The royal marriage breakdown behind Princess Anne’s 1988 Australian tour

As Princess Anne departed Australian shores after yet another visit to the Royal Easter Show, veteran royal watchers may recall an earlier tour by the Princess Royal in much less happier times.

I certainly do. Covering the Princess’s much heralded trip to open the Show in Australia’s celebrated bicentennial year turned out to be less about a royal tour and more about the classic signs of a marriage breakdown.

It was 1988 and the princess had been married to Captain Mark Phillips for 15 years and, despite rumours and newspaper stories even then about their so-called ‘loveless’ union, the couple was expected to present a united front on tour. 

Viewers of the TV show The Crown will have seen in Season 4 how Anne becomes increasingly unhappy with Phillips, but what really happened between the two is not explained.

At the Royal Easter Show 34 years ago, however, the ructions in the princess’s marriage to Phillips – they would separate the following year – were plain to see. 

And despite the smile plastered all over Mark Phillips’ face even as he must have been wincing inside trailing behind his determined wife, her body language was unmistakable.

Princess Anne on her Royal Easter Show tour this week, 34 years after she unhappily touched down in Australia to open the show with first husband Mark Phillips hobbling behind

Princess Anne and Mark Phillips were married in 1973 (above) but the romance fizzled out and they spent less and less time together before officially separating in 1989

The couple had touched down without much fanfare aboard an ordinary Qantas flight.

It was a short trip with the principal purpose of Princess Anne officially opening the Royal Easter Show during the celebration of Australia’s 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet.

The royal pair was scheduled to spend half the week at the Show, meet the people, and inspect produce, livestock and exhibition halls.

Princess Anne had married Mark Phillips, a second lieutenant in the 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards in 1973, and had two children with him, Peter in 1977 and Zara in 1981.

His nickname in the royal family was ‘Fog’, allegedly and unflatteringly bestowed upon him by his brother-in-law Prince Charles because he was ‘wet and thick’.

The pair had bonded over horses and later in the same year, at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the Captain’s horse would withdraw because of a pulled muscle.

But when they arrived in Sydney it was his own injury which would hamper his efforts to keep up, and even before they touched down in late March 1988, it was no secret that their marriage was in trouble.

Princess Anne boards a private jet on Monday for Papua New Guinea where she is headed after touring Australia and visiting the Royal Easter Show to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Princess Anne went on to marry second husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence (above the couple together) just months after her divorce from Captain Phillips

Princess Anne with her husband Captain Mark Phillips and her bodyguard Peter Cross (centre) who oversaw security for the princess from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

On a sunny Autumn day day, the royal couple pulled up in a white limousine at the Sydney Showgrounds, then at Moore Park in Sydney’s inner suburbs.

Princess Anne, slim and straight-backed in a beige suit, stepped from the vehicle without so much as a backward glance at her husband.

With a no nonsense demeanour, she strode determinedly past a horde of media towards the eager Show crowd.

The tall dark-haired man who emerged from the car behind her was largely unnoticed by the public straining for a glimpse of the princess, but for those of us covering the tour for the press he would increasingly become the focus. 

Captain Phillips was leaning on a pair of crutches, the sort that circle the arms below the elbows and looked uncomfortable.

The princess moved forward, he hobbled in her wake, at first just seconds behind, but eventually stretching to minutes and even more minutes.

And so it would continue for several hours, the princess advancing to shake hands, engaging in a brief conversation and then moving on.

Sometimes struggling on the showground roads with his rubber stoppered metal crutches, he was unable to keep up and the distance between the princess and her captain became longer.

It seemed like no sooner had he had made it belatedly to the scheduled stop, the princess was done with chatting to a stallholder or inspecting the item of interest and eager to take off. 

Although no-one really wanted to chat with the captain, on one occasion he garnered some sympathy from a showgoer who asked him if he’d fallen off a horse.

After all it was the common ground on which he and the Princess had formed their relationship, as members of the British Olympic Equestrian team. 

Captain Phillips confirmed that he had, and torn his Achilles tendon in the process, rendering him unable to ride and, he didn’t mention, unfit for royal touring. 

Captain Mark Phillips (above with his and Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Phillips) married an Olympic rider after his divorce from the princess, but that marriage ended in 2012

The Queen’s only daughter Princess Anne (above with her mother ) was allowed to divroce Mark Phillips in 1993 and went on to have a happy second marriage with Commander Tim Laurence

The princess marched on, with her Royal Agricultural Society chaperones, inspecting a Save The Children Fund mobile van, and accepting a bunch of flowers from a young girl in a wheelchair.

 She met the massive Tasmanian woodchopping champion, the 146kg David Foster, in the woodchop arena.

She spoke with farmers, with breeders of prize cattle. The troupe of media in her wake strained to hear what was said, even though Federal Police officers had instructed us to ‘stay 15 metres behind’.

The only person who complied was Mark Phillips, out of breath, and eventually out of sight, possibly with someone to aid him or at least show him the way back to the royal car. 

For three days, the Princess with her husband in pursuit tramped and limped around, mercifully for him on the Show’s opening day being able to circle the main arena in a horse drawn carriage. 

Princess Anne has become a hit with younger viewers of The Crown who appreciate her blunt charm and forthright independence, as portrayed by actor Claudia Harrison (above)

When it came to inspecting the two lines of soldiers and 22 mounted police officers, it seems the princess did the job.

And on two mornings of their stay in Sydney, as if to draw another line between them, Princess Anne requested and was graciously received in the dark before dawn to ride trackwork at champion trainer Bart Cummings’ Laelani Lodge stables.

As Mark Phillips looked on, the princess rode three different horses and laughed and joked with the stable jockey and track rider, with Cummings later remarking that ‘I’m sure she would have ridden ten more horses if I’d had them here’.

The tour ended, the royal couple returned to Britain and two months later, the story broke.

The couple barely saw each other any more, they were leading ‘separate lives’ and had an ’empty marriage’. 

Princess Anne (above with the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles) separated from Mark Phillips the year after they toured Australia together, divorcing him in 1993

 Buckingham Palace made no comment on the stories, but in 1989 Princess Anne and Mark Phillips officially separated. 

They divorced in 1993, and just a few months later Anne married her second husband Tim Laurence. 

Mark Phillips would remarry too, to American Olympian dressage rider, Sandy Pflueger, and have a daughter, Stephanie.

That marriage would end in 2012, and he moved on with Lauren Hough, a US champion dressage rider 28 years his junior. 

Princess Anne inspects members of Australia’s Federation Guard on the 2022 Royal Easter Show visit on behalf of the Queen to celebrate the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee

Princess Anne was never a popular royal, but she has become a hit with younger viewers of The Crown who appreciate her blunt charm and forthright independence, as portrayed by actor Claudia Harrison.

 Princess Anne is now the patron and president of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth, taking over the presidency from her father Prince Philip who held the position for 50 years. 

Princess Anne and her husband, who is now known as Vice Admiral  Sir Tim Laurence, spent three days touring Australia on behalf of the Queen to honour the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee, and is currently in Papua New Guinea.