“PLEASE AUNT, FORGIVE ME” :Princess Anne’s Good-Natured ‘Annoyance’ at William’s Teasing
This Reportedly “Annoys” Princess Anne About Prince William
Princess Anne turns 75 years old on August 15, and to celebrate that, a sweeping new profile has been written about the Princess Royal—including what “annoys her” about her nephew, Prince William.
If the public knows anything about Anne, it’s likely that she’s the no holds barred hardest working royal—when it comes to yearly engagements, Anne’s number typically trumps anyone else in the royal family. Take last year, for example—even after a June hospitalization following a horse-related incident at her Gatcombe Park home, Anne still managed to have the most royal engagements, clocking 474 last year. In second place? Her older brother King Charles, who amassed 372 (and, it should be noted, even after he was diagnosed with cancer early in 2024 and whose treatment continues still today).
Anne is of the old school mentality of royal life—duty before everything, and work should be tireless and relentless (qualities she no doubt learned from two other hardworking royals, her parents Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip). According to a wide-ranging profile on the Princess Royal in The Times, Anne would like future king Prince William “to do more bread-and-butter engagements,” and that “it annoys her” that the Prince of Wales doesn’t do more investitures—you know, the formal ceremonies, often at Windsor Castle, where recipients of royal honors are given medals.
Investitures can only be carried out by the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal; there are roughly 30 per year, according to the royal family’s website. As Tatler put it, “an imbalance has emerged and insiders have suggested there is a growing sense of frustration.” It seems to especially get under Anne’s skin that Windsor Castle is so close to William’s home, Adelaide Cottage, which is on the Windsor estate.
“She’s still doing most of the investitures [at Windsor] even though William lives there,” a source close to Anne told The Times. “It annoys her.”
Now, let’s not get carried away—Anne loves her nephew, and she him. There is no rift (trust us, there’s already plenty of family feuding elsewhere). “Anne is known to be fond of her nephew and is keen to support him as future king, and William is said to deeply admire his aunt’s unwavering devotion,” Tatler reported. “But perhaps, the princess is keen for some assistance as she nears her eight[h] decade.”
In typical Anne fashion, she asked for no fanfare to be made about her upcoming 75th birthday: “She told us she would do things for birthdays that had ‘zeroes, but not for the fives,’” an aide told The Times. That said, there does seem to be one commemoration the Princess Royal has agreed to—the release of the first Royal Mint coin in her honor, which reads, simply, “The Princess Royal. Celebrating 75 years. Duty and devotion.”
That, in two words, is Anne in a nutshell. Even though she doesn’t want a public celebration, Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence will reportedly go with tradition and spend about 10 days sailing around western Scotland before meeting up with King Charles and other members of the royal family at Balmoral Castle, where the royal family typically spends their time in the late summer.
The annual trip “speaks to their relationship,” a friend told The Times of the couple’s yearly getaway. “They go every May and August and have done it for years. How many couples could go out to sea that often, just the two of them, and still be speaking to each other? She loves it.”
