Princess Anne’s Influence, and Workload, Rises in a Slimmed-Down Royal Family

By Mark Landler 

Princess Anne's influence and workload in the slimmed-down royal family is on the rise

Appearing frequently at more than 400 events a year, Anne is likely to become even more important as a trusted advisor to her brother, the King.

LONDON — A day after walking behind the coffin of her mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in London, Princess Anne flew to Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday to meet city officials, receive condolences from Glaswegians and view wreaths left in the monarch's honor. who died last week.

It was the kind of serfdom that Anne, now 72, performed without complaint for decades. Anne, Elizabeth's only daughter and younger sister of King Charles III, is one of the hardest workers in the royal family, often logging more than 400 public events a year.

Thanks to the laws of primogeniture, he is 16th in the line of succession to the throne. However, this underestimates her influence within the royal family, where she is a trusted adviser to Charles, and her standing with the public, where she was rated higher than any of the surviving senior royals, apart from Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine. .

"Growing up, Anne appreciated that a monarchy could only survive if it could justify its existence," said Edward Owens, a historian who has written extensively about the royal family. “She always realized that the family could only enjoy the privileges of royal life if they worked hard.

Princess Anne was a trusted advisor to her older brother Prince Charles.

Princess Anne was a trusted adviser to her older brother Prince Charles.Credit...Central Press Photo Limited, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With Charles on the throne, royal experts said Anne's role is likely to become even more important. The new king will rely on his sister, who is known as the Princess Royal, to keep up with his busy schedule of public duties in the slimmed-down family. She is also likely to advise him on sensitive family matters, such as how to treat their younger brother, Prince Andrew, who has been in a sort of exile since disclosing his ties to convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Her mother's death gives Anne a new status as the senior female figure in the House of Windsor, although Charles' wife Camilla, the queen consort, predates her in the protocol and Princess Charlotte, Prince William's seven-year-old daughter, is the oldest female royal in line of succession.

Hers is a less dramatic tale of struggle and redemption than Charles's, not to mention Andrew's rise and fall. But it's a remarkable journey for a woman who has gone from a privileged youth in which she earned a reputation for haughtiness and a sharp tongue to a formidable career in charity work, most notably the Save the Children game she experienced. he was president from 1970 to 2017.

Along the way, she competed in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal as an equestrian; suffered a failed first marriage to Mark Phillips, also an Olympic equestrian; settled into a steady second with Timothy Laurence; and survived a kidnapping attempt in 1974, telling a gunman who ordered her out of a car to hold her for ransom: "That's not bloody likely!"

Even Anne's role in the days surrounding the Queen's death reinforced her reputation for hard work. She was on hand for her mother's final hours at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and then accompanied the coffin on the six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where the Queen lay in state. Anne rode in the car behind the hearse with Mr. Laurence, a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy whom she had met while serving on the royal yacht Britannia.

Princess Anne walking alongside King Charles III as the coffin of their mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was carried from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.

Princess Anne walking alongside King Charles III as the coffin of their mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was carried from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall. Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

On Wednesday, in the ceremonial procession of the Queen's coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, Anne walked in the front row on the King's left. She wore the ceremonial uniform of the Royal Navy with the rank of Palace Admiral, glittering with 10 medals, a garter star and a garter sash.

Andrew was to her left in a morning suit, reflecting his dismissal from official duties following the settlement of a sexual abuse case brought against him in the United States by Virginia Giuffre. Prince Harry, who walked in line behind him, also wore a dark suit, marking his status as a non-working royal as he and his American-born wife Meghan moved to Southern California in 2020.

The loss of Andrew and Harry as working royals has put a strain on those left behind, not least Anne, as hundreds of commitments a year must be shared among a smaller number of royals. That burden has been made even heavier with the death of the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, in 2021. Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a patron of dozens of charities, work that the King will have to transfer to other members of the royal family.

The King himself founded and oversees a major charity, the Prince's Trust, and is patron of hundreds of other charities. He recognized that he would not be able to continue this work as a monarch.

"It will no longer be possible for me to devote so much of my time and energy to the charities and causes that I care so deeply about," Charles said in a televised address last Friday. "But I know this important work will continue in the trusted hands of others."

Princess Anne in Glasgow on Thursday. She told the loving crowd that the floral tributes to her mother were "really and truly out of this world".

Princess Anne in Glasgow on Thursday. She told the loving crowd there that the floral tributes to her mother were “really and truly out of this world.” Credit...John Linton/Press Association, via Associated Press

Beyond her workload, royal experts say Anne has been a presence of common sense in the royal family. Apart from a brief period of turbulence when her marriage to Mr Phillips collapsed in 1989, she provided little money to the London tabloid press. She chose not to give her two children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, royal titles.