Few will be surprised to hear that Princess Anne is not prone to public displays of sentiment.
But after turning down endless requests to shoot a new portrait to mark her 75th birthday next week, she finally agreed to pose for a picture at Windsor Castle last month, shortly before the French state banquet.
Anne’s one proviso? That her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, be by her side.
‘She’s normally very serious, but they couldn’t have looked happier,’ one insider remarked. It’s a side of her that few get to see.
The couple will be sailing their 42ft yacht Ballochbuie (named after ancient woodland on the Balmoral estate) around the Western Isles of Scotland to mark next Friday’s big day.
It will just be Anne and Sir Tim, a former naval officer. There will be no aides, no flunkies, not even a single policeman to accompany them – which is just the way she likes it.
Sir Tim, now 70, was an equerry to Queen Elizabeth when they first met in 1986. This was as Anne’s marriage to Captain Mark Phillips was breaking down.
The princess and Sir Tim married in 1992, just months after her divorce came through and have been inseparable ever since.
Anne and Tim will be sailing their 42ft yacht Ballochbuie (named after ancient woodland on the Balmoral estate) around the Western Isles of Scotland to mark next Friday’s big day
‘He was much liked in the Royal Navy,’ says one who knows them well. ‘And the same goes for the Royal Family. He’s calm and funny and good for her.’
For a woman who has lived her entire life in the spotlight, surprisingly little is known about the Princess Royal, who was, once upon a time, a heartbeat away from the throne (she’s now 18th in the line of succession).
Anne is regularly named the Royal Family’s hardest-working royal, even in her 70s. Last year she conducted 474 public engagements. But, as the princess refuses to allow journalists to accompany her on official engagements – unless she can be persuaded there is a good reason – her work attracts little publicity.
‘She’s never felt the need to court public opinion and has just got on with the job with the minimum of fuss,’ says a source.
Anne was, however, persuaded to hold an event at Buckingham Palace for her charities earlier this year to mark her birthday.
She was typically low-key about it, but you could see there was quiet pride. Four hundred organisations were represented, many of which she has worked with for decades.
Yet the princess was lucky to have been there at all after suffering serious head injuries and concussion in an accident at her Gloucestershire estate, Gatcombe Park, in June last year.
While mystery surrounds exactly what happened, I am told, in a sign of the severity of the incident, that the King was deeply worried about his adored sister’s health.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip pictured with their children Charles and Anne in 1951
Anne still has no memory of the accident, which saw her admitted to intensive care after apparently falling and being struck by a horse.
Afterwards, she vowed to ‘take every day as it comes’.
Although the pace of her daily schedule has barely changed since then, there is a growing sense in Palace circles that the princess might for the first time be starting to think about winding down her official duties. ‘There’s no sign it is going to be just yet and I don’t ever think she will ever fully retire,’ says one courtier.
‘She’s often said that is simply not an option for a member of the Royal Family. ‘But even the princess quietly acknowledges that she can’t go on at this pace forever. She spends her entire week shuttling in and out of Gatcombe, often undertaking five or more engagements a day.
‘I think it’s likely we will see a gentle easing of her workload in the next five to ten years.’
So, what is Anne really like behind the glacial exterior?
She’s actually quite ‘geeky’, says one admirer. The princess is often likened to her mother, particularly because of their shared love of horses. But she is said to have a forensic mind and Anne’s readiness ‘to think laterally and question conventional wisdom’ makes her very much her father’s daughter too. Mike Aaronson, former director general at Save The Children UK, once told me: ‘Maybe because she didn’t have a conventional university education [unusually for a royal woman of the time, Anne did go to boarding school, but then went straight out to work as a royal at 19], she’s always thought slightly out of the box. She is ever-surprising.’
The princess’s stamina and bravery have always impressed those around her.
Mark Bowden who, as Save the Children’s former Africa director travelled extensively with her, told me how the princess once put down former Somalian dictator Siad Barre – a ‘nasty old b*****d’ says Mr Bowden – by returning his bone-crushing handshake and hotly debating FGM (female genital mutilation) with him at an official dinner.
On the same trip she refused to be put off when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told her they had received a tip from the CIA that Ethiopian agents planned to take her hostage.
