Speaker A
She's the queen's only daughter. To many, she is the princess who symbolizes the best of the royal family.
A documentary on Princess Anne as she turns 70, exploring her childhood, family ties with Prince Philip, her work ethic, press relations and notable moments in her royal life.
Key Takeaways
- Princess Anne is widely seen as the embodiment of royal duty and work ethic.
- Her upbringing, family dynamics and especially her bond with Prince Philip shaped her independent, resilient character.
- Her frosty relationship with the press and long history of negative headlines contrast with her dedication to official engagements.
- Her place in the line of succession has been a source of frustration that drove her to forge her own identity.
What the video covers
- Princess Anne, the Queen's only daughter, is presented as the royal who embodies duty before self on her 70th birthday.
- Her traditional royal childhood was shaped by long royal tours, with she and Charles largely raised by nannies and governesses.
- She broke with royal tradition by attending an ordinary boarding school rather than being homeschooled.
- Anne was especially close to Prince Philip, who is portrayed as the son he never had, sharing a similar temperament and humor.
- Her relationship with Charles and the line of succession, where she has been pushed further down behind her brothers, is discussed as a driver of her desire for an independent role.
- She became a working royal at 18 and is widely described as the hardest-working member of the family, known for a no-nonsense approach.
- Her tense relationship with the press, including a difficult 1970s US visit and a hostile Fleet Street reputation in the 1980s and 90s, is covered.
- The 1974 assassination attempt on Anne and Captain Mark Phillips is recounted, and her composed handling of it is highlighted.
- Her divorce and later relationship with Timothy Lawrence are discussed, with the palace's handling noted.
- The documentary questions whether she would have made a good monarch and portrays her as more complex than her reputation suggests.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: The Princess Who Symbolizes Duty
- 02:16Childhood and Early Royal Life
- 05:13Bond with Prince Philip and Family Dynamics
- 13:26Schooling, Youth and Becoming a Working Royal
- 26:40Press Relations and Public Controversies
- 36:40Assassination Attempt and Personal Life
- 43:20Legacy and Whether She Would Have Made a Good Queen
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
because it is duty before self and Anne is the personification of that. But as she turns 70, how well do we really know an? I'm not totally useless. I was quite well educated in one way or another. How has her relationship with her family defined her? Princess Anne was the
Speaker A
I think a lot of people in this country think that Anne would actually make a great queen.
Speaker A
She doesn't tolerate fools. She can be snappy. She can reduce grown men to tears. How does it feel having a Buckingham Palace as your private property? Well, I don't know cuz it isn't. We reveal the truth behind her most memorable moments from the dramatic.
Speaker A
She'd have made a formidable monarch, without a doubt, because it is duty before self, and Anne is the personification of that.
Speaker A
on the news at all. We follow the highs and lows of an extraordinary life. But she is about duty and responsibility and hard work. She's still making headlines after seven decades in the spotlight. But is she the best queen we never had? The Princess Raw.
Speaker A
But as she turns 70, how well do we really know Anne?
Speaker A
was still on the throne. And it really was a million miles away to where society is today.
Speaker A
"I'm not totally useless. I was quite well educated in one way or another."
Speaker A
Anne had a very 19th century childhood, a very traditional royal childhood. When she was born, of course, the queen was not yet queen. and she was still Princess Elizabeth. So Anne was not born at Buckingham Palace as many people think, but actually at Clarence House where the then Princess
Speaker A
How has her relationship with her family defined her?
Speaker A
She's always been the one who goes out and climbs trees and is very courageous and very confident, very willing to explore the world and find her own way in the world in a way perhaps that Charles has been a little more timid, shy, more sensitive character and is absolutely a chip off
Speaker A
"Princess Anne was the son that Prince Philip never had. She is very much in his image."
Speaker A
recently interviewed the princess to mark her 70th birthday. I think growing up with three brothers, it was inevitable that Anne was going to be pretty tough, pretty resilient. She had to learn from an early stage how to hold her own as a girl in the royal family, secondborn to Charles. And you know,
Speaker A
And what is she really like?
Speaker A
that Anne was the daughter of a working mom, which in those days was not that usual. And she had a very hardworking mom. Elizabeth was away a huge amount. I mean, Anne was tiny when her mom and dad went off for 6 months around the Commonwealth. So she and Charles were left not exactly to fend
Speaker A
"She doesn't tolerate fools. She can be snappy. She can reduce grown men to tears."
