Exiled, orphaned, homeless, alone: Prince Philip's childhood featured a runaway adulterous father, a mentally unstable mother and sisters who married Nazis Prince Philip was born just as Greek royal family fell to a military dictatorship and spent childhood on the run By the time he wed Princess Elizabeth in 1947 he had little more than the clothes he wore and loose change By the time Philip was eight, a strain of madness which visited his mother occasionally had taken a firmer grip