Prince Philip Broke Tradition During Son’s Birth; Queen Elizabeth Asked Him To

Prince Philip reportedly broke royal tradition during the birth of one of his children and it was Queen Elizabeth II that encouraged him to do so.

Dr. Laura King, a research fellow at the University of Leeds, said that in the 1950s, men did not believe that the delivery room was a man’s place.

“There were quite a lot of men who couldn’t quite cope with the idea. Equally, a lot of women didn’t like the idea of their husbands seeing them in that way,” she said.

King also said that due to a social hangover from the Victorian era, there were plenty of couples between 1920 and 1940 who talked about not having ever seen each other naked even though they already had six children.

But during the birth of Prince Edward in 1964, Her Majesty insisted that Prince Philip should be there. The Duke of Edinburgh wasn’t around when his wife gave birth to Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew.

In the book “My Husband and I: The Inside Story of 70 Years of Royal Marriage,” royal author Ingrid Seward said that the monarch read in women’s magazines how fathers were becoming involved in childbirth and she wanted to do the same.

“The Duke of Edinburgh was actually holding his wife’s hand as their youngest was born on March 10, 1964. The Queen, by then aged 37, had asked him to be there; she’d been keenly reading women’s magazines that stressed the importance of involving fathers in childbirth and had become fascinated by the idea,” she said.

As such, Prince Philip became the first royal father in modern history to witness the arrival of one of his children. This was a stark contrast during the birth of Prince Charles.

At that time, an anxious Prince Philip opted to play squash while the Queen was in labor. He also enjoyed a dip in the Buckingham Palace pool.