Speaker A
further 10 years actually. So it was herself and Charles at home being educated at home till Charles went off to boarding school and then there was just an and she was left with her governness for I think best part of seven years but must have been a very strange existence. I think growing up
Speaker A
How does it feel having Buckingham Palace as your private property?
Speaker A
wanted to go and learn. Up until this point, all British female royals had been homeschooled. But Anne broke the mold. She was the first princess to go off to ordinary school, if you like. Very posh school, very posh indeed. But she fitted in very well. I think she enjoyed life as a border at this
Speaker A
"Well, I don't know, because it isn't."
Speaker A
and possibly that strong sense of independence that I think we see in the Princess Royal and that commitment to duty. You know what she saw her mother do. She was the daughter of a working queen. I'm sure that has all contributed to the woman Anne grew up to be. But unlike her mother,
Speaker A
We reveal the truth behind her most memorable moments, from the dramatic to the controversial.
Speaker A
starting to take off and be incredibly important. and her mother was a great role model. Throughout her life, the princess has continued to be pushed further away from the throne. So, she's now 14th in line to the throne. She slipped down behind her brothers Edward and Andrew, their children,
Speaker A
"Good evening. There's been an assassination attempt on Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips."
Speaker A
Edward and subsequently pushed further down the line of succession. I think an very much wanted to create a role for herself within the royal family and to really break free particularly of Charles's shadow. She may have fallen down the line of succession, but many believe Anne is
Speaker A
It was an extraordinary incident, and she handled it in the most extraordinary way.
Speaker A
Philillip to his daughter. And I think she's always looked up to her father as she grew older and similarities to her father brought them ever closer. I've always thought that Princess Anne was the son that Prince Philillip never had. She is very much in his image and I think that is what
Speaker A
The divorce was very much never mentioned.
Speaker A
have absolutely the same sense of humor. Does press really annoy you? Yes, I think. Well, At least I think it does. I think it would be very It wouldn't really be doing its job if it wasn't.
Speaker A
"These were love letters. There was something going on between the two of them."
Speaker A
Princess Anne's incredible work ethic was evident from a young age. In 1968, aged just 18, she became a working royal. I think she's always had a sense of commitment from a very early stage in her life. And after school, she decided that rather than go to university, she wanted to start working
Speaker A
"I have no comment on the news at all."
Speaker A
didn't do brilliant in her exams. I decided after my limited school career not to go to university um contrary to some reports not because I couldn't go to university but I didn't actually want to go to university. She was just out of school and she was going on engagements with her mother
Speaker A
We follow the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.
Speaker A
the young teenage princess an attractive teenager. The crowds turned out in their thousands. The princess has devoted a large part of her life to official engagements and is often referred to as the hardest working royal. She always has been one of, if not the most hardworking
Speaker A
She is about duty, responsibility, and hard work.
Speaker A
She could be in Scotland in the morning, London in the evening, and she would be very well briefed on every engagement and extremely professional. She's admitted she's a workaholic. An is very no nonsense, and she takes that approach to her work. She regularly tops the bestselling list
Speaker A
She's still making headlines after seven decades in the spotlight.
Speaker A
It's a huge workload. I remember Kevin Mloud who was the Canadian secretary to the Queen said of an in 2014 her credo her literally her belief is keep me busy. I'm here to work. I'm here to do good things. I'm here to meet as many people as possible. Anne may work hard behind the scenes,
Speaker A
But is she the best queen we never had?
Speaker A
together and she was not very wellreceived there at all. She went to the White House to visit Nixon when he was president and there was a lot of negative press because she seemed to be so sulky.
Speaker A
The Princess Royal.
Speaker A
Pardon? The Americans said, "Why did she bother to come?" She's quite clear she doesn't want to be here. So, that was the beginning actually of pretty much a lifetime of often negative headlines for the princess. This early trip set a pattern for Anne's relationship with the
Speaker A
Born in August 1950, Princess Anne is the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, and sister to Charles, Andrew, and Edward.
