LONDON —

The will of Prince Philip, the late husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, will be sealed and remain private for at least 90 years to preserve the monarch's dignity, a judge at London's High Court has ruled.

Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been married to the 95-year-old British monarch for more than seven decades, died at the age of 99 at his wife's Windsor Castle home on April 9.

In keeping with a convention dating back to 1910, Andrew McFarlane, the president of the court's Family Division, said he had agreed Philip's will should be sealed up "and that no copy of the will should be made for the record or kept on the court file."

Video above: Prince Harry will appear in television special about Prince Philip

He also ruled in favor of the request "to exclude the value of the estate from the grant of probate."

"The degree of publicity that publication would be likely to attract would be very extensive and wholly contrary to the aim of maintaining the dignity of the Sovereign," McFarlane said in a ruling published on Thursday.

He said the convention was that following the death of a senior royal, an application to seal the will was made to the Family Division president, with such hearings and judgments kept private.

However, he said "as is plain from this judgment" he considered it was a "necessary and proportionate intrusion into the private affairs of Her Majesty and the Royal Family to make public the fact that an application to seal the will of HRH The Prince Philip ... has been made and granted in private, and to explain the underlying reasons."

The judge said 90 years should pass from the granting of probate before the will should be unsealed in private before possible publication, a period he said was "proportionate and sufficient."

He said the first royal whose will was sealed was Prince Francis of Teck, who was the younger brother of George V's wife Queen Mary. He said he was the custodian of a safe containing more than 30 envelopes with the wills of dead royals. The most recent additions were made in 2002 following the deaths of Queen Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret, he said.

Buckingham Palace says Prince Philip has had a successful heart procedure in a London hospital.The palace says the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, “underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.”It said he is expected to remain in the hospital for "treatment, rest and recuperation for a number of days.”Philip, 99, has been hospitalized since being admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Feb. 16, where he was treated for an infection. On Monday he was transferred to a specialized cardiac care hospital, St. Bartholomew’s.

LONDON — Buckingham Palace says Prince Philip has had a successful heart procedure in a London hospital.

The palace says the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, “underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.”

It said he is expected to remain in hospital for treatment, rest and recuperation for a number of days.”

Philip has been hospitalized since being admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Feb. 16, where he was treated for an infection.

On Monday he was transferred to a specialized cardiac care hospital, St. Bartholomew’s.

Daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, said Wednesday that Philip’s condition was “slightly improving.”

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the longtime husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, has died. He was 99.

The royal family made the announcement on Twitter Friday morning.

"It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh," the tweet said. "His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.

His life spanned nearly a century of European history, starting with his birth as a member of the Greek royal family and ending as Britain’s longest serving consort during a turbulent reign in which the thousand-year-old monarchy was forced to reinvent itself for the 21st century.

He was known for his occasionally racist and sexist remarks — and for gamely fulfilling more than 20,000 royal engagements to boost British interests at home and abroad. He headed hundreds of charities, founded programs that helped British schoolchildren participate in challenging outdoor adventures, and played a prominent part in raising his four children, including his eldest son, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.

Philip spent a month in hospital earlier this year before being released on March 16 to return to Windsor Castle.

Philip, who was given the title Duke of Edinburgh on his wedding day, saw his sole role as providing support for his wife, who began her reign as Britain retreated from empire and steered the monarchy through decades of declining social deference and U.K. power into a modern world where people demand intimacy from their icons.

In the 1970s, Michael Parker, an old navy friend and former private secretary of the prince, said of him: “He told me the first day he offered me my job, that his job — first, second and last — was never to let her down.”

The queen, a very private person not given to extravagant displays of affection, once called him “her rock” in public.

In private, Philip called his wife Lilibet; but he referred to her in conversation with others as “The Queen.”

Over the decades, Philip’s image changed from that of handsome, dashing athlete to arrogant and insensitive curmudgeon. In his later years, the image finally settled into that of droll and philosophical observer of the times, an elderly, craggy-faced man who maintained his military bearing despite ailments.

