Princess Anne turns 70: Harry and Meghan tell-all book overshadows royal milestone
She’s the ideal role model for a royal spare but Princess Anne’s 70th birthday celebrations risk getting lost amid the relentless revelations about Harry and Meghan in the new tell-all biography Finding Freedom, writes Kerry Parnell.
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She’s the hardworking, straight-talking, horseriding royal; the queen we’ll never see crowned.
Renowned for “just getting on with it”, she’s an Olympian not only on horseback, but also in her work ethic — regularly topping the hardest-working royal lists.
As she turns 70, Princess Anne is arguably the best monarch to never sit on the throne.
Insiders say it’s also a view that is held within the palace.
“There are those who are close to the Royal Family who believe that not only should she have been born a boy, but that she should have also been the eldest. Prince Philip was one who held that view,” says royal biographer Ingrid Seward in My Husband And I.
But despite being the perfect royal role model for Prince Harry for a life lived well, now even the Princess Royal’s milestone birthday celebrations are being overshadowed by the relentless revelations coming out from the serialisation of Finding Freedom, the new biography about Harry and Meghan, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
But Anne is not someone to be overlooked, or underestimated, say palace insiders.
Captain Sir Nick Wright, Anne’s private secretary until last year, described her as having a “marvellously wicked” sense of humour and incredible stamina.
“The day starts early and ends at 11pm. Like the Duke of Edinburgh, she’ll just go on and on,” he told the UK Times.
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Turning 70 on August 15, Anne is seen as a stabilising influence on the rest of the royal family. And that rock is anything but soft. Described as caring little for the opinion of others, she inherited Philip’s plain-speaking and habit of swearing at photographers and is often described “as stiff as her hairdo”.
She was reportedly formidable to Sarah, Duchess of York and Diana, Princess of Wales, about whom she is said to have shouted, “I will not be pushed around by that brainless woman.” She even famously talked down a gun-wielding kidnapper in 1974.
Despite being very much a princess, Anne managed to live a life both in front of the lens and comfortable privacy, way before Harry and Meghan struggled to do so.
According to Ingrid Seward she “developed a healthy view of her position in the royal hierarchy,” which allowed her to have her own interests without the pressure of being the heir. When her children Peter and Zara were born to first husband Captain Mark Phillips, she decided against giving them royal titles.
“Understanding where they sit within the family and what happens next, it made a lot more sense,” she says on the documentary Princess Royal: Anne at 70, which aired in the UK on Wednesday.
It turned out to be a good decision — Peter and Zara have lived a fairly free life, centred around the family estate in Gloucestershire.
Anne also navigated divorce and love affairs before marrying Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence in 1992.
As to Harry and Meghan’s trials — Anne says she has sympathy for the young royals.
“The pressure that is applied to the younger members of the Royal Family is hard sometimes to deal with,” she says.
But she says you have to learn the game yourself.
“People talk about being trained to be a member of the royal family … but there is no such thing.”
Anne works tirelessly to support just under 350 charities and organisations and last year attended 506 official engagements – compared to Harry’s 201. “Mostly … you are trying to cover the bits of the country most other people wouldn’t get to,” she says, wryly.
But one of the things that probably best embodies Anne’s practical attitude to life is her approach to fashion. She is renowned for thriftily re-wearing outfits decades later, becoming a trailblazer for the slow-fashion movement.
Anne regularly appears in upcycled outfits at functions — she has worn one blue fur-lined coat for example, through five decades from 1976, and has sported a cream and blue military-style coat repeatedly since 1980.
“It was perhaps inevitable Anne would adopt the same no-nonsense approach to dressing as her mother,” says Vogue.com.au editor Dani Gay.
“Princess Anne’s style is practical and functional. She picks pieces she can wear year in and year out, perfectly tailored to her. She shuns trends and she’s not afraid to wear a look from 35 years ago,” she says.
“I like the idea of no-nonsense. It is sensible to re-wear clothes — if you invest in high-quality, classic pieces, you’ll want to get your wear out of them,” says sustainable fashion expert Clare Press.
“It helps if you can still fit into your wardrobe from 20 years ago, of course.”
Clare, who presents the Wardrobe Crisis podcast, met the Princess Royal in February at London Fashion Week.
“She looked very elegant in an emerald green skirt suit and black Salvatore Ferragamo pumps. I noticed them because I own a pair — I’ve had mine for a decade, but I didn’t dare ask how long she’d had hers,” she says.
“We talked about the Australian wool industry. She is very knowledgeable about textiles and interested in sustainability.”
It’s not only clothes she hangs on to — Anne also settled on a hairstyle that she liked in the early 1970s and stuck with it. Of her bouffant ’do, she revealed it doesn’t take her as long to create as reported, mocking Erin Doherty, the actor who plays Anne in The Crown, who said her hair took two hours to perfect.
“I read an article the other day about The Crown, the actress was talking about how long it took them to do her hair like I did,” she says.
“And I’m thinking, ‘How could you possibly take that long?’ It takes me 10 or 15 minutes. I do it myself, it’s quicker.”
Zara Tindall describes her mother perfectly on the documentary.
“I always remember … that she would come home from engagements and she’ll be in exactly what she was wearing and her make-up on,” she says.
Then she would “put her welly boots on, her jacket on and then she walks up and goes to do her chickens and get her eggs.”
That’s no princess, that’s a queen.