Following his retirement, he moved to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, where he lived largely independently, while Elizabeth remained at Buckingham Palace and later Windsor Castle.<\/p>\n
The book also details the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the couple entered strict isolation together at Windsor, overseen by a reduced household staff.<\/p>\n
The book by Hugo Vickers details Elizabeth and Phillip’s private life, health struggles and isolation during the pandemic. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hugo wrote: \u201cThe Queen let the Duke do exactly as he pleased. He was at his happiest at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hugo added Philip spent time reading, painting and carriage driving, and was frequently joined by his friend Penelope Knatchbull.<\/p>\n
He wrote: \u201cHe enjoyed his carriage-driving, read voraciously and painted a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hugo also said: \u201cFrom time to time, the Queen went up by train to Norfolk to stay the weekend. Once again, she gave him a loose rein. In a sense, they had separated.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the pandemic, Elizabeth and Philip were brought together at Windsor Castle, living in what staff referred to as \u201cHMS Bubble\u201d, a restricted environment with limited personnel.<\/p>\n
Hugo wrote: \u201cThey entered a strict isolation, jokingly nicknamed HMS Bubble \u2026 nobody was allowed to enter the Upper Ward of the castle, and there were no ladies-in-waiting in attendance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book also recounts Philip\u2019s final months and death in 2021, describing his hospitalisation, declining memory and reluctance to reach his 100th birthday.<\/p>\n
Hugo wrote: \u201cHe did not want to reach his 100th birthday, particularly disliking the fuss attendant at such events.\u201d<\/p>\n
The royal biographer also described Philip\u2019s final night, writing: \u201cHe gave his nurses the slip, shuffled along the corridor on his Zimmer frame, helped himself to a beer and drank it in the Oak Room.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe following morning, he got up, had a bath, said he did not feel well and quietly slipped away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biography also describes Elizabeth\u2019s reaction to his death.<\/p>\n
Hugo wrote: \u201cShe took the line, I was told, that she was \u2018absolutely furious that, as so often in life, he left without saying goodbye\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
In later passages, the book details Elizabeth\u2019s reflections on her own mortality in conversations with her friend Prue Penn.<\/p>\n
Hugo wrote that Elizabeth said: \u201cI feel as if I\u2019m in the departure lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added she remarked: \u201cAt least you don\u2019t have to do it as publicly as me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following his retirement, he moved to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, where he lived largely independently, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[25348,63144,634,6179,97190,161198,156,170265,3174,1364,117,111,139,69,1523,123760,54679,4940,3366,1517,2687,1361,1339],"class_list":["post-357376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anger","tag-biography","tag-death","tag-died","tag-elizabeth","tag-elizabeths","tag-entertainment","tag-furious","tag-goodbye","tag-her","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-philip","tag-philips","tag-prince","tag-queen","tag-reveals","tag-saying","tag-that","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}