Speaker A
in hand and not worry about a press pack there to capture every moment. And some of those moments were certainly unexpected. In 1969, while visiting troops in Germany, the world saw another side to the princess. We were kind of all knocked out when she was 19 and she went to Germany on a job and
Speaker A
Anne was born 70 years ago, the second child of Elizabeth.
Speaker A
looking at her and in abject terror. Here she was a young woman and she was capable of doing all of this. Despite Anne's refusal to play the media's game, she was working hard to support the queen.
Speaker A
And of course, when she was born, her grandfather, George VI, was still on the throne.
Speaker A
constant. They are always there. And particularly in areas of the world that have royal families, for instance, like the Middle East, when you send a member of the royal family to them on a state visit, it's immensely important. It conveys, you know, huge prestige and people take that
Speaker A
And it really was a million miles away from where society is today.
Speaker A
if you like for the royals. There was a slightly tricky destination go to. It was always an they would send in first because she has a great ability at making people feel welcome and being enormously empathetic with people. In 1990, it was Princess Anne who the queen trusted to visit the
Speaker A
Arriving at Ballater Station with her family, the Queen was received by the Marquess of Aberdeen.
Speaker A
Russia, as it then was in 1990. How does it feel having a Buckingham Palace as your private property? Well, I don't know cuz it isn't. She made a huge impact. It was a great success. Big crowds came out to see her. people were interested in her and the feedback was incredibly successful
Speaker A
Anne had a very 19th-century childhood, a very traditional royal childhood.
Speaker A
some of which she's founded herself. She writes her own speeches. She has a very small staff as well. Charles famously has a lot of staff looking after him. It's a big operation being the Prince of Wales. When you look at the charities and patronages that an represents, you will see
Speaker A
When she was born, of course, the Queen was not yet queen, and she was still Princess Elizabeth.
Speaker A
can bring something unique and helpful in her role. She's never seen the point in being just a nominal head of an organization, which is why she works so phenomenally hard. It would be almost impossible to go and visit every single charity and organization she's involved with every year,
Speaker A
So Anne was not born at Buckingham Palace, as many people think, but actually at Clarence House, where the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip moved after their wedding.
Speaker A
encourage them, and bring what publicity you can to them. One charity that has always been close to Anne's heart is Save the Children, and she's willing to take great risks in order to help. If you want to improve the lot of children, then you must improve the lot of their mothers. If there
Speaker A
Despite Charles being 18 months older and heir to the throne, it was Anne who was assertive from a young age.
Speaker A
fund. She's been president for I think nearly 50 years now and this has meant a very great deal to her. When Princess Anne carried out those early trips to Africa with Save the Children in the early '7s, this was her really breaking the mold. This was her going far a field, doing something
Speaker A
"Anne's always been a tomboy. She's always been the one who goes out and climbs trees, and is very courageous and very confident, very willing to explore the world and find her own way in the world, in a way perhaps that Charles has been a little more timid, shy, more sensitive character. And she is absolutely a chip off the old block."
Speaker A
Children long before Princess Diana was even on the scene. She got a really hard time from Fleet Street in the 80s and the '9s. They thought that she treated the press with disdain. She wouldn't talk to them. She ignored them. She wouldn't smile for them. And in return, they gave her a
Speaker A
"As a child, even though she was a couple of years younger than the Prince of Wales, she was quite happy to take him on in any kind of physical rough and tumble, and she often came out on top."
Speaker A
But this all changed in 1982 when the press followed Anne on one of her trips to Africa with Save the Children. They went in an attempt to get a story about her love life. But after realizing she wasn't going to talk, they started to take note of her work and were surprised at
Speaker A
One person with a better insight into Anne than most is Katie Nicholl. She recently interviewed the princess to mark her 70th birthday.
Speaker A
to Africa with her. And there they saw a princess who was utterly prepared to get down and dirty, really getting down to work, dressed, you know, in jeans and a a shirt and probably a headscarf in dusty, hot, sweaty Africa, going into slums. The way we're not used to seeing a princess at all.
Speaker A
"I think growing up with three brothers, it was inevitable that Anne was going to be pretty tough, pretty resilient. She had to learn from an early stage how to hold her own as a girl in the royal family, second-born to Charles. And, you know, I think there was a lot of competition between the siblings. So Anne was always going to have to stake out her own role in the royal family."
