Just like other married couples, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were known to argue. In fact, the former Duke of Edinburgh once threatened to leave his wife "stranded on the motorway." However, Elizabeth and Philip were also known to share a sense of humor, with one royal aide witnessing a particularly funny moment between the pair.
In the book The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, royal author Ian Lloyd revealed, "Chief Petty Officer William Evans recalled The Queen, then in her mid-thirties, screaming with laughter and shouting, 'Stop it! Philip, stop it, stop it, stop it!' as Philip ran after her, pinching her bottom repeatedly and growling, 'Get up there, girl, get up there!'"
As well as having a rather cheeky streak, Prince Philip seemingly wanted royal fans to know that he did, in fact, share a bed with his wife.
"Philip himself inadvertently gave a clue to their intimacy when he fact-checked a manuscript by biographer Tim Heald," Lloyd explained. "The author wrote, 'It was generally known that at the palace the royal couple had separate bedrooms.' In the margin the prince scrawled, 'wrongly.'"
Lloyd also reflected on Queen Elizabeth's growing confidence and why she seemed to appreciate Philip's candor.
"[T]he Queen was beginning to answer her husband back more," Lloyd shared.
The royal biographer continued, "Former private secretary Martin Charteris later commented, 'Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats The Queen simply as another human being.'"
As Charteris noted, "And, of course, it's not unknown for The Queen to tell Prince Philip to shut up. Because she's The Queen, that's not something she can easily say to anybody else."
The normalcy with which Philip spoke to Queen Elizabeth apparently went both ways, and seems to have been what helped make their marriage so successful.
