Queen Mother – Before Queen Elizabeth II fell in love with Prince Philip, her mother reportedly favored a different match: Hugh, Earl of Euston, a Grenadier Guards officer and English aristocrat—though Elizabeth ultimately refused to waver.
Long before Prince Philip became Queen Elizabeth II’s constant—her “strength and stay”—the path to that enduring marriage was anything but smooth. Her mother, the Queen Mother, had another idea of who belonged by Elizabeth’s side.
Hugo Vickers. author of the 2026 biography *Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History*. said the then-future monarch’s mother hoped her eldest daughter would marry Hugh. Earl of Euston instead of the man who eventually became her husband. Vickers also framed Euston as an English aristocrat and Grenadier Guard officer.
Vickers told Fox News Digital that “The Queen Mother was very keen that [her daughter] should marry a Grenadier Guard. ” adding that “If you’re a Grenadier Guard. you are the top.” He connected the preference to the world Elizabeth and Princess Margaret spent growing up at Windsor Castle during World War II. where. Vickers said. Grenadier Guards were stationed nearby.
Princess Margaret, Vickers recalled, used to joke that barbed wire kept Germans “in,” not out. With guards around the castle. Vickers said. the Queen Mother kept steering Princess Elizabeth toward Grenadier Guards—and “She would have loved her to marry Lord Euston.” He added that “I think it was slightly in the cards at one point. and that could have happened.”.
The idea of Euston wasn’t just a mother’s preference. In Vickers’ telling, politician Sir Henry “Chips” Channon documented the gossip circulating among royal and society circles at the time. In 1943, Channon believed Hugh was “reserved for a higher destiny — the very throne itself.”
Other voices in the circle seemed to mix hope and logic. Lady Brigid Guinness told Channon that while Hugh was courting her, she believed he would ultimately end up with Elizabeth because “she likes him.”
But even Euston’s own momentum reportedly shifted. Vickers said Lord Mountbatten—Philip’s uncle and Elizabeth’s second cousin—was “instrumental in getting Earl Euston a fabulous job as ADC (aide-de-camp) to the Viceroy of India.” In Vickers’ account. that posting sent Euston to India and “got him out of the way.”.
As Euston’s chances faded, the royal family’s enthusiasm reportedly cooled. By October 1943, Channon wrote that Hugh had been dropped as a prospect because he was considered “too inert and énervé.”
For Elizabeth, though, the question was never really open-ended. Helena Chard, a British broadcaster and photographer, said that even as the adults weighed options, Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed on Philip.
Chard described a decisive moment in July 1939: “Thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth fell head over heels with 18-year-old Philip on that crucial fine weekend of July 1939.” She said Elizabeth was so captivated by Philip—“handsome” and “athletic”—that she kept a photograph of him in her bedroom.
Chard also said Elizabeth’s parents thought Philip was “brash” and “totally unsuitable.” Those concerns led them to discuss other potential suitors from high-society circles, including the Earl of Euston. Yet Chard said Elizabeth refused to seriously consider alternatives.
“Elizabeth steadfastly refused to look at anyone else,” Chard told Fox News Digital. She said that if any match were to be considered. it was Lord Porchester—nicknamed “Porchie” (real name: Henry Herbert. 7th Earl of Carnarvon)—noted by Chard as someone with a passion for horse racing. Chard added that their relationship was platonic.
Philip’s road to permission also ran through resistance closer to home. Royal broadcaster Ian Pelham Turner told Fox News Digital that Elizabeth’s father. King George VI. “was not enamored with Philip. who he saw as a rather brash young man.” Turner said that when it became clear Elizabeth was deeply in love. the king took Elizabeth and her sister Margaret on a royal trip as a cooling-off period. “to no avail. ” because “His daughter had made up her mind.”.
Chard said Elizabeth’s determination only grew. She explained that Princess Elizabeth eventually convinced her father to allow her to marry Philip after a royal tour of South Africa. and that “distance made the heart grow fonder. ” as Chard put it. Chard also said Princess Elizabeth, now 21, missed him more rather than forgetting.
By the time the engagement was officially announced in July 1947, Elizabeth’s choice had already survived pressure from multiple directions. Chard said Princess Elizabeth’s parents “eventually gave their full blessing. ” and that the engagement—announced in July 1947—was “a huge success” because it was “a relationship of choice. not arrangement.”.
In the background, Prince Philip’s reception inside royal circles was also mixed. Hilary Fordwich, a British royals expert, said Philip “initially wasn’t viewed as appropriate by many, particularly courtiers,” who found him “too foreign, too rough-edged, too ambitious and insufficiently English.”
Even so, Elizabeth’s insistence became the deciding factor. Vickers argued that the match worked out for a reason. He told Fox News Digital that he believed it was “a much better choice that Queen Elizabeth married Prince Philip.” Vickers said Philip had a “very good naval career during the war” and was “bursting with ideas. ” while the royal family feared he would be a “modernizer”—and that “They were absolutely right.”.
In Vickers’ view, Hugh—who later inherited the title of Duke of Grafton—wasn’t the same kind of influence. Vickers said the Duke of Grafton “would not have been a modernizer or a vibrant influence on how to move the House of Windsor forward.”
Fordwich, meanwhile, pointed directly to Elizabeth’s determination as proof of the bond. She said it was “a testament of the queen’s deep feelings for him that she wouldn’t be dissuaded from him despite considerable pressure from all sides. ” adding that their relationship was based on “genuine love and mutual appreciation. ” which she described as “rather unusual for royal marriages.”.
Their marriage began on November 20, 1947, and lasted more than seven decades—closing a chapter that, for at least some of her mother’s supporters, had once seemed headed toward Hugh, Earl of Euston instead.
Elizabeth later marked the scale of their partnership in her own language. In 1997, Prince Philip described her “tolerance” and framed her as someone who had “the quality of tolerance in abundance.” In that same 50th wedding anniversary moment, she had famously called Philip her “strength and stay.”
When Philip died in 2021 at 99. nearly a year after the couple posed for a photo outside in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle to mark his 99th birthday amid the COVID pandemic. he had designed the route and vehicle details himself. His casket made its way past Windsor Castle in the back of a modified Land Rover Defender. He had lived out a 73-year marriage to Queen Elizabeth II, who died almost 18 months later in 2022 at 96.
Queen Elizabeth II Prince Philip Queen Mother Hugh Earl of Euston Grenadier Guards Hugo Vickers Sir Henry Chips Channon Helena Chard Ian Pelham Turner Hilary Fordwich Lord Mountbatten Lady Brigid Guinness royal marriage Windsor Castle