The popular Netflix series “The Crown” gave Philip a central role, with a slightly racy, swashbuckling image. He never commented on it in public, but the portrayal struck a chord with many Britons, including younger viewers who had only known him as an elderly man.

Philip’s position was a challenging one — there is no official role for the husband of a sovereign queen — and his life was marked by extraordinary contradictions between his public and private duties. He always walked three paces behind his wife in public, in a show of deference to the monarch, but he was the head of the family in private. Still, his son Charles, as heir to the throne, had a larger income, as well as access to the high-level government papers Philip was not permitted to see.

Philip often took a wry approach to his unusual place at the royal table.

“Constitutionally, I don’t exist,” said Philip, who in 2009 became the longest-serving consort in British history, surpassing Queen Charlotte, who married King George III in the 18th century.

He frequently struggled to find his place — a friction that would later be echoed in his grandson Prince Harry’s decision to give up royal duties.

“There was no precedent,” he said in a rare interview with the BBC to mark his 90th birthday. “If I asked somebody, ‘What do you expect me to do?’ they all looked blank.”

But having given up a promising naval career to become consort when Elizabeth became queen at age 25, Philip was not content to stay on the sidelines and enjoy a life of ease and wealth. He promoted British industry and science, espoused environmental preservation long before it became fashionable, and traveled widely and frequently in support of his many charities.

In those frequent public appearances, Philip developed a reputation for being impatient and demanding and was sometimes blunt to the point of rudeness.

Many Britons appreciated what they saw as his propensity to speak his mind, while others criticized behavior they labeled offensive and out of touch.

In 1995, for example, he asked a Scottish driving instructor, “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” Seven years later in Australia, when visiting Aboriginal people with the queen, he asked: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

Many believe his propensity to speak his mind meant he provided needed, unvarnished advice to the queen.

“The way that he survived in the British monarchy system was to be his own man, and that was a source of support to the queen,” said royal historian Robert Lacey. “All her life she was surrounded by men who said, ‘yes ma’am’ and he was one man who always told her how it really was, or at least how he saw it.”

Lacey said at the time of the royal family’s difficult relations with Princess Diana after her marriage to Charles broke down, Philip spoke for the family with authority, showing that he did not automatically defer to the queen.

Philip’s relationship with Diana became complicated as her separation from Charles and their eventual divorce played out in a series of public battles that damaged the monarchy’s standing.

It was widely assumed that he was critical of Diana’s use of broadcast interviews, including one in which she accused Charles of infidelity. But letters between Philip and Diana released after her death showed that the older man was at times supportive of his daughter-in-law.

After Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997, Philip had to endure allegations by former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed that he had plotted the princess’s death. Al Fayed’s son, Dodi, also died in the crash.

During a lengthy inquest into their deaths, a senior judge acting as coroner instructed the jury that there was no evidence to support the allegations against Philip, who did not publicly respond to Al Fayed’s charges.

Philip’s final years were clouded by controversy and fissures in the royal family.

His third child, Prince Andrew, was embroiled in scandal over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

U.S. authorities accused Andrew of rebuffing their request to interview him as a witness, and Andrew faced accusations from a woman who said that she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest. He denied the claim but withdrew from public royal duties amid the scandal.

At the start of 2020, Philip’s grandson Harry and his wife, the American former actress Meghan Markle, announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America to escape intense media scrutiny that they found unbearable.

Born June 10, 1921, on the dining room table at his parents’ home on the Greek island of Corfu, Philip was the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew, younger brother of the king of Greece. His grandfather had come from Denmark during the 1860s to be adopted by Greece as the country’s monarch.

Philip’s mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, a descendent of German princes. Like his future wife, Elizabeth, Philip was also a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria.

When Philip was 18 months old, his parents fled to France. His father, an army commander, had been tried after a devastating military defeat by the Turks. After British intervention, the Greek junta agreed not to sentence Andrew to death if he left the country.

The family was not exactly poor but, Philip said: “We weren’t well off” — and they got by with help from relatives. He later brought only his navy pay to a marriage with one of the world’s richest women.

