There will be no official reception for the 70th birthday Anne of England due to the Covid emergency. And, to swear it, she must have breathed a sigh of relief: Anna hates fuss. Her Royal Highness Princess Anne of England, second son and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth, will spend her birthday, according to sources close to Buckingham Palace, sailing along the west coast of Scotland with her husband, Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence. Waxed jacket, wind, cold, nature and no hassles around. She couldn’t wish for a better celebration, Anna the gruff (she has always had a reputation for bad temper among the Buckingham Palace staff). She would have gladly accepted a reception with the charities she sponsored, but that “work” and she was a super active woman with a great sense of duty, like her mother, after all: she supports and chairs about 300 organizations (including Save The Children). It attends, between charity and various military ceremonies, more than 500 events a year (sometimes even three, four a day). Anna will probably see her mother, in Windsor, for a small lunch at which distancing measures will be respected. A private event.
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Two marriages, one scandal, one divorce
Anna, we can say it, the only senior member of the royal family to have always managed to do what she wanted, starting from the love life: as a girl she was very skilled at managing his adventures by wandering photographers. Then she got engaged and married, within a year, to a non-aristocrat (we are in 1973, it was not obvious), Mark Phillips who loved to ride above everything, like her. They had two children, Peter and Zara but the mutual infidelities started quite early: he had a secret daughter, she had an affair with one of the bodyguards. In 1987 they announced the will to separate. Some love letters from Anna to Royal Navy commander Timothy Laurence are stolen and published by the tabloids while she is still married to Phillips. The newspapers speak of a “royal scandal”. However, Anna manages to turn the situation to her advantage: she announces that she wants to marry Timothy, divorces Phillips in 1992 (Elizabeth’s annus horribilis) and within a few months remarries: private marriage, and in church, but in Scotland , because there the church, unlike the Anglican one, welcomes the divorced. No one else in the family could have done it. But she Anna is tough. Who went on his own way even when his mother, father and grandmother, especially the grandmother, turned up their noses. In the end, time proved her right.
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There are only drawbacks to having titles
Anna’s wisest decision? Having asked for and obtained that the two sons (Zara and Peter) had no real title freeing them (and God knows if he did well, given the scandals of uncles and cousins) from the public duties of the members of the royal family and allowing them to live as private citizens. Unlike their cousins Eugenia and Beatrice, the daughters of Prince Andrew, who are “princesses”. But Anna had understood, on her skin, that more than privileges, these titles are cages. It was the right thing to do. There are only disadvantages to having titles, he candidly admitted during a recent interview with Vanity Fair Uk.
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The flirtation with Camilla’s ex
Perhaps the third season of the TV series The Crown he exaggerates in portraying the young Anna as a man-eater, but he does not exaggerate in portraying a certain cynicism and the ability to “circumvent” the prohibitions without ever going openly against the family. For example, when, while still a minor, you start a relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, an aspiring officer in the British army, just as his brother Charles was starting a relationship with his ex, Camilla Shand, the current Duchess of Cornwall. Anna had seen it right: that Camilla was right for Carlo. But we know that things turned out differently. Carlo was forced to leave Camilla, Camilla re-engaged (and then married) to Parker Bowles and Anna … Anna was mainly interested in horses. If she doesn’t kick and eat fodder, Anna doesn’t care, her father, the Duke of Edinburgh Philip, once joked. It is also said that when the marriage with Mark Phillips went into crisis Anna had started dating that love of youth, Parker Bowles, just as his wife had resumed dating Carlo. If true, Anna managed to be more discreet (and cunning) than her older brother.
