Prince Philip, the Monarch's bulwark who did what he saw as his duty well

And if the no-nonsense old boy was looking down upon the scene, you could well imagine him harrumphing.

His Royal Highness, in public at least, did not do emoting.

For the long decades of his life no public figure has more epitomised British stiff upper lip than Prince Philip.

And the irony is that he wasn't British-born himself but a Greek prince, famously delivered into this world on a kitchen table in Corfu.

It was an unusual start to a remarkable and remarkably long life. He was the same age as Northern Ireland.

Growing up in an era when men saw themselves as ruling the roost at home and in the workplace, it was Philip's destiny to marry a woman who would be the head not only of their (royal) household, but of the country and the Commonwealth.

He would be her consort and support; by her side but always that crucial step down the pecking order.

A lesser man, especially in the middle part of the last century, might have felt that an intolerable slight to his macho pride. Philip just got on with it.

Perhaps that's why even today's generation relate to him too.

It would be going a bit to argue that he never put a foot wrong or said something out of place - these days some of his famous gaffes would see him comprehensively cancelled.

But no one, anti-monarchist or otherwise, could accuse him of not fulfilling the job specifications of consort.

He was the Queen's bulwark down all those long years of her reign, carving out his own role as environmentalist, running his own Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme, promoting the UK to the world, but always putting her needs and that of The Firm (as he called it) first.

On a more personal level, he was the man she leaned on in times of family crisis. He had his work cut out there. The collapse of Charles' and Anne's and Andrew's marriages and the often lurid fallout from all that.

And then, more recently, the scandal over "too honourable" Andrew's involvement with a notorious paedophile, and of course Megxit.

Which Philip will we remember him as?

The handsome young naval officer who fell in love with and married the most famous monarch of the modern era?

The surly, petulant prince as portrayed by The Crown? (The makers of the Netflix series have expressed sorrow at his death. You imagine he'd also have had a bit of an harrumph at that.) Will people remember most that image of him at Diana's funeral, the grandfather walking alongside two traumatised boys, discreetly patting the younger to offer solace?

Will it be the irascible Philip holding forth at official events or biting the nose of some poor Press person who asked a vacuous question?

Or will it be our last view of him, skin translucent with age, eyes sunken and red but still sitting erect and correct as he's driven from hospital to the palace where he will end his days?

We will miss him. The media for the often entertaining copy he provided. His family, of course. (Big question: will Harry be at the funeral? Will Meghan?) And above all, his Queen, the wife who loved him.

His death is not as momentous as hers will be when the time comes. But this is the passing of an era nonetheless.

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently referred to the royals as serving "a life sentence without parole".

It is to Philip's credit that he would not have seen it that way - and that he would not anyway have sought parole.

Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, did what he saw as his duty. And he did it well.