James Bond in a tiara: How The Crown helped turn Princess Anne into the coolest royal

There is one moment, easily forgotten in modern cultural history, which sums up the peculiar sensibility and sensibleness of Princess Anne. When told that her television doppelganger, Erin Doherty, spent two hours having her hair styled to match Anne’s for the Netflix television series, The Crown, the princess quipped: “How could it possibly take that long? It takes me 10 or 15 minutes.”

Princess Anne is the member of the royal family who has spent most of her life tagged with adjectives like hard-working, sensible and frugal. In a world of Dianas, Fergies, Kates and Meghans, it was apparently uncool to be an Anne, standing on the sidelines while everyone else jostled for the spotlight. Absolutely Fabulous’ Patsy once even remarked the only label she wore was “drip-dry”.

The Princess Royal.Credit: PA

The problem with that perception is that it does not hold up to scrutiny. Sensible she may be, but Anne is also an award-winning equestrian who competed at the Olympics and once foiled her own kidnapping attempt ... 007 in a tiara, anyone?

And when tormented by the media, she did not complain, she simply told them to “naff off”. The global bible of chic, Vogue, even recently asked: is Princess Anne actually the coolest royal?

Anne – better known these days as the Princess Royal, a style reserved for the eldest daughter of the Queen – touched down in Australia this week to open the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. She is there ostensibly to smile, wave and cut ribbons, a sort of benign gold trim to a delightfully archaic tradition which meshes animals, showbags, wood-chopping and prize giving.

Make no mistake though, she is also flying the flag of Brand Windsor. And while the more brittle personalities of the world’s oldest soap opera make easy pickings for critics of the institution, Anne, like her mother, is a much more elusive target. She’s hard to find fault with for one simple reason: she is, as Vogue suggested, the coolest royal.

In part, the regeneration of her public image from cranky outlier to popular princess comes off the back of The Crown, which reminded its audience that like every young woman in the royal family, she had begun her adulthood in a media maelstrom similar to the one endured years later by Diana, Fergie, Kate and Meghan.

Erin Doherty as Princess Anne in The Crown.Credit: Netflix

The difference, however, is that she seemed to take it in her stride, indifferent to it if the mood suited her, and disinterested in the protests of journalists, commentators and pundits when she did not give them what they wanted. Perhaps not consciously, she is the living embodiment of the notion: treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen.

This is, after all, the woman who single-handedly defeated her would-be kidnapper in 1974, aged just 23. Returning to Buckingham Palace after a charity event, Anne’s car was intercepted by another, and its driver pulled out a handgun, shooting Anne’s chauffeur, her bodyguard, Jim Beaton, and a journalist, who was nearby and tried to intervene. (Extraordinarily, all three lived.)

Her would-be kidnapper, Ian Ball, demanded she get out of the car and leave with him, to which the Princess Royal famously replied: “Not bloody likely.” That delay – and the fact that Ball’s gun then jammed – allowed Ball to be overpowered and a potential disaster was averted.

Anne has only spoken publicly about the incident once, during an interview with Michael Parkinson on his Parkinson in Australia program, which was broadcast in October, 1983.

Anne (left) with the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles during filming of the documentary, Royal Family, in 1969.Credit: Getty

“[The would-be kidnapper] opened the door, and we had a sort of discussion, about where or where not we were going to go,” Anne recalled. “He said I had to go with him, and I said I didn’t really want to go, thank you very much. I was scrupulously polite because I thought it was silly to be too rude at that stage of the game.

“And we had a fairly low-key discussion about the fact that I wasn’t going to go anywhere, and wouldn’t it be much better if he simply went away, and we’d all forget about it,” Anne added. “Which was, as it turned out, wishful thinking.”

After successfully ejecting him from the car, the pair then wrestled for control of the door. “He got the door back open but in the process of getting the door back open, the back of my dress split and all the shoulders went, and that was his most dangerous moment,” Anne said, with a wry smile. “I lost my rag at that stage.”

Erin Doherty, the actor who plays Anne in The Crown, said she hoped the television performance captured some sense of the essence of the real woman. “When I first read about this woman and was finding out all these amazing things about her being kidnapped and saying no, I was like, who is this woman?” the 29-year-old actress said.

On the job ... Princess Anne talking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Credit: PA

“And then you go ... God, that’s who she is. She’s desperately trying to be this strong-willed iron woman. You see her reach out for her mum, and her mum doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s so human. You witness someone be a human being. It really was my favourite moment in the whole show.”

Perhaps not without reason, Doherty was also fearful of what the real princess would make of her performance. (In a television interview, Anne confirmed she does not watch the series.)

“Thinking about it scares me to death,” Doherty said. “I don’t expect that she watches it. I don’t actually think I can properly imagine what she’d say watching it. But I genuinely like to think that we’ve done her justice. I feel like a lot of people, like me, will learn so much about her, and fall in love with her as much as I have.”

Just don’t try to shake her hand. “We never shook hands,” Anne told an interviewer about past royal protocol. “The theory was that you couldn’t shake hands with everybody, so don’t start. I kind of stick with that, but I noticed others don’t. It’s not for me to say that it’s wrong, but ... it seems to me that it’s become a shaking hands exercise rather than a walkabout if you see what I mean.”

Anne will officially open the Royal Easter Show on Saturday, April 9, in her capacity as patron of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth. The princess previously opened the Royal Easter Show in 1988. She may also visit parts of regional and rural NSW during her trip.

During the opening ceremony, Anne will ride in the same 150-year-old horse-drawn caleche carriage she rode in when she, her mother, Prince Philip and Prince Charles attended the opening of the 1970 Royal Easter Show. The carriage will be escorted by the NSW Mounted Police.

The Royal Easter Show runs until April 19.

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