Prince Philip was never one to keep his opinions to himself, and when it came to his in-laws, the late Duke of Edinburgh was one of the few people who had “reservations” about one of the most-beloved members of the Royal Family.
The Queen Mother was wildly popular with friends, family and the general public, with royal biographer Gyles Brandreth writing in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait that the Queen Mother’s niece, Margaret Rhodes, told him, “Everybody adored her. Everybody.”
Various people described the Queen Mother as “captivating” and “the most charming person in the world” to Brandreth. While the biographer added that he’s “met few who didn’t” adore Queen Elizabeth's beloved mother, there was one person who was less positive about the late royal.
When Brandreth, who formed a friendship with Prince Philip after working on charity projects together, asked the royal about his mother-in-law, he was less ebullient. “She certainly keeps going,” Prince Philip told Brandreth at the time of her 100th birthday in August 2000.
Brandreth noted that Philip wasn’t as enthusiastic about the Queen Mum for a few reasons, one of them being the treatment that he initially received from her brother when he was first pursuing Queen Elizabeth. But the other had to do with her close relationship with King Charles (then Prince Charles).
“Prince Philip had reservations about his mother-in-law, in part because he knew that members of her family had reservations about him in the 1940s,” Brandreth wrote. He added that “largely” the issue was that Philip “felt she had an emotional hold over Prince Charles ‘that’s not always been to his benefit, in my opinion.’”
It’s no wonder Charles was so close to his grandmother, as he spent a large amount of time with her as a child when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip traveled. "In some ways, the Queen Mother was a mother figure to Charles just because the Queen became Queen when Charles was so young,” author Gareth Russell, author of Do Let's Have Another Drink!: The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, told People.
“There were a lot of tours of the Commonwealth and every time the Queen had to go away, Prince Charles stayed with the Queen Mother," Russell continued. “They had a great sense of humor, and she always encouraged him.”
With the Queen Mother, Prince Charles was also able to form a different kind of bond than he did with his father, who didn't always get along with his sensitive, artistic son.
At the end of the day, it also came down to a difference in personalities between Philip and his mother-in-law . Brandreth, who called Prince Philip “a cool customer,” said that the late duke thought the Queen Mother’s exuberant personality was “overdone.” And Philip’s cousin, Patricia Mountbatten, told Brandreth that the prince thought his mother-in-law was “occasionally irritatingly gushing”—a quality that one wouldn’t dream of assigning to Philip.