Speaker A
and might have been hardworking when it came to royal duties but it wasn't the only thing she dedicated her energy to. She was a senior royal, but she was also having a second career, effectively running parallel at the same time. Breaking with tradition,
Speaker A
The princess had to become independent from an early age. She was not even three years old when her mother became queen in 1952.
Speaker A
sat on a horse before she could walk. She's utterly horse mad. Her father once said of her, "If it doesn't fart or eat hay, Anne's not interested." And I I think that's almost right. Horses have given her an escapism. Not only did they enable her to embark on
Speaker A
"You have to remember that Anne was the daughter of a working mom, which in those days was not that usual, and she had a very hardworking mom. Elizabeth was away a huge amount. I mean, Anne was tiny when her mom and dad went off for six months around the Commonwealth. So she and Charles were left, not exactly to fend for themselves, but certainly they were largely brought up by nannies and governesses."
Speaker A
I think nothing makes an happier than riding out, being being in the paddock, being around horses.
Speaker A
Growing up, Princess Anne spent much of her time separated from her family.
Speaker A
Anne narrowly escaped serious injury following a bad fall whilst competing in Dorset. I didn't actually see what what happened, what it looked like. So that the horse hit the fence and she got thrown onto the ground and the horse came over on top and rolled rolled on top. She was
Speaker A
"Anne had quite a solitary childhood in many ways, because she had her brother Charles, and then there wasn't another sibling for a further 10 years, actually. So it was herself and Charles at home, being educated at home, till Charles went off to boarding school, and then there was just Anne, and she was left with her governess for, I think, the best part of seven years. But it must have been a very strange existence."
Speaker A
Growing success in her equestrian pursuits led to an increased level of press interest in Anne, much to the dismay of the young princess. when they were photographing her when she was riding at events when she was doing cross country and they would be tucked behind a fence and
Speaker A
"I think growing up as a young girl, she did have quite a different childhood to previous royal children. Initially she was homeschooled, as all royal children were, but she was desperate to go to school. She wanted to get out. She wanted to discover life beyond the palace walls. You know, she had a brain. She wanted to go and learn."
Speaker A
the trout hatchery proved to be too much of an obstacle for most of the 60 competitors, not least for Princess Anne. And that was where she originally the phrase that she's been tagged with ever since where she told photographers to naff off.
Speaker A
Up until this point, all British female royals had been homeschooled. But Anne broke the mold. She was the first princess to go off to ordinary school, if you like. A very posh school, very posh indeed.
Speaker A
I mean, it's pretty humiliating to be seen covered in mud and water and scrambling after your poly, but she'd always get get back on straight away, even after some of the worst tumbles. And stoic attitude. however, won her admiration. If she fell off her horse, she was going to get back up and
Speaker A
"But she fitted in very well. I think she enjoyed life as a boarder at this school with other young girls to lark around with. She wasn't brilliantly academic, much more interested in sport, and much more interested in horses, of course. She was an independent little girl from a very early age, and, you know, to a degree had to become quite a grown-up child quite quickly, and possibly that strong sense of independence that I think we see in the Princess Royal, and that commitment to duty. You know, what she saw her mother do, she was the daughter of a working queen. I'm sure that has all contributed to the woman Anne grew up to be."
Speaker A
The inevitable falls captured by an eager press corps did nothing to detract from Anne's formidable talent. In 1971 at the European Horse Trial Championships, the 21-year-old princess wowed the equestrian world. 1971 was one of her great equestrian years. I suppose she competed in
Speaker A
But unlike her mother, the princess was never destined to be queen.
Speaker A
and sporting success allowed the public to see a different side of the princess. She was voted the BBC's sports personality of the year, which is always one of the greatest uh accolades you can have as a as an athlete, as a sports person.
Speaker A
"In a way, it's quite sad, because you have this amazing kind of role model in her mother, who was a very strong woman, a very powerful woman, you know, back in the '50s and '60s, which was kind of postwar, when women's rights and equality were really starting to take off and be incredibly important. And her mother was a great role model."
Speaker A
It was a way of actually connecting the royal family to the public. You know getting that BBC sports personality of the year probably in many ways made an more relatable to the British public than she ever had been.
