The Queen's close friend Lady Pamela Hicks has recalled how the 95 year old monarch began her romance with Prince Philip and fell in love with the navy man.

Lady Pamela, 93, who was a bridesmaid at the royal couple's wedding, was also there when Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh first began their flirtatious connection.

While the duo became friends when the monarch was still a young princess, they gradually built on their connection over the years.

Elizabeth, who is due to celebrate 70 years on the throne this year, first met Philip when she was just 13 and he was at Dartmouth Naval College.

King George VI had been tasked with an engagement for the Navy and his eldest daughter had accompanied him.

In an interview for the Daily Mail On Sunday, Lady Pamela shared how her own father had noticed the potential for a match between the pair.

"My father saw her looking at Philip, who was my cousin, and thought, ‘Now that would be a very good thing,'" she recalled.

"But he also knew this would take some careful handling. Philip was a Greek prince with no money and no position at court.

"He was boisterous, had a wicked sense of humour and it was just after the war, and he had three sisters married to German princes."

The aristocrat went on to say that when the Queen was 18, Philip was staying at Windsor Castle "quite often" due to being "homeless" without a place to stay during periods on leave from the military.

But Lady Pamela said it was wasn't until her sister's wedding in 1946 that the media — and as a result, the world — finally started to cotton on to the budding romance between Elizabeth and Philip.

Princess Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Lady Alexandra were all the bridesmaids along with Lady Pamela.

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"It was a vile day, pouring with rain," she remembered, saying that the wedding party had initially kept their coats on.

"When we reached the door of the Abbey, Princess Elizabeth turned to Philip, and he casually reached behind Princess Margaret and took Princess Elizabeth’s coat.

"This small act jumpstarted a media frenzy as the press realised they had glimpsed, however fleetingly, an air of ease and understanding between the pair," the aristocrat added.

The Queen and Prince Philip went on to be married for 70 years, until the latter died at the age of 99 in 2021.

Their union became the longest of royal marriages in British history.

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