Caledonian Stream

Despite being nearly a decade past the official retirement age, Anne shows no sign of slowing down yet. Last year, she once again topped the list as the hardest-working royal, clocking up 474 engagements. The King was in second place with 372.

Earlier this year she was asked if she was considering retirement. She replied: “It isn’t really an option”, a possible reference to the small number of working royals since the Duke of Sussex’s departure and the Duke of York’s demotion.

But the King’s straight-talking sister, who bears many of her father’s no-nonsense traits, is now thinking ahead. She plans to follow in Prince Philip’s dutiful footsteps and retire in her tenth decade. A source close to Anne said: “She has said her plan is to push on [with work] until she is 80, then start winding down a bit, and then copy the [late] Duke of Edinburgh and wind down completely at 90.” Philip retired from public life in 2017 aged 96, marking his final solo engagement at Buckingham Palace by taking the salute — in heavy rain — from the Royal Marines after 64 years as their captain general.

The source added: “The head of state has to go on but the princess is in a position where she can wind down and say, ‘I’ve done my bit’, just like the Duke of Edinburgh did. She would like to do it while she is still in reasonable health and she can enjoy some time at Gatcombe [Anne’s home in Gloucestershire]. A driving force is also Tim, [Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Anne’s husband], who is very supportive of her. One of his main concerns has always been that she doesn’t burn herself out.”

For more than seven decades, Anne has appeared almost unstoppable, but she was forced to press pause in June last year after being admitted to intensive care with concussion and head injuries. Doctors believed they were consistent with being struck by a horse.

Anne has said she does not “remember a single thing” about the incident at Gatcombe Park. In an interview with the Press Association during an official visit to South Africa in January, Anne conceded the accident had given her pause for thought: “It just reminds you, shows you — you never quite know, something [happens] and you might not recover.

“You’re jolly lucky … if you can continue to be more or less compos mentis and last summer I was very close to not being. Take each day as it comes, they say. You are sharply reminded that every day is a bonus really.” Last month, she was back riding on the parade at Trooping the Colour on Noble, the first time she had ridden in public since the incident. A source, who knows Anne well, says: “Her accident was so much worse than anyone let on and it took quite a while for her to feel herself again.”

She returned to work three weeks after the accident, sporting a black eye, prompting a rare personal message on X from the Prince and Princess of Wales, acknowledging her work ethic: “Super trooper! So great to see you back so soon. W&C x.” Prince William is known to admire his aunt’s devotion to duty and Anne is fond of her nephew and will support him as King in the future if she is still working when he accedes to the throne.

But several sources close to the princess note that she would like to see him do more of the “bread-and-butter” royal engagements. Only the King, Anne and William do investitures, many of which take place at Windsor Castle, near William’s Windsor home, Adelaide Cottage. A source close to Anne says: “She’s still doing most of the investitures [at Windsor] even though William lives there. It annoys her.”

Family remains important to Anne, who is close to her two children, Peter Phillips, 47, and Zara Tindall, 44, from her first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips, which ended in divorce in April 1992. She married Laurence, 70, in December that year. She has five grandchildren, Mia, 11, Lena, 7, and Lucas Tindall, 4, and Savannah and Isla Phillips, 14 and 13, and is often spotted larking about with them when Zara, a former Olympic equestrian like her mother, is competing.

Though their respective busy diaries limit the time they spend together, the bond between Charles, 76, and his sister, remains strong. On the rare occasions they do joint engagements, they are often photographed laughing together. Their bond was evident in a BBC documentary marking the coronation in 2023, when footage behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace showed Anne greet her brother with, “Hello, old bean,” to his delight.

The princess is also close to her younger brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, and when diaries permit, catches up with Edward, 61, and Sophie, 60, over dinner. There is said to be less of a bond with the Duke of York, 65, who stepped back from public life in 2019.

Anne has given nothing away publicly about her thoughts on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s departure from royal life in 2020, and the subsequent controversies. But when Prince Harry arrived solo at Balmoral to find Charles, Camilla and William had decamped to nearby Birkhall in the hours after Queen Elizabeth’s death, it was “Aunt Anne” who greeted her nephew with a hug and showed him to his grandmother’s bedroom where she lay at rest, so he could say a final goodbye.

With renewed speculation about a possible reconciliation between Harry and his father, some royal watchers have suggested Anne could have a role to play in peace-building. In his memoir, Spare, Harry revealed that after a physical fight with William, he called his therapist. At the time, a friend of the royal family told me that a session with Anne, the ultimate uncomplaining “spare”, would be time better spent.

“He really ought to talk to Princess Anne,” the friend said. “She often talked about how, as children, she was treated so differently from Charles. She was second to him and kicked further down the line of succession as a woman, but she forged her own path. In her twenties she was bolshy and upset about a lot of things, but she came through that. He should talk to her about her experiences. She is shrewd. She could tell him a lot about what she went through.”

Anne will spend her birthday doing what she does every August, sailing with her husband around western Scotland for about ten days with no staff on board, before joining the King at Balmoral. Being at sea with Laurence, say friends, is her “happy place”, and a testament to the strength of their marriage. “It speaks to their relationship,” a friend says. “They go every May and August and have done it for years. How many couples could go out to sea that often, just the two of them, and still be speaking to each other? She loves it.”

A former aide recalls diary planning meetings with the princess, who resisted attempts to create more space for downtime. “I’d look at the diary and suggest, ‘Ma’am, you really can’t do another weekend of engagements, it’s your third weekend in a row.’ ‘Why not?’ she would say. ‘Because I’ll get a rocket from your husband on Monday asking, ‘When are we going to spend some time together’.”

Aside from the commemorative coin issued last week, the only other concession Anne made to mark her birthday, was hosting more than 100 of her charities last month at a Buckingham Palace reception. In typically self-effacing style, the princess, who is patron of more than 400 organisations, such as Riding for the Disabled Association and Save the Children, told guests over tea in the ballroom: “I’m not here because this was my choice. You very kindly asked me to become patron of your organisations, so it’s an honour for me to have all of you here.”

A palace source at the event said: “This personifies what Her Royal Highness cares about. She didn’t want to do anything for her birthday but bring her charities together to hear more about their work and how she can help them.”

Over at the Royal Mint, Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coin, appeared to have missed the memo that Anne is allergic to public praise, issuing this gushing tribute to accompany the coin’s unveiling last week: “Her Royal Highness’s unwavering commitment to public service, charitable work, and support of His Majesty’s armed forces over seven and a half decades makes her truly deserving of this tribute. The graceful design … perfectly captures both her dignified presence and extraordinary legacy while also celebrating the Princess Royal’s 75th birthday.”