‘She insisted on going out there anyway. We stayed in pretty rudimentary accommodation, no flushing toilet, pit latrines and she still got up and cooked breakfast for everyone on the team. She was very proud of her scrambled eggs,’ Aaronson recalls.
In Gambia, he says, she danced with George Bush Junior, whose father was president at the time, but was left distinctly ‘nonplussed’ by his efforts to get her interested… in his new cowboy boots.
She was also known for her ‘fruity’ language. During a long car journey in Sudan in the 1980s, Aaronson remembers a string of eye-watering expletives as she tried to change the tape in her Walkman and it got splattered with mud.
‘She’s a truly adept operator, one of the best,’ he says. ‘And absolutely fearless.’
Another long-term admirer tells me of a particularly lengthy charity event on an unusually hot day.
The princess, who was sitting on stage, appeared to be nodding off.
Suddenly, the building began to shake and everyone started panicking.
Without skipping a beat – or indeed opening her eyes – the princess muttered ‘earthquake’ then went back to her ‘thoughts’.
‘She was a bloody cool customer,’ according to my source.
Some say what makes her stand out, particularly as a member of the monarchy, is her ‘zero capacity for bull***t’.
That approach also extends to the recent family dramas, says a former aide: ‘I’d go so far as to say she’s a bit of a loner. She just doesn’t get involved.’
As a ‘spare’ (and not an heir) herself, Anne might have reason to feel sympathy with her errant nephew, Prince Harry.
I am told she has none. But, always quietly kind, she was the only family member to greet him at Balmoral following the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. Over the years she has seen herself repeatedly overtaken in the pecking order by her younger siblings and their families.
Prince Andrew is still ten places higher than Anne in the official order of succession (only female family members born after 2013 have equality with their brothers).
She was made a Counsellor of State in December 2022, meaning she can now stand in for the King if he is incapacitated or abroad.
Younger brother Andrew and –astonishingly – Prince Harry remain as fellow counsellors and are, technically, more senior in the role. But the reality is that King Charles relies upon Anne more than ever. It is no exaggeration to say that, with the exception of his wife, Queen Camilla, the Princess Royal is the most trusted female figure in his life.
Not for nothing did he make her his Gold Stick in Waiting for ceremonial occasions – effectively his most senior bodyguard – after his accession. Like her brother, the princess takes a discreet pride in the fact that she still fits military uniforms first worn more than 40 years ago.
But asked about her beauty and health regime, one well-placed source snorts: ‘She doesn’t have one! The princess is very lucky in that she has her late mother’s amazing skin. She’s definitely got her genes in that respect.
‘But she also never goes out in the sun, apart from when she is out and about on the estate or riding or sailing.
‘Sunbathing? She wouldn’t know what to do with herself sitting down on a sun lounger!
‘The reason the princess looks as good as she does is that she really does lead a healthy life. Not because of vanity, but she just likes to keep active and busy and to do that she needs to be healthy and fit. She has always lived the same way.
‘The princess does watch her weight, but she doesn’t follow any kind of fad diet.
‘It’s instinctive with her, probably because she was a professional athlete and horsewoman. Like the King, she never stops for lunch.’
Anne does her own hair for official engagements – a businesslike chignon, which she has mastered without the use of a mirror – and ‘never wears make-up’ apart from a small sweep of lipstick.
‘Perhaps she might wear a little eyeshadow for something like a state banquet, but day-to-day, I’ve never known her to wear any make-up apart from a little bit of lipstick,’ says another source who knows her well.
‘She’s got a million and one things to do and that doesn’t leave much time for vanity.’
As for fashion? The princess is the queen of recycling, eschews the help of stylists and dressers and rarely buys anything that isn’t British-made.
It’s unlikely she’ll even buy a new suit for her son Peter Phillip’s wedding, say friends, following last week’s announcement of his engagement to girlfriend, Harriet Sperling.
For someone who is widely considered unemotional, it’s striking that Anne has gathered all her family to live around her on the Gloucestershire estate.
Peter and his sister, Zara Tindall, live with their young families at Gatcombe Park – like an aristocratic Brady Brunch. And I’m told Anne really is a hands-on grandmother.
It’s another unexpected side to this remarkable woman, considered by some to be the best Queen this country never had.
