with this Operation Forth Bridge was set in motion, the master plan for the Prince’s funeral, which he helped draw up.
Part of this plan includes an eight-day mourning period for the Queen.
Already yesterday, flowers have been piling up outside Buckingham palace, and tributes to the prince, who would have been 100 in two months time, have been coming in from around the world.
He died at Windsor Castle following weeks in hospital after feeling unwell since Feb. 17. The Prince was only released from hospital last month.
His long life does, however, make him the longest serving consort in the history of the British monarchy.
For this service, he is likely to be remembered for his decades long steadfast support for his wife and could be relied on for the odd gaffe.
As royal consort, Prince Philip has been at his wife's side – actually two paces behind in public, as required by protocol – since she became the queen upon her father's death in 1952.
He would retire from public life in 2017.
His journey to the British monarchy was a sad and long one.
He was born into the Greek royal family and he traced his ancestry to the royalty of Denmark, Germany, Russia and Britain. He and Queen Elizabeth were cousins, two great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria.
Philip of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg was born June 10, 1921, on the dining room table – deemed the most manageable location by the doctor – of his parents' home on the Greek island of Corfu.
A year later, he would leave Greece, and would spend his early years as a displaced child – first in Paris, before being sent to boarding school in England, aged 8.
With war looming, the young prince joined the British naval academy in Dartmouth in 1938. He would go on to serve with distinction in the Royal Naval during World War Two.
It was during a visit to the naval college by the royal family, less than two months before the outbreak of World War II, when Philip, then 18, entertained Princess Elizabeth, who was just 13 and was soon smitten by the lissome, blue-eyed cadet.
They would marry after the war in 1947.
But it is over the years that the prince has become known for his foot in the moments, that could at times be racist and draw the glare of the world’s media.
To the Paraguayan despot Alfredo Stroessner in 1963, he said: "It's a pleasure to be in a country that isn't ruled by its people."
While touring China in 1986, he described parts of Beijing as "ghastly" and joked with a British student that he would end up "slitty-eyed" if he stayed too long. He later said he had been misquoted and had actually said "slit-eyed."
Even his attempts at humour could fall flat and end up on the other side of politically correctness.
"I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit," he once said to a female solicitor in a reception line.
To a blind woman with a guide-dog, he remarked, "Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?"
But the former naval officer will also be remembered for his efforts to modernise the monarchy and the support he gave his grandsons, after the sudden death of their mother Princess Diana.
It was Philip's gentle persuasion that convinced the young princes to walk behind their mother's hearse at St. James's Palace.
"If you don't walk," he told William, "you may regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?"
The British Royal family as of yesterday had yet to announce details of when the funeral is to take place.
Compiled from the Washington Post and Daily Mail.