Queen left 'in tears' over Duke of Edinburgh's 'brutal' demand she take his name

• 'I am nothing but a bloody amoeba', Philip told friends
• He wanted royal family known as House of Mountbatten

By David Wilkes

Last updated at 10:44 AM on 3rd December 2011

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The Duke of Edinburgh made the Queen cry with his ‘almost brutal’ attitude when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, a biography claims.

It says the Queen ‘failed to see that her actions would have a profound effect on Philip, leading to strains in their marriage’.

And it even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York may have been the result of ‘Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name’.

Conflict: Prince Philip and the Queen disagreed over whether she should take his surname, a new biography reveals

Royal: An official photograph of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh taken by Canadian photographer Donald McKague in April, 1959

The irritation he felt over his wife’s decision to accept the advice of then Prime Minister Winston Churchill and keep the family name Windsor is detailed in Sally Bedell Smith’s book, Elizabeth the Queen.

The Duke wanted the Royal Family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952. He is famously said to have told friends: ‘I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.’

In an article in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Miss Bedell Smith has written of how in 1960 the Queen, heavily pregnant with the Duke of York, told Harold Macmillan she needed to ‘revisit the issue of her family name, which had been irritating her husband since she decided in 1952 to use Windsor rather than Mountbatten’.

Family: The Queen with Philip and the children - Princess Anne, baby Andrew and Prince Charles on holiday in Scotland

Marital debate: The book says that the Queen was left 'in tears' over the issue

The then Prime Minister wrote in his diary: ‘The Queen only wishes (properly enough) to do something to please her husband – with whom she is desperately in love.

‘What upsets me… is the Prince’s almost brutal attitude to the Queen over all this.’

Deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, were assigned the task of resolving the Queen’s ‘tricky’ family problem.

In a telegram, Butler told Macmillan the Queen had ‘absolutely set her heart’ on making a change for Philip’s sake.

Miss Bedell Smith, whose book is to be published in February, said: ‘By one account, Butler confided to a friend that Elizabeth had been “in tears”.’

Following discussions, it was agreed that the Royal Family would continue to be called ‘the House and Family of Windsor’.

But the Queen’s ‘de-royalised’ descendants, starting with any grandchildren who lacked the designation of ‘royal highness’, would adopt the surname ‘Mountbatten- Windsor’.

The Queen only wishes to do something to please her husband. What upsets me is the Prince’s almost brutal attitude to the Queen over all this.- HAROLD MACMILLAN

In a statement on February 8, 1960, the Queen said she ‘has had this in mind for a long time and it is close to her heart’.

‘It seemed clear cut’, Miss Bedell Smith said.

But, 13 years later, ‘Princess Anne....would contravene the policy on her wedding day by signing the marriage register as “Mountbatten-Windsor”’.

The biography also gives an insight into the lighter side of royal life. It tells of the joy at the news that the Queen’s first child, Prince Charles, was a boy.

Sir John Weir, an official physician to the Royal Family, confided that he had ‘never been so pleased’ to see a boy born, Miss Bedell Smith writes.