Barring last minute accidents, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, will become Britain’s longest serving Royal consort on Sunday.

Prince Philp joking with TV reporter Romilly Weeks

The previous title holder was Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, who managed 57 years 70 days while leaving little legacy or collective memory in the annals of the nation.

Prince Philip will be very different. While not aspiring to Prince Albert’s almost equal status with Queen Victoria, Philip has supported Queen Elizabeth loyally for more than 60 years, first as Princess, then as Monarch.

Where Albert’s energy for big projects, like the Great Exhibition of 1851, was unlimited, Philip has contented himself with diplomatic, low key endeavours, like the immensely successful World Wildlife Fund, originally set up with Peter Scott in the 1950s, and the perennial Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme for energetic youngsters.

Perhaps his one discordant note to the world of politics has been his absolute refusal to follow codes of so-called political correctness. This has led to a reputation for “gaffes” — a kind of humour for grownups — which has resulted in apologies to tourists, Scots, Indians, the deaf, the unemployed, Canadians, Tom Jones, British women and Cantonese cooks.* The sheer variety of the list indicates how widely-based his humour is, and largely without rancour.

My bet is that Prince Philip will not only be the longest serving consort, but also one of the most memorable in all British history.

* List thanks to Gill Hornby.

I just caught the end of BBC Radio 4′s Today show this morning. They had a panel of historians discussing the question : Who was Britain’s greatest Monarch?

It looks like they’re doing another listeners’ poll, which might be rather dangerous given the current climate of fakery around polls of this kind.

So that Royal Anedotes can get its retaliation in first, let’s have a vote here. Who is Britain’s greatest Monarch and why do you think so?

The three experts in the studio suggested, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Queen Victoria. Like all experts they couldn’t even agree on that.

Dracula’s Castle.

Queen Victoria’s great-great-grandson, New York architect Dominic Hapsburg, has regained ownership of Bran Castle in Romania.

The castle was the home of the king of blood-lust, Count Vlad the Impaler — known as Count Dracula — during the 15th century. It was donated to Queen Maria, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria in 1920. However, the castle was seized by the communist Government 60 years ago.

Hapsburg, who had to go to court in Romania to retrieve his family home, said: “I spent my entire childhood in Bran until we were forced to leave. I am not sure what we will do with the castle but our plans will show respect to my mother and grandmother.”

Let’s hope he has a good dentist in New York. If he grows fangs in Bran he may need an efficient filing system.

William Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times (London), now a veteran columnist and Lockean defender of liberty, writes, “Our Queen is modest, her Ministers are vain.”

He believes that in the run-up to the Queen’s 80th birthday on Friday, “we can begin to see we have been living through a great reign, comparable in length, but also in achievement, with the reigns of her predecessors, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.”

Her style has been very different as befits a different age, but, says Rees-Mogg, “the Queen has won a historic battle of ideas by the strength of her personality and principles.”

When she came to the Throne, republicanism (anti-Monarchism) was in the ascendancy, coming mainly from the Left and based around social equality and a lack of deference to authority. In the post-war period “the constitutional structures of the Queen’s childhood were almost swept away. … Political correctness is almost the opposite of the principles on which children were educated in the Thirties. In a single bound we have gone from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” to gay partnerships.”

Then he returns to his main point: “One of her strengths is that she is more humble than her Ministers, which makes them look superficial. The Ministers are vain, the Monarch is modest. That is an unusual historic combination.”

More Rees-Mogg in future posts.