Speaker A
Throughout her life, the princess has continued to be pushed further away from the throne. She is now 14th in line to the throne. She slipped down behind her brothers Edward and Andrew, their children, and then, of course, the children of Prince William and Harry. So she is currently 14th in line to the throne and therefore very unlikely to ever become queen herself.
Speaker A
in the Olympics, which I suppose was the biggest moment of her equestrian career, didn't go absolutely brilliantly. Unfortunately, it was a team event and we didn't win. Didn't even get a medal, but they were there and they did compete. This was the first time ever that
Speaker A
"I think playing second fiddle to Charles, and then being leapfrogged in the line to the throne by, of course, Andrew, and then Edward, and subsequently pushed further down the line of succession, I think Anne very much wanted to create a role for herself within the royal family and to really break free, particularly of Charles's shadow."
Speaker A
And dedication and leadership aside, the Olympic Games were also associated with a more personal moment in the princess's life. While at the Mexican Olympics in 1968, a young Princess Anne was introduced to a fellow rider and Olympian, Mark Phillips. Anne's pursuit
Speaker A
She may have fallen down the line of succession, but many believe Anne is number one in her father's eyes.
Speaker A
in her world of horses and met quite a lot of dashing young men. She went out with quite a few of them. She went out actually with Andrew Parker BS as well, quite incidentally, but she she was very keen on him. her eyes finally set on Mark Phillips,
Speaker A
"Well, it's long been rumored that the Queen's favorite son was always Andrew, and that Philip's favorite child was always Anne. And of course, Anne had the advantage of being the only daughter. So very possibly there was some favoritism from Philip to his daughter. And I think she's always looked up to her father as she grew older, and similarities to her father brought them ever closer."
Speaker A
somewhere in the world. Uh, but she wasn't having any of that. Uh, she was determined to marry uh whoever she fell in love with. And the man she fell in love with was Mark Phillips.
Speaker A
"I've always thought that Princess Anne was the son that Prince Philip never had. She is very much in his image, and I think that is what he wanted Charles to be. And Charles was a very sensitive child who grew into a sensitive man, who is emotional. Anne is none of those things. Anne is very straightforward, very blunt, calls a spade a spade, but is also very funny. And her father is very funny. And I think they have absolutely the same sense of humor."
Speaker A
to get married, the only daughter. Um, so it was going to be a big deal.
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"Does the press really annoy you?"
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as in everything else, Princess Anne, when pushed, delivered. Now, the best man, Captain Eric Grounds, puts the ring on the Archbishop's prayer book for the blessing.
Speaker A
"Yes, I think. Well, at least I think it does. I think it would be very... it wouldn't really be doing its job if it wasn't."
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um the fairy tale princess that people imagine." And you know, maybe she feels she's been a bit of a disappointment, but that's just not in her nature. There were a few concessions to Anne's taste and personality. The wedding dress didn't come from a famous designer.
Speaker A
"Both of them can be quite grumpy. Both of them can be quite difficult. Both of them shoot from the hip. Both of them say what they think. Both of th"
Speaker A
The moment we've all been waiting for. And how lovely she looks. Now, we expected something quite different, and we've certainly got it today. Look at that wonderful girl.
Speaker A
The newlyweds were barely able to enjoy the first months of married life before their peace was shattered when Princess Anne and her new husband were the target of a terrifying attack.
Speaker A
Perhaps one of the most defining moments in Princess Anne's life was when somebody attempted to kidnap her. They escaped, but four people were hit, one seriously. Good evening. There's been an assassination attempt on Princess Anne and Captain Mark Fellows. Their car was forced to stop by a Ford Escort on the MA. The driver of the escort,
Speaker A
Ian B, jumped out and began firing a pistol at Princess Anne and her police protection officer.
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Thankfully, the incident was brought under control by the arrival of the police on the scene. It was an extraordinary incident and she handled it in the most extraordinary way.
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And the next day she was back on duty working as if nothing had happened.
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Just the same kind of attitude as if she'd just fallen off a horse. But her life had been very seriously in danger, and her husband admitted that he'd been terrified.
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Following the foiled kidnap attempt, the royal couple went back to life as normal. Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips welcomed their first child, Peter, in 1977, followed by their daughter, Zara, in 1981.