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Horses, uniforms and recycled clothes
Horses are Anna’s great love, a passion she shares with her mother. But Anna is more interested in riding competitions than horse racing. Discipline in which he achieved great results: he won two silver medals (1975) and one gold (1971) at the European Eventing Championships and was the first member of the British royal family to take part in the Olympics, in 1976. Since 1988 he has been a member of the International Olympic Committee. She often wears the army uniform because she has reached the rank of colonel and during the ceremonies she is often seen in uniform on horseback. When I appear in public, people expect me to whinny, he once said. Not surprisingly, one of the gifts that she happily granted herself for her 70th birthday is that of having signed the August issue of Country Life, British magazine entirely dedicated to country life (with style). And the posed photos of Her Royal Highness Princess Anne are next to horses and pigs (yes, pigs). Fashion is the last of Anna’s interests: she prefers sporty and casual clothing to formal wear, wearing only clothes made by British artisan tailors (she loves tweed), always the same for years, which she regularly re-pulls out of her vintage wardrobe and that, when necessary, he has readjusted: he has been the same size since he was 20 years old. In its genre, however, more stylish than Kate and Meghan. the director of Vogue Uk, Edward Enninful, himself, to confirm it: She has a truly timeless style and wears a tailored suit better than anyone else.
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No way!
There is an episode in Anna’s life that says a lot about her tenacity. On March 20, 1974, while the king and queen were traveling to Indonesia, the princess and her then husband Mark fthey were victims of an attempted kidnapping. A somewhat clumsy attempt, but that could have ended very badly as the kidnapper in question, Jan Ball, a psychiatric patient, was armed: he had planned the attack in detail and his aim was to demand a ransom of 3 million pounds from the queen to be donated to the public service for the treatment of psychiatric diseases. Ball in his car blocked the couple’s Rolls-Royce on its way back to Buckingham Palace. He fired six shots at the bodyguard, who took three bullets to shield the princess, and then at the driver. Then he opened the back door and ordered 23-year-old Anna out. She firmly replied: Not bloody likely (I don’t think about it) and he didn’t move. The reaction made it difficult for Ball to start pulling her out by force as her husband held her on the other side. Until a brave passerby, a former boxer, punched Ball and then the police intervened.
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Straightforward, bizarre, unpleasant
Ok, it doesn’t matter even if you don’t see my face, you already know it. This little curtain with her mother is enough to define the character of the princess Anne of England and understand the relationship between her and Elizabeth II. Practical sense, humor (like his mother), a good dose of sarcasm (much more than his mother). In that circumstance Anna was talking to the queen via Zoom during the lockdown and was verifying that she saw the faces of the people involved in the ongoing call.
From her father, on the other hand, Anna got a sharp tongue and a certain impulsiveness.
He really realized that his life wouldn’t always be “showcased” at 19, during a trip to New Zealand: the staff had decided to modernize these official trips by introducing moments in which the royals entertain themselves with the crowd: Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the road she told me, They told me I had to choose someone at random and talk to them. Easy? Not at all, it was a real challenge. Impulsive: her driving license has been suspended for speeding more than once. Schietta: in the interview with Vanity Fair Uk , when asked about the young people of the Royal Family and their desire to renew the monarchy, replies: Do they want to re-invent the wheel? Bizarre: has an inordinate passion for lighthouses on the coast. Among the 300 organizations it deals with, there is also that of the Royal Navy which is responsible for monitoring these suggestive coastal constructions. Unpleasant: the relationship with the press was bad in the 80s and she did not want journalists behind the events, but from her second marriage onwards, the waters calmed down.
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The best of all
The Telegraph he called it the best of all: tenacious, practical, hardworking, diligent and reserved. Indeed, the most valuable piece of the whole “Firm”, “the firm” as the father of Elizabeth II defined the royal family. His “old fashioned” approach is the most requested. Indeed, since his brother Andrea has had to take a step back overwhelmed by a nasty sex scandal (one of the abused victims of the American billionaire Epstein brings it up) and since Herry and Meghan have “resigned” from their royal duties, Anna’s commitments have increased. Not to mention those inherited from his father, who “retired” in 2017. At the age of 70, most people start rowing in boats. But not her. Thus the princess who never had the reputation of being “nice” has become in recent years one of the most respected royal seniors by the British. only 14th in the line of succession to the throne, but on closer inspection those who come before her, her charisma and style would perhaps be the most suitable to fill the huge void that, one day, Elizabeth will leave. And Carlo, if he becomes king, will never be able to ignore the angular sister who has become the pillar of the Firm.
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14 August 2020 (change August 14, 2020 | 20:20)
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