Crowds gather at Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's wedding

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King George VI’s bittersweet words were first shared by the Royal Family’s official Twitter account in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s 68th wedding anniversary in 2015. Now, the letter — sent shortly after the wedding on November 20, 1947 — is made even more poignant as Sunday marks what would have been Elizabeth and Philip’s 75th wedding anniversary and the first since both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s deaths.

The heartfelt, personal letter served to offer the King’s wishes for the Queen and her new husband in lieu of the traditional father-of-the-bride speech at the wedding reception. The King had a famous speech impediment in the form of a stutter and, despite overcoming it in the years preceding his daughter’s wedding, is thought to have avoided public speaking when possible, a fact his beloved “Lilibet” was very sympathetic to. 

It read: “I was so proud of you and thrilled at having you so close to me on our long walk in Westminster Abbey, but when I handed your hand to the Archbishop I felt that I had lost something very precious. You were very calm and composed during the Service and said your words with such conviction that I knew everything was all right.

“I am so glad you wrote and told Mummy that you think the long wait before your engagement and the long time before the wedding was for the best. I was rather afraid that you had thought I was being rather hard-hearted about it. I was so anxious for you to come to South Africa, as you knew. Our family, us four, the Royal Family must remain together, with additions of course at suitable moments!

Elizabeth was just 21 years old when she married Philip Mountbatten, the dashing naval officer and former Greek and Danish prince whom she first met as a child. 

It was at the 1934 wedding of Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark to Prince George, Duke of Kent, when an eight-year-old Elizabeth and 13-year-old Philip initially met. However, it wasn’t until years later, when the Princess visited Dartmouth Naval College with her family, that Elizabeth spent time with the young cadet who would later become her husband. 

As the Queen, who died on September 8 at Balmoral Castle, wrote in since-auctioned letters to Royal Wedding author Betty Shew: “I was 13 years of age and he was 18 and a cadet just due to leave. He joined the Navy at the outbreak of war, and I only saw him very occasionally when he was on leave — I suppose about twice in three years.”

Despite the distance, the young lovebirds kept in touch and, by June 1947, they announced their engagement. Philip proposed with a platinum ring he had created using diamonds from a tiara he was given by his mother, Princess Alice of Battenburg. 

Of course, the future Queen said yes. “Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats the Queen simply as another human being,” her former private secretary, Lord Charteris, once said. “He’s the only man who can. Strange as it may seem, I believe she values that.”

Five months later, Elizabeth and Philip wed at Westminster Abbey — the same place where her father was crowned just 11 years earlier and where the Princess herself would be coronated five years later. 

2,000 people filled the seats at the Abbey with five kings, five queens and eight princes and princesses among the high-profile guests. 

Just ahead of the pair’s nuptials, Philip renounced his right to the Greek and Danish thrones and received new titles, becoming the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich of Greenwich.

Their wedding marked the beginning of what would become the longest royal marriage in history.

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The Duke, who died in April 2021, said in a tribute for the couple’s 50th anniversary: “I think the main lesson we have learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient in any happy marriage. You can take it from me, the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

After the death of the Duke of Edinburgh some 18 months ago, the Queen was pictured grieving on her own at his coffin at Windsor Castle. In her first Christmas message since his death, and the last of her reign, she paid tribute to her beloved husband. 

“In the months since the death of my beloved Philip, I have drawn great comfort from the warmth and affection of the many tributes to his life and work – from around the country, the Commonwealth and the world,” the monarch said.

“His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation – were all irrepressible. That mischievous, enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him. But life, of course, consists of final partings as well as first meetings…” 

Following the Queen’s state funeral, Elizabeth and Philip were finally reunited.

At a private service of internment, the monarch and her prince’s matching English oak coffins were placed side-by-side in the family chamber below the adjoining King George VI Chapel.

The Memorial Chapel is part of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and is also the final resting place of her father, mother Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) and sister Princess Margaret. 

“Now they will be together for an eternity,” said royal historian Hugo Vickers at the time. 

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