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Both children were raised without royal titles and away from the royal spotlight. Zara has said on many occasions that not having a title gave her enormous freedom. That's what Anne wanted. She wanted her daughter to be a normal teenager and to get into the kind of scrapes the teenager did.
Speaker A
And Zara absolutely has gone her own way. Peter and Zara are incredibly down to earth. you know, they don't even speak in the same way as many many senior royals. You know, there's nothing pompous about them at all. I think they're great young people. Princess Anne's
Speaker A
insistence that her children be shielded from the demands of a royal title was a position not shared by all her siblings. Andrew rather pompously has insisted on full status for his girls who are both princesses and Edward's children too do have titles. So, she's very different on that. It's
Speaker A
also often forgotten that Anne remains the only senior royal to have a criminal record. In 2002, she pleaded guilty to charges that her dog Dorothy, an English bull terrier, bit two children in a park. Convicted under the Dangerous Dogs Act, she was fined £500.
Speaker A
In 1989, Anne was again the victim of a crime when private letters were stolen from her briefcase in Buckingham Palace. Ultimately, they revealed her own romantic indiscretions.
Speaker A
While still married to Mark Phillips, alone today at her Gstersha home, Gatkham Park, the Princess Royal has said nothing about the letter stolen from Buckingham Palace.
Speaker A
No one quite knew what to make of it, but it transpired very quickly. Um in fact the palace issued a statement saying that these were letters u from Timothy Lawrence who was the queen's query at the time um to an and it became very obvious very quickly
Speaker A
that we didn't get the content of the letters that these were love letters and uh that there was uh there was something going on between the two of them.
Speaker A
I have no comment to make on the news at all. It transpired when we all started to dig around that Anne had been seeing him for quite a long time. She was going to his home in Winchester every
Speaker A
weekend. And when we all went there to talk to the neighbors, they quite gay said, "Oh, yes, she's been coming for months." And and we all said, "Why didn't you say anything?" And they they didn't because they liked her. As for the letter thief, Scott and Yard serious crime squad investigated
Speaker A
the incident for 4 months. They took 500 sets of fingerprints and interviewed almost everyone at the palace, but the thief was never identified. The damage was done. The letters had exposed Anne's affair and revealed the true state of her marriage. Speculation was rife that her and Mark
Speaker A
Phillips would be divorced, even though she denied it. seen a paper today. Yeah. Release a story about the queen has given permission to divorce. Divorce very never been mentioned by anybody.
Speaker A
In the end, divorce did come during the Queen's Anna's Heribilis in 1992. Her daughter might have been the first of the Queen's children to divorce, but it never affected Anne's reputation as much as the others. her siblings, their marriages fell apart and the world followed every last detail
Speaker A
rapturously. We were absolutely riveted by the gory details of their marriages falling apart and she managed to keep very private. The love letters were published, but she just kept on and she said nothing and no one dared to ask her anymore. And she married Tim Lawrence very shortly after
Speaker A
she divorced Mark Phillips. 1992 even ended on a happy note. The Princess Royal marrying Timothy Lawrence at one of the most low-key royal weddings there's been. So she married at the little church near Balmoral and that was probably the kind of wedding that she'd have had the first time
Speaker A
round if she had the chance. Small private, you know, 30 guests for a meal afterwards.
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She didn't wear a floor length dress or a veil, just, you know, a little bunch of white flowers in her hair. Had both her children there. I think that wedding was really all about Princess Anne.
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At 70, Princess Anne is as energetic in her commitment to the royal family as ever. In March 2020, she was at Paddington Station to unveil a train named after the Second World War spy Adet Hallows. It's a pleasure to join you here wearing this uniform which
Speaker A
is the one of the only things I share with a dead to represent uh first aid nursing.
Speaker A
I think Princess Anne is a great ambassador for the United Kingdom. I think we've all come to feel that she reflects a lot of what is best about British royalty. for the naming of this intercity express train. To many, Anne has all the qualities needed to have been a great queen.
Speaker A
When you think of Princess Anne, I think people do think of someone who is incredibly hardworking, who's very committed, um, and and a woman who frankly had she ever become queen, I think most people are quite unanimous that they think she
Speaker A
would have been incredibly good at the job. She has all the qualities, the main one being the sense of duty. The one thing that makes the queen stand out is is is her enduring sense of duty to the people of this country. And I think an absolutely has that
Speaker A
although to others her abrupt straighttalking manner similar to her father's would not be ideal. I don't think her temperament is right for the role. Possibly she would have been different if she'd known that she was the heir and maybe she would have controlled her outburst.
