Princess Anne—who completed 387 public engagements last year, the most of any working royal—once wryly asked an associate after a 17-hour-day, “What! You’re not getting tired, surely?”
by Kitty Kelley, Anne’s father expected nothing less. “God help that cretin,” Prince Philip reportedly said. “If he had succeeded in abducting Anne, she would have given him a hell of a time while in captivity.”
This mature sense of ownership and responsibility sets her apart from many in her family—when compared, for example, with her brother Prince Andrew’s refusal to admit wrongdoing in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Inshe recounts her excitement at being part of the 1976 Olympic British Equestrian Team but comments cheekily on its dismal performance—which included Anne falling off her horse and suffering a concussion. “The lights were on but there was no one at home,” she writes.