ANNE The best queen we never had?

While others attract the headlines, the Princess Royal remains a class act

- KERRY PARNELL

Resplendent in her Household Cavalry ceremonial uniform, with its traditional black bicorn hat and red plume, the Princess Royal on horseback at the Trooping the Colour in June was once again the royal role model we have come to expect.

Anne rode behind her brother, King Charles, and alongside Prince William and Prince Edward at the King’s first birthday parade on 17 June and both belied her age of 72 and showed why royal insiders call her the King’s ‘rock’. It was the same image at his Coronation in May – while the new King and Queen travelled back from Westminster Abbey in the Gold State Coach, the Princess Royal rode behind, back upright with determination and loyalty.

Anne, who turns 73 on 15 August, has made determination and loyalty her motto through life, year after year ranking as the hardest-working royal as she takes on official duties that include everything from doing investitures to visiting a recycling and waste centre. She is involved with more than 300 charities, organisations and military regiments in the UK and overseas and last year attended 214 engagements, outstripping the King’s 181. ‘You are trying to cover the bits of the country most other people wouldn’t get to,’ she said, wryly, in the documentary Anne: The Princess Royal at 70.