Prince Philip’s death: How the nation sought solace from Google in the aftermath of the Duke’s passing

You know something momentous has happened when 500,000 people feel compelled to google: “Why is it a 41-gun salute?”

We navigated the aftermath of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death by poring over every aspect of his long life and passing. Initially, people’s disbelief at the news was palpable in the volume of queries for “is Prince Philip still alive?” – more than for “is Prince Philip dead?” almost as though we feared to type the words.

Many were then struck by the same thought, with spikes in search for “will there be a bank holiday?” and “will we get a day off?” Once we had established that (alas) we would not, we moved onto procedural matters, with a surge in people asking “will there be a state funeral?” and “will there be a national day of mourning?” That this was interspersed with “what does mourning mean?” and “what is a state funeral?” shows we’re happy to bandy about such terms without really understanding them.

Once we had checked “how tall was Prince Philip?” (then searched “what is 1.83m in feet and inches”), we wrestled with royal titles, googling “why wasn’t Prince Philip king?” “what is a consort?” and “who is the next Duke of Edinburgh?” And the fact that more than 50,000 of us googled “Operation Forth Bridge” demonstrates that nothing arouses our curiosity quite like a mysterious codename.

The Queen’s relationship with her husband attracted plenty of interest, albeit dominated by “are the Queen and Prince Philip related?” (distant cousins, both descended from Queen Victoria) and “how old was the Queen when she met Philip?” (they began exchanging letters when she was 13 and he was 18). The quantity of search for “what happens when the Queen dies?” indicated that we are steeling ourselves for the future.

There was also focus on the Duke of Sussex, first to find out “will Harry come back for the funeral?” and subsequently to ascertain “where is Prince Harry isolating?” His decision to end the touching “master of the barbecue, legend of banter” tribute with a line in Latin led to a rush of search for “per mare per terram meaning” (“by sea, by land”, the motto of the Royal Marines).

The Duchess of Sussex’s absence, meanwhile, prompted all manner of “when is Meghan’s baby due?” queries, indicating the public’s need to verify the doctor’s orders which prevented her flying.

As the funeral approached, we queried everything from the timings of his final farewell and specifications of the Duke’s Land Rover hearse to googling “who will attend” (followed by “who is Bernhard, hereditary prince of Baden?”).

But the details that fixate us are sometimes surprising. There was no shortage in searches for “who will walk behind Philip’s coffin?” However, earlier in the week this was dwarfed by numbers googling “why are royal coffins lead-lined?” (it preserves the body for longer). And the Duke of York reportedly “demanding” that he should wear an admiral’s uniform led to a flurry of people double-checking “is Prince Andrew an admiral?” (he is not).

There was plenty of search, too, for “BBC coverage of Philip’s funeral”. However, given that tens of thousands of people had angrily googled “when is the MasterChef final?” after it was postponed during coverage of the duke’s death, it’s possible that these were disgruntled republicans trying to avoid the event.

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