Princess Anne was prepared to 'take risks' with romance says expert

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Anne, often regarded as the hardest-working member of the Royal Family, is also known for her sharp wit and steely determination. Her ability to persevere despite being in the media spotlight and on the royal frontline has been widely commended. Even when faced with a violent, armed kidnapping attempt in the Seventies, she remained calm and refused to go with the gunman.

Anne has shown this resolute attitude throughout her time as a working royal — and has even hit back at safety recommendations from the Government in the past.

Writing in his book, ‘Princess Anne: A biography’, Nicholas Courtney claimed Anne was on tour when she received an “urgent communique” from the Foreign Office.

He claimed: “Princess Anne received an urgent communique from the Foreign Office to say that it was unsafe for her to go on to Somalia as the sporadic border war with Ethiopia had flared up again.”

But, the then Foreign Secretary Francis Pym allegedly “had not bargained for Princess Anne’s tenacity”.

She is reported as saying: “Damn them. I’m going.”

She went on to see the Boroma refugee camp where she saw 40,000 refugees of war, and spoke to many Fund workers — a visit she later described as a “highlight” of her 1982 tour.

Anne is not the only royal to have been frustrated by the restrictions imposed on them by the Government when out of the country.

Her nephew Prince Harry had to cut his first military tour in Afghanistan short in 2008, after a publication leaked his location.

He was the first member of the Royal Family to be deployed on active duty since 1982.

There was supposed to be a media blackout on the astounding news but when Harry’s secret location got out, there was an immediate risk to his — and his squadron’s — safety.

The Government hastily evacuated the prince, but Harry voiced his frustration at the sudden turn of events many years later.

In 2016, he told the Andrew Marr show: “I was feeling very down.

“I was an officer, I’d been training for three years. Training with a select group of guys — we were a tight-knit team.”

He added: “To be taken away from your team not knowing what is going to happen to them and whether you may be indirectly responsible was a huge thing that I had to swallow.”

Harry even had to fight to be deployed to the frontline in the first place, as officials initially thought it would be too dangerous for the then-third-in-line to the throne to be in an active warzone.

General Richard Dannatt later revealed how Harry had fought back.

He said: “I think he came up with the famous line: ‘I haven’t dragged my sorry *** through Sandhurst for a year not to be allowed to go on operations.’”

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In the end, Harry undertook two tours of Afghanistan and served in the Army for a decade.

The questions surrounding the Royal Family’s security have been revived once again over the last year.

Harry and his wife Meghan Markle were stripped of their taxpayer-funded protection last March after choosing to “step back” from the royal frontline.

By the time they moved to California, in the US, they had set up their own private security arrangements.

Prince Charles was alleged to have been supporting the couple with their security bill at first, although Harry told US talk show host Oprah Winfrey that he was financially “cut off” from his family in the first quarter of 2020.

Harry also claimed that the removal of their security was unexpected, especially as the Palace supposedly confirmed the “risk and threat hasn’t changed” but due to “our change of status”, protection could not be provided.

He said: “I never thought that I would have my security removed, because I was born into this position.

“I inherited the risk. So that was a shock to me. That was what completely changed the whole plan.”

He said he ended up having to pursue commercial deals with Netflix and Spotify primarily so the couple could pay for their own security.

‘Princess Anne: A biography’ by Nicholas Courtney was published in 1986 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is available here.

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