Rev. Billy Graham had the honor to meet with Queen Elizabeth II at least 12 times over the years. This often included members of her family, including Prince Philip, who passed away on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99.

In 1982, Billy Graham received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He shared this memory in his autobiography, Just As I Am, about the interaction with the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip:

We left … for London, where I was to receive the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, a recognition that I was honored and humbled to receive. The presentation ceremony by Prince Philip was to take place at Buckingham Palace.

When Ruth and I arrived at Buckingham Palace, we were escorted up a wide, grand staircase and down a long hall to the room where the presentation was to take place. At the moment of presentation, Prince Philip picked up the check for $200,000 – the largest monetary prize of any type at that time – and handed it not to me but to Ruth, saying with a hearty laugh that he assumed that she handled the family purse strings. (We had already decided to donate it to the cause of world evangelization; much of it was used for scholarships and travel grants for Third World evangelists who would attend the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists the following year in Amsterdam.)