Philip’s parents drifted apart when he was a child, and Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944. Alice founded a religious order that did not succeed and spent her old age at Buckingham Palace. A reclusive figure, often dressed in a nun’s habit, she was little seen by the British public. She died in 1969 and was posthumously honored by Britain and Israel for sheltering a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Athens during the war.

Philip went to school in Britain and entered Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth as a cadet in 1939. He got his first posting in 1940 but was not allowed near the main war zone because he was a foreign prince of a neutral nation. When the Italian invasion of Greece ended that neutrality, he joined the war, serving on battleships in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

On leave in Britain, he visited his royal cousins, and, by the end of war, it was clear he was courting Princess Elizabeth, eldest child and heir of King George VI. Their engagement was announced July 10, 1947, and they were married on Nov. 20.

After an initial flurry of disapproval that Elizabeth was marrying a foreigner, Philip’s athletic skills, good looks and straight talk lent a distinct glamour to the royal family.

Elizabeth beamed in his presence, and they had a son and daughter while she was still free of the obligations of serving as monarch.

But King George VI died of cancer in 1952 at age 56.

Philip had to give up his naval career, and his subservient status was formally sealed at the coronation when he knelt before his wife and pledged to become “her liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship.”

The change in Philip’s life was dramatic.

“Within the house, and whatever we did, it was together,” Philip told biographer Basil Boothroyd of the years before Elizabeth became queen. “People used to come to me and ask me what to do. In 1952, the whole thing changed, very, very considerably.”

Said Boothroyd: “He had a choice between just tagging along, the second handshake in the receiving line, or finding other outlets for his bursting energies.”

So Philip took over management of the royal estates and expanded his travels to all corners of the world, building a role for himself.

From 1956, he was Patron and Chairman of Trustees for the largest youth activity program in Britain, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a program of practical, cultural and adventurous activities for young people that exists in over 100 countries. Millions of British children have had some contact with the award and its famous camping expeditions.

He painted, collected modern art, was interested in industrial design and planned a garden at Windsor Castle. But, he once said, “the arts world thinks of me as an uncultured, polo-playing clot.”

In time, the famous blond hair thinned and the long, fine-boned face acquired a few lines. He gave up polo but remained trim and vigorous.

To a friend’s suggestion that he ease up a bit, the prince is said to have replied, “Well, what would I do? Sit around and knit?”

But when he turned 90 in 2011, Philip told the BBC he was “winding down” his workload and he reckoned he had “done my bit.”

The next few years saw occasional hospital stays as Philip’s health flagged.

He announced in May 2017 that he planned to step back from royal duties, and he stopped scheduling new commitments — after roughly 22,000 royal engagements since his wife’s coronation. In 2019, he gave up his driver’s license after a serious car crash.

Philip is survived by the queen and their four children — Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward — as well as eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

The grandchildren are Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Harry; Anne’s children, Peter and Zara Phillips; Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie; and Edward’s children, Lady Louise and Viscount Severn.

The great-grandchildren are William and Kate’s children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis; Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie; Savannah and Isla, the daughters of Peter Phillips and his wife, Autumn; Mia and Lena, the daughters of Zara Phillips and her husband, Mike Tindall; and Eugenie’s son, August, with her husband, Jack Brooksbank.

Katz and Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed to this report before their deaths.

Video above: Royals expert on death of Prince Philip

Buckingham Palace has revealed the 30 people who will make up the congregation at the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral service on Saturday.

Prince Philip, who died last Friday at the age of 99, is being laid to rest on Saturday at 3 p.m. (10 a.m. ET) at St George's Chapel in Windsor, west of London.

Arrangements for the funeral have been in the works for many years but the memorial service has had to be stripped back in light of the pandemic. The congregation of mourners will only consist of close family and friends of the royal patriarch.

However, the remembrance will retain the colorful traditions of a royal funeral and "are a reflection of The Duke's military affiliations and personal elements of His Royal Highness's life," a Buckingham Palace spokesman said Thursday.

The palace spokesman said the family was "grateful" for the condolence messages sent from across the globe.

