She didn’t want any fuss. She never does.
Today, for her 75th, Princess Anne will mark the moment in her own understated way: quietly boarding a boat with her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, to sail into the wind off Scotland’s west coast. No parade. No speeches. No tiaras glinting in the sun. Just Anne, Our Princess Royal, perhaps the greatest Queen we never had.
She is still the monarchy’s engine. While others are coiffed, curated and choreographed, Anne just turns up unfazed, never overstated.
What you see is what you get: funny, unpretentious, sharper than a tack, and, like her father, a brilliant off-the-cuff speaker who can drop a witty line without notes and leave a room roaring.
Her humour is legendary. Mistakenly introduced once as “the Prince of Wales,” she looked down and said: “There’s a worry… I am wearing trousers today.”
At Sandringham one Christmas, she reportedly gave Charles a leather toilet seat, calling it “his personal throne.”
She reportedly gave Charles a leather toilet seat, calling it “his personal throne”
And famously in 1974, when gunman Ian Ball tried to drag her from her car on The Mall after shooting her protection officer Jim Beaton and chauffeur, Alexander Callender, she reportedly gave him the immortal words: “Not bloody likely.” More formally, she later recalled: “I said I didn’t think I wanted to go, thank you very much.”
Prince Philip’s verdict at the time was priceless: “If the man had succeeded in abducting Anne, she would have given him a hell of a time in captivity.”
In one of the long running BBC TV show, A Question of Sport’s most famous moments, ex Liverpool FC captain, Emlyn Hughes, squinting at a muddy jockey photo, confidently guessed “John Reid” – only for host David Coleman to reveal it was Princess Anne.
Two weeks later, for the show’s 200th edition, the Princess Royal joined Hughes’s team, disarming everyone with quick wit and good humour. She nailed equestrian answers, and took Hughes’s earlier blunder in stride, turning a case of mistaken identity into a masterclass in royal charm.
During the show, when she correctly named a horse in the Picture Board round, David Coleman pressed her for the rider’s name as well. Anne, smiling, replied, “you didn’t say you wanted both,” a dry, perfectly timed line that had the studio laughing and showed she
When The Crown’s actress Erin Doherty, who played her, said it took two hours to recreate her hairstyle, Anne scoffed: “How could you possibly take that long? It takes me 10 or 15 minutes.” She is still just as sharp.
Lat month at my London club the Naval & Military Club - the “In & Out” - where she has succeeded Prince Philip as President, at a private event she glanced at her newly unveiled portrait, lobbed one dry remark, and had everyone in the packed Coffee Room in stitches.
Philip had held the post as club President for decades until his death in 2021; Anne stepped up without ceremony, the first woman to hold the position.
In 2024, she racked up 474 engagements, more than any other royal
Her work ethic is unmatched. In 2024, she racked up 474 engagements, more than any other royal. Her credo is: “I’m here to work. I’m here to do good things. I’m here to meet as many people as possible,” she has said.
Academia was never the draw. Bright but restless, she left Benenden in 1968 with no interest in university. “I didn’t see the point.”
She undertook her first public engagement at the age of 18. Two years later, she became President of ‘Save the Children’ - a role she held until 2017 and now continues as Patron -visiting refugee camps and disaster zones from Bangladesh to Ethiopia, always with sleeves rolled up but never for show.
She is also a serious athlete: 1971 European Eventing Champion on the Queen’s horse Doublet, and Britain’s representative at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
In September 2022, she was with the Queen at the end, then accompanied her mother’s coffin from Balmoral to Edinburgh and on to London. Her statement, “I was fortunate to share the last 24 hours of my dearest Mother’s life” was the most personal of any royal. Days later, she became the first woman to take part in the Vigil of the Princes.
When Charles was crowned, she rode at the head of the procession as Gold Stick in Waiting, not for optics but because the King trusts her.
That trust was formalised in the Counsellors of State Act 2022, adding Anne and Edward to those authorised to act for the monarch.
Anne is direct, even when it jars. Before the Coronation, she warned in a television interview with Canadian network CBC that a “slimmed-down monarchy” didn’t “sound like a good idea,” noting her brother had “been practising for a bit” and wouldn’t change.
Anne is direct, even when it jars
Her stoicism was tested in June 2024 when a riding accident left her concussed with short-term memory loss. Friends say it was worse than the bulletins implied. Three weeks later, she was back on duty. In South Africa soon after: “You are sharply reminded that every day is a bonus really.”
Her relationship with Charles - close since childhood - has only deepened. They were each other’s confidant growing up and remain bound by mutual respect.
She has been equally unflinching with others: she and Diana never clicked; with Meghan, it is reported she advised treating royal life “as a job” rather than a route to fame.
Even her birthday celebrations are low key. A new portrait, taken by photographer Chris Jackson before July’s French state banquet at Windsor, shows a rare hair change and the Festoon Tiara, a 1973 gift from her mother.
The Royal Mint’s £5 coin reads: “The Princess Royal - Celebrating 75 Years - Duty and Devotion.”
Her “party” was a Buckingham Palace reception for more than 100 of her charities, thanking them and quipping: “We are very fortunate that His Majesty has allowed us to use Buckingham Palace for this event - and I need to say that - it does help.”
She has undoubtedly made a simply outstanding contribution to public life and sport for more than four decades
She has undoubtedly made a simply outstanding contribution to public life and sport for more than four decades. If she was in earshot of somebody calling her the “greatest queen, we never had” she would roll her eyes at that.
But it is fair to say that, but she embodies the monarchy’s unsentimental core: show up, do the work, want no applause. Asked once about retirement, she didn’t miss a beat: “I don’t think there’s a retirement programme in this particular life.”
No nonsense. No farewell. And ‘not bloody likely’ to stop any time soon.
Robert Jobson is Royal Editor at the London Standard
