Three score years and ten is our lease on this Earth, according to the Bible. What does it mean to be married for that long, to spend a whole lifetime together? In the shag’n’go era of Love Island and Tinder, a dating app that “facilitates communication between mutually interested users” (be still my beating heart!) the 70th wedding anniversary of the Queen and Prince Philip feels like a magnificent achievement, almost defiant in its patient and tender longevity.
Some things never change. The official portrait to mark the most successful marriage in Royal history shows ninety-one-year-old Elizabeth smiling warmly at the camera, as she always does. Her husband, still ramrod straight at 96, gives that unmistakable flinty-eyed Philip look which hisses, “Get on with it, man!”
Her hands clasped in front, his behind. No conspicuous display of affection, not now and not on 20 November 1947 when...
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