The Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English has written the following analysis on Princess Anne’s role in the Royal Family and why today’s announcement will come as a shock
She will, it is hoped, only be out of action only for a week or so.
But knowing Princess Anne it will be a week too long.
Three years ago I was invited to follow the King’s sister on a day of engagements to mark her 70th birthday and saw her legendary work ethic first hand.
Business-like to the point of brusqueness, rarely have I also ever seen a member of the royal family so well-briefed on her subject matter.
On that day her programme ranged from meeting emergency service personnel to visiting a company specialising in global water treatment projects and even spending time at a veterinary school where she watched, transfixed, as students proceeded to saw a horse’s head off. Needless to say, she didn’t blink an eye.
Anne, 73, is regularly named the hardest working member of the Royal Family in the annual polls each year, conducting 400-500 plus engagements each year.
She has also picked up the slack following her brother’s cancer diagnosis, regularly standing in for him at public investitures in the early stages of his illness and treatment.
The princess also rarely takes a day off sick – in fact such a prospect is virtually unheard of, according to her staff.
Which is why today’s news has come as such an utter shock.
Much like Queen Elizabeth, we just take for granted that the Princess Royal is here, still doing what she does so well with so little fuss or fanfare.
How bereft we feel when, suddenly, she is not.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about what happened, almost certainly in part down to the concussion the princess suffered as a result of the incident.
It is not even known whether she was with anyone at the time, or was able to call for help herself – although it is understood that Buckingham Palace have a ‘working hypothesis’ of what happened.
What we do know, however, is that she was walking on the guarded perimeter of her property when it occurred and that her injuries are consistent with being hit or kicked by a horse’s head or legs.
While emergency services were despatched to Gatcombe Park, her beloved Gloucestershire estate where her children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall both live with their families, a scrambled air ambulance was, thankfully, not needed.
However she was later taken to hospital in Bristol, accompanied by her husband Sir Tim Laurence, and the King, Queen, Prince of Wales and her other siblings quickly notified.
Fortunately she is comfortable and expected to make a full – and hopefully swift – recovery but is being kept in for observation at Southmead Hospital, an NHS facility 29 miles drive away from her home, which is entirely expected for a patient with concussion and head injuries.
No doubt this admirably no-nonsense character will balk at her enforced period of recuperation, particularly as her team will now be forced to cancel no less than eight UK public engagements this week plus a working trip to Canada, where she was due to fly on Thursday.
But the King, who made a point earlier today of making public his ‘fondest love and well-wishes’ for his sister, will understand.
He has always been closer to his sister than any of his other siblings and was heard to affectionately greet her after his coronation last year with an endearing: ‘Hello, Old Bean!’ and the broadest of smiles. They always have each other’s backs.
As one former staff member who worked closely with her for several years told me today: ‘She’ll hate it! But she’s an amazing woman and will quickly bounce back. No-one would ever dare to tell her to slow down when I was there and I doubt it will change even after this!’
