Prince Philip grew up with an adorable nickname.
The late Duke of Edinburgh was doted on by his mother Princess Alice of Battenberg, and he was her only son.
She was the mother of five children – fours daughters and then her final child was Prince Philip.
Since he was a baby, she reportedly nicknamed him Bubbikins.
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In fact, any fans of Netflix series The Crown will recall her (portrayed by Victoria Hamilton) fondly calls her adult son (played by Matt Smith) in series three.
What’s more, an entire episode, episode four of series three, is even called Bubbikins.
Indeed, letters from his mother to Philip reportedly reveal that she regularly referred to him by this sweet nickname.
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Hugo Vickers explains in the Daily Mail: “When she wrote to Philip, she sometimes addressed him as Bubbikins. The letters made it plain how proud she was of him.”
Were Prince Philip and his mother close?
The relationship between Prince Philip and his mother Alice seems fairly complicated.
Judging from her letters, she was very fond of her son and loved him greatly.
However, she suffered from mental health issues, and was treated for paranoid schizophrenia.
They were estranged for many years while she received experimental treatment.
But she did attend his 1947 wedding to The Queen, then Princess Elizabeth.
And she returned to stay at Buckingham Palace in 1967 – at the request of The Queen.
She remained here until her death in 1969 at the age of 84.
Was Prince Philip’s mother really a nun?
Alice was dedicated to charity and was deeply religious.
After World War II she founded a Greek Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.
From then on she dressed as a nun in a grey habit. However, she was not believed to have ever been ordained as a nun.
What has Prince Philip said about his mother?
Prince Philip rarely spoke of his mother or his Greek side of the family.
However, he did proudly speak of his mother during an 1994 trip to Israel.
During the World War II Alice helped shelter three members of a Jewish family during Nazi occupancy.
This came in despite of several of her daughters having deep ties to the Nazi party.
She was honoured in 1994 at Yad Vashem, and Prince Philip’s visit marked the first ever British Royal’s visit to Israel.
During his Israeli trip, Prince Philip said: “We knew, of course, that our mother had stayed in Athens after Greece had been overrun by the German army.
“We also knew that she had moved out of her modest flat to take care of a larger house belonging to her brother-in-law, Prince George.
“We did not know, and, as far as we know, she never mentioned to anyone, that she had given refuge to the Cohen family at a time when all Jews in Athens were in great danger of being arrested and transported to the concentration camps.
“I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress.”
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