Being a princess might seem like a wonderful existence to many,
but is royal living as charming as it sounds? Princess Anne may be a privileged royal who grew
up in the lap of extreme luxury, but the truth about her life is more tragic than you may think.
While Queen Elizabeth had not yet been crowned when Princess Anne was born, she was still quite
busy as the heir to the throne. There were even more constraints on her time after she
inherited the crown 1952, when Anne was just shy of 2 years old. As noted by Town & Country,
the young royal didn't have much time for her young children, often leaving Prince Charles and
Princess Anne with a nanny for months at a time as she traveled the globe for her royal obligations.
This isn't to say that Queen Elizabeth neglected her children. On the contrary,
she believed she was doing the right thing by allowing her children to stay
in a stable environment rather than constantly uprooting them.
Royal biographer Robert Lacey told Town & Country,
"She had been brought up in that style herself, after all, with her parents
leaving her at home and entrusting her entire schooling to a governess and home tutors."
According to Express, the young princess went off to boarding school at the age of 13. While Anne
enjoyed her time at Benenden School, it meant that she was even further separated from her family.
While some royals might enjoy their celebrity status and growing up in the public eye,
Princess Anne is not one of them.
According to Great British Life, she once snapped at an interviewer, saying,
"I didn't ask to be born a princess!"
While Anne fortunately grew up before social media, public scrutiny was still intense enough
without Instagram and Twitter. One aspect of royal life that she especially loathed
was the expectation of participating in royal walkabouts to greet the public.
She said in the BBC documentary The Queen: Her Commonwealth Story,
"We hated them, can you imagine as teenagers? Hardly the sort of thing
you would volunteer to do. [...] How many people enjoy walking into
a room full of people you've never met before and then try a street."
It's no wonder, then, that Anne enjoyed her time at school so much. While there,
she was able to simply be a teenage girl. While everyone knew, of course,
who she was, she was treated just like everyone else.
It's hard not to sympathize with the young Princess Anne. While she was born into a life of
privilege and wealth, there were many downsides to being a royal. The media didn't see it this way, though.
When her distaste for public life became apparent, the press lambasted her instead of
sympathizing with her. The young princess had a reputation for being difficult because of
her impatience with the press. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith wrote in Elizabeth the Queen:
The Life of a Modern Monarch that she even earned herself the nickname "Her
Royal Rudeness" in her 20s after infamously yelling, quote, "Naff off!" at reporters.
Even American reporters were quick to criticize the young princess, not only
for her avoidance of the press but also for her perceived demeanor during royal engagements.
Journalist Joy Billington observed Anne on a 1970 trip to the U.S. She later said in
the documentary The Real Princess Anne that Anne, quote, "was very bad-tempered [and] very sulky."
Royal biographer Kitty Kelley wrote in The Royals that Anne served as a sharp contrast to
Prince Charles, who was more willing to cooperate with the press. Kelley said that the princess,
quote, "seemed selfish and arrogant," notably telling photographers to, quote, "Bugger off."
While Princess Anne wasn't comfortable with her public life as a royal,
she was much more at home garnering attention as a talented equestrian.
Riding horses was a passion she shared with her mother, Queen Elizabeth; royal historian Robert
Lacey told Town & Country that the shared hobby helped the teenage princess bond with her mother.
Anne's talent for riding soon proved to be formidable. According to Biography,
she competed while in school and, after graduation, studied competitive riding with a
professional trainer. Anne's talent was largely kept out of the public eye for a few years,
but by 1971, she was making big waves on the riding circuit and
it was impossible to keep quiet. That year, she performed well at several competitions,
including the Rushall Horse Trials and the European Eventing Championships,
where she won the European gold medal and was named BBC's Sports Personality of the Year.
Anne set her eyes on riding in the Olympics, but a series of unfortunate accidents nearly ruined
her hopes. In 1972, her horse Doublet strained his tendon, leaving her unable to try out for
the Olympic team. Four years later, Anne again hoped to make it to the Olympics but suffered a
nasty fall that left her hospitalized for several days with a concussion and a fractured vertebra.
Thankfully, it was only a hairline fracture and, according to The New York Times,
her doctor said she'd be able to return to riding in time for the Olympic Trials.
Princess Anne made it to the Olympics in 1976 in spite of her injury,
becoming the first British royal to compete in the Games. Tragically, the experience was not
exactly a glorious one. Not only did Anne not win a medal, but she doesn't even remember it.
Anne's memory loss is due to a fall she took in the eventing competition
at the Montreal Olympics. While she wasn't seriously injured and she remounted her horse,
finishing the event, she had to rely on observers to tell her what happened after her fall.
Ultimately, she finished 24th in the event.
According to Express, she said in an interview,
"I was going very well and then I don't remember anything else. Nothing at all."
Jane Holderness-Roddam, Anne's lady-in-waiting, said in the
documentary Anne: The Princess Royal at 70 that Princess Anne never recovered her memories.