"The tributes received from young and old are truly a testament to the remarkable life and lasting endeavors of His Royal Highness," he added.

Over 700 Armed Forces personnel from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army and Royal Air Force will provide ceremonial support during the funeral.

Princes William and Harry will reunite to walk behind the Duke of Edinburgh's coffin with their father, Charles, and other members of the royal family as part of a private procession ahead of the funeral service on Saturday.

While the Queen will not take part in the procession before the service, Prince Charles and his sister Princess Anne will follow a specially modified Land Rover, which will carry the Duke's coffin to the chapel. The journey is expected to take around eight minutes.

Their siblings, Edward and Andrew, will participate in the procession immediately behind them. William and Harry will come next though they will be separated from walking together by their cousin Peter Philips. And behind them will be the final family members, Anne's husband, Vice Admiral Tim Laurence, and the Earl of Snowdon.

Royals who are not involved in the procession such as the Duchess of Cornwall and Duchess of Cambridge will join the 94-year-old monarch to watch the funeral parade outside the chapel's Galilee Porch. This also includes blood relatives from the Duke's side who will be in attendance including Philip's great nephews, the Hereditary Prince of Baden and the Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

The decision for some royals to walk behind the coffin will inevitably draw comparisons to Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 when Charles, William and Harry participated in a similar procession alongside Prince Philip and Diana's brother Earl Spencer.

Saturday's memorial will be unlike any other recent royal funerals due to the coronavirus pandemic. The congregation will wear masks for the duration of the service, the palace spokesman said.

In line with the Duke's wishes, it will be a ceremonial funeral, rather than a state event, and all arrangements are set to take place within Windsor Castle without public engagement making sure to adhere to existing COVID measures.

In a break with tradition, members of the royal family will not be dressed in military uniform and instead don morning coats with medals or day dress, the spokesman added.

The subject of clothing emerged in recent days after some British media reported Prince Andrew wished to wear an admiral's uniform. Andrew stepped back from his royal duties in 2019 over his ties to disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York joined the Royal Navy in 1979 as a Seaman Officer, sub-specializing as a pilot. He was promoted to the rank of vice-admiral in 2015 when he turned 55. He was due to be elevated to admiral upon his 60th birthday but that did not come to be in the wake of a disastrous interview with the BBC when he discussed his relationship with Epstein.

The decision against uniforms will also solve a dilemma facing the family as Prince Harry recently lost his honorary military titles when he chose to step down as a senior royal with his wife Meghan last March.

Harry was enlisted with the British Armed Forces for nearly a decade before ending his military service in 2015. He served two tours in Afghanistan and achieved the rank of captain in 2011. He has also qualified as an Apache Aircraft commander.

During the service, a choir of four will sing music selected by Philip for the occasion. They will be seated in the nave, socially distanced from the assembled family members and close aides. One notable absence will be the lack of congregational singing which is currently prohibited by public health guidelines.

Following the service, the coffin will be lowered in the Royal Vault below the chapel as the choir sings the national anthem.

Here is the full list of guests who will attend the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral:

1. The Queen

2. The Prince of Wales

3. The Duchess of Cornwall

4. The Duke of Cambridge

5. The Duchess of Cambridge

6. The Duke of Sussex

7. The Duke of York

8. Princess Beatrice

9. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi

10. Princess Eugenie

11. Jack Brooksbank

12. The Earl of Wessex

13. The Countess of Wessex

14. Lady Louise Windsor

15. Viscount Severn

16. The Princess Royal

17. Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence

18. Peter Phillips

19. Zara Phillips

20. Mike Tindall

21. Earl of Snowdon

22. Lady Sarah Chatto

23. Daniel Chatto

24. Duke of Gloucester

25. Duke of Kent

26. Princess Alexandra

27. Bernhard, Hereditary Prince of Baden

28. Prince Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse

29. Prince Philipp of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

WINDSOR, England — Prince Philip of England is set to be laid to rest on Saturday. The husband of Queen Elizabeth II died at 99 on April 9 after 73 years of marriage.