Speaker A
But I doubt that. I think she is very like her father and her father has been a great consort all these years and added a great deal of color to the royal family and we've been able to laugh at some of his jokes. But I
Speaker A
think it's a very good thing that it was the queen who's actually been in charge.
Speaker A
I think that that keep calm, carry on persona and that hardworking persona would suit her very well as a monarch. But actually, I think the real Achilles heel for an is that she doesn't play the game. She doesn't care about being popular. She doesn't care about rubbing people up the
Speaker A
wrong way. And as a monarch, you can't have someone shooting from the hip and saying what they think. That veneer, even if it is just a veneer of inscrutability. It's so important.
Speaker A
I think a lot of people in this country think that an would actually make a great queen.
Speaker A
But personally, I think that we need someone who is a little less steeped in tradition. I mean an herself has said that she doesn't see any point in changing things for the sake of change. If things work then leave them the way they are and that makes things rather
Speaker A
stuffy in my view too stuck in the established way of doing things. Um so I think we need uh a modernizer and I think to a great extent Charles will be and William certainly will be.
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For many though, as the royal family has modernized in certain ways, it's been Anne's traditional values of duty and loyalty that have seen her popularity increase in recent years.
Speaker A
As the carefully choreographed media profiles of some of the younger royals have fractured, an for all her faults is still going strong. She really is kind of the unsung hero, I think, of the royal family. She just gets on with it. opening factories, visiting supermarkets,
Speaker A
supporting charities. She doesn't get much media coverage anymore, and that's exactly how she likes it. Throughout it all, Princess Anne has remained fiercely devoted to the monarchy and her parents. A rare chance for them to talk about each other in their understated way came
Speaker A
at Anne's 50th birthday party in 2000. really thanks to their example, their advice, and their help that you're all here tonight. They're very proud of her, and that's all Anne's ever needed, approval from them. She doesn't need it from anybody else, and that's why she she can be so
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rude to people. She doesn't care what they think of her. I think the only two people in the world she cares about who think of her is is the queen and prince. I have been touched by the warmth of
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the appreciation that all these many friends and colleagues feel for your energy and dedication and might have been hardworking when it came to royal duties but also being seen sharing a laugh with world leaders as they appear to talk about Donald Trump.
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and shrugging at her mother like all children might do, whatever their age. I think actually as she's got older, those kinds of moments now, those bits of her personality make her more popular with the general public. And I think her being not first in line to the throne has enabled her to
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be more herself, to be more true to herself, and to carve out a really kind of different role for herself. Her advice after many years of duty is don't forget the basics. Something she says she intends to do for many more years to come. I think she probably won't ever slow down. I
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think she's like the queen in that respect that, you know, she will just keep plowing on as long as she's able. She's a great grandma. She loves her grandchildren, but she also loves her work.
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It is really what she's been born to do, I think she feels. So she'll she'll carry on.
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She gets a lot out of it as well as putting a great deal into it. So it is with my very great pleasure that I present on behalf of her majesty the letters patent to the town of Woodenbasset. She simply sees her role in life as to serve. And in that respect,
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she really is the replica of both her mother and her father. For the princess, whose motto is you just get on with it, the future will be more of the same. As Anne turned 70, for many she's a national treasure and possibly the best monarch we never had. However, even as
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she's held up as a paragon of straightforwardness, she's a more complex royal than we think. What you think of Princess Anne almost depends at what moment you clocked her. Did you first think of her as a kind of romantic young princess? Or did you think of her as this really rather grumpy,
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tety figure, very much like her father? Or if you're only really thinking about her now, maybe the wheel has turned full circle and you are thinking of her as someone who represents the best of the old style monarchy. But in another, she was quite forwardthinking, not giving her
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children titles, making a life for herself outside of royalty way before anybody else.
Topics:Princess Anneroyal familyQueen Elizabeth IIPrince Philiproyal documentaryBritish monarchyline of successionworking royalPrince Charlesroyal press relations
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