Far from being a damsel in distress, Princess Anne is a fierce royal and even bravely thwarted
a kidnapping attempt that could have ended in tragedy. According to Smithsonian Magazine,
the near-kidnapping occurred in 1974 as Anne was on her way home from a charity event.
An armed man approached her limo, shooting her bodyguard in the shoulder.
The would-be kidnapper tried to get Anne out of the car.
"Well, he said I had to go with him."
Despite the man's insistence, Anne refused to cooperate.
"I said I didn't, didn't think I wanted to go. (inaudible) I was scrupulously polite."
Princess Anne admitted that she wanted to hit the man,
who had been planning on holding her for ransom, but refrained as he was carrying a gun.
The man was finally apprehended by the police and was committed to a mental health facility.
Princess Anne's love life has been rather tumultuous. Harper's Bazaar noted that she
had at least a couple of relationships before marrying Captain Mark Phillips in 1973.
Like Anne, Phillips was a talented equestrian, and he won team gold
at the 1972 Olympics. The couple had two children, Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips,
but the marriage was a rocky one. Cheating rumors regularly circulated about the pair,
the most notable of which was Anne's rumored relationship with her bodyguard.
Anne and Phillips ended their 18-year marriage in 1992, a year that was filled with scandal
for the royal family, according to the Independent. Aside from Anne's divorce,
there was the separation of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson as well as the separation of
Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Anne eloped with Sir Timothy Laurence later that year.
Princess Anne's life doesn't seem to have been an unhappy one, although it has been
difficult at times. Though she's not one to complain about her life, she seems to have
sent a message by not wanting her children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, to have royal titles.
While her kids didn't receive titles at birth, as the children of a female heir aren't automatically
princes or princesses, Metro noted that Queen Elizabeth did offer to style them as such.
Anne and her then-husband, Mark Phillips, declined.
While she didn't say anything negative about royal life,
her 2020 statement to Vanity Fair about her children not having titles is quite telling.
She told the publication,
"I think it was probably easier for them, and I think most people would argue that there
are downsides to having titles, so I think that was probably the right thing to do."
Her children seem to agree. Tindall told The Times in 2015,
"I'm very lucky that both my parents decided to not use the title
and we grew up and did all the things that gave us the opportunity to do."
While Princess Anne has, for the most part, carried out all of the royal expectations placed
upon her - albeit reluctantly at times - there are some notable examples of her not toeing the line.
For example, she's the only member of the British royal family to have a criminal conviction.
According to Vanity Fair, Anne was convicted in 2002 after failing to
control her dog in a public park. The dog ended up attacking two children.
One could argue that this unfortunate incident wasn't entirely Anne's fault.
According to The Guardian, a dog psychologist evaluated the royal's pet and declared her to be,
quote, "an utterly placid, playful dog," so Anne likely never thought her pet posed a threat.
In the end, the dog was made to undergo training and Anne had to pay fines.
That's not the only time Anne has been in trouble with the law,
though. It turns out that she's a bit of a speedster behind the wheel and has
been fined several times over the decades for speeding, according to The Guardian. In 1990,
she was fined in addition to having her driver's license suspended for a month.
Princess Anne is a formidable force. Even though her royal career got off to a rocky start,
she eventually became known as one of the hardest-working royals in the family.
Even without her sterling reputation, she'd still be quite an impressive figure,
but that hasn't prevented her from being overlooked for most of her life.
Anne grew up overshadowed by her older brother, Prince Charles. The births of her younger
brothers, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, made her even more redundant in terms of the line of succession.
To top it off, Anne was born in a time when sexism ran rampant - the Women's
Liberation Movement didn't kick off in the U.K. until 1970, according to the British Library.
Even in modern times, though, she's often overlooked. PopSugar pointed out that Anne's
fascinating life has not been explored in the detail it deserves in The Crown,
the Netflix drama about Queen Elizabeth's reign. Her attempted kidnapping isn't so
much as mentioned, and her character serves primarily in a supporting role.
"Because I'm irrelevant."
Princess Anne shouldn't be so easily dismissed, though. As royal expert Clive Irving told Express,
the royal, quote, "is one of the most quietly effective and influential
members of the royal family" and even influences Queen Elizabeth. Irving added,
"She is very underrated. [...] She has done a lot of good work."
The death of Prince Philip in 2021 wasn't unexpected,
but that didn't make it any less tragic. Princess Anne was
devastated by the death of her father, as was the rest of the royal family.
She said in a statement posted to the family's Instagram account,
"You know it's going to happen but you are never really ready.
My father has been my teacher, my supporter and my critic, but mostly it is his example
of a life well lived and service freely given that I most wanted to emulate."
Anne notably walked behind her father's casket during his funeral procession - a break from
tradition as the somber task is typically restricted to men, according to CBS News.
After the funeral, she further honored her father by sending personalized
notes to those who had offered their condolences. As noted by PureWow,
the cards carried her monogram and a message reading,
"The Princess Royal thanks you for your kind thoughts
and sends you best wishes for the future."
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