It will largely be a private event, both keeping with the wishes of the Duke of Edinburgh and abiding by coronavirus restrictions that are in place in the country.

Only 30 mourners will attend the services, including the queen, her four children and her eight grandchildren. Other senior royals and three of Philip’s German relatives have also been invited. Prince Harry will be in attendance, but his pregnant wife Meghan will remain in California on doctor’s advice.

Buckingham Palace says the funeral procession will begin at 9:40 a.m. ET, or 2:40 p.m. local time. That’s when Philip’s coffin will emerge from Windsor Castle and members of the royal family will walk behind it.

The procession will be lined by representatives from the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the Highlanders, and 4th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Royal Air Force.

The procession will end at St. George’s Chapel, where a service will be held. It’s expected to last about 50 minutes.

The Dean of Windsor will conduct the service and the Archbishop of Canterbury will pronounce the blessing. During the service, a small choir of four will sing pieces of music chosen by Philip.

At the end of the service, Philip’s coffin will be lowered into the Royal Vault.

Though the funeral will be for close loved ones of Philip, the palace has invited the public to sign a “book of condolences,” but it’s online only to avoid crowds.

LONDON, England —

A year after they last saw one another, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry put their fraught relationship aside as they said farewell to their grandfather at his funeral on Saturday.

The brothers were somber and silent as they walked together in a procession behind Prince Philip's coffin before his funeral at Windsor Castle along with their father, Prince Charles, and other close relatives. They were seen chatting and walking together after the service concluded.

It was the first time the brothers had been together in public since Harry stood down from royal duties and moved to the U.S. with his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their son Archie in early 2020.

Tensions between Harry, 36, and William, 38, came to the fore after Harry and Meghan gave a revealing interview to U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey last month. The couple portrayed the royal family as indifferent to Meghan's mental health struggles, and Harry described his relationship with William as "space at the moment."

On Saturday, William and Harry walked in silence on either side of their cousin, Peter Phillips, as they joined other senior royals in Philip's funeral procession. At one point Phillips fell behind slightly to allow the brothers to walk side by side — a visual echo of the moment the pair, as boys in 1997, walked behind the coffin of their mother Princess Diana in another royal funeral televised around the world.

The brothers sat opposite each other in St. George's Chapel for the funeral, which was attended by only 30 people because of coronavirus restrictions. While William sat next to his wife Kate, Harry was on his own because Meghan is pregnant with their second child and was advised by her doctor not to make the long trip.

Afterwards, Harry, William and Kate strolled together outside the chapel. Moments later, the brothers walked together alone while Kate spoke to Zara Tindall, another of Queen Elizabeth II's eight grandchildren who is William and Harry's cousin.

Rumors of a rift between the brothers — William, the heir, and Harry, the "spare" — have rumbled at least since 2019. That's when Harry and Meghan separated from the Royal Foundation, originally set up as the brothers' joint charitable venture, to set up their own platform. That year, Harry said he loved his brother dearly but they were "on different paths" and have "good days" and "bad days."

Many believe that William was angered and hurt by Harry's decision to speak so publicly about the royal family's issues during the Winfrey interview. In one explosive allegation, they said a family member — not the queen or Philip — had expressed "concerns" about Archie's possible skin color before he was born. Meghan has a Black mother and a white father.

Days after the interview aired, William insisted "we are very much not a racist family," and said he had not spoken to Harry since the broadcast.

It's unclear whether the passing of their grandfather will help the brothers heal their rift. It wasn't immediately clear how long Harry, who has been self-isolating in line with the U.K.'s coronavirus restrictions since arriving from California early this week, will stay in his home country.

Saturday's funeral was limited to only 30 people, who all had to wear masks, sit in family bubbles and remain socially distanced in the same church that had hosted hundreds of people for Harry and Meghan's royal wedding in 2018. And Britain's continued coronavirus restrictions may limit how much opportunity the brothers will get to smooth over their differences.

"Because of the restrictions of COVID, it's difficult to get down to decent conservations," said royal biographer Penny Junor. "It's probably quite difficult to sit down as they normally would over a beer and discuss things."