Princess Anne recently made a brief appearance at Brecon Cathedral, where she managed to transport onlookers back more than four decades. Her swift passage past fans on her way to a memorial service offered a fleeting reminder of the princess from years past—brusque, impassive, and not one for idle chatter like her nephew, Prince William.

Unbeknownst to the schoolchildren lining her path, Anne was en route to pay tribute to Dame Shân Legge-Bourke, her former lady-in-waiting. Her demeanor recalled the days when she was known for her flashes of impatience, particularly when pressed for time.

In a contrasting scene captured later in the week, Anne was seen at the Cheltenham Festival with Carole Middleton, the Princess of Wales’s mother. As Carole clutched Anne’s arm during a race, the princess’s face revealed a rare moment of warmth and amusement, showcasing a different side of her character.

These vignettes from Anne’s life illustrate her complex nature, which endears her to the public while also making her an enigma. Her steadfast support for her brother, King Charles, and her unwavering loyalty to the monarchy position her as one of the few who can challenge the King without being overlooked.

Princess Anne’s presence is vital to the royal family’s ability to maintain their extensive schedule of public duties. Without her, it is hard to envision the monarchy’s engagements proceeding with the same vigor and scale.

Without the ever-present Anne, it is difficult to imagine the royals continuing their public engagements on anything like the current scale.

Princess Anne and Prince William earlier this week. For a moment she offered a glimpse of the Anne of old – brusque, impassive, with a reluctance to stop and chat

Until last Christmas at least, Anne was still holding a sympathetic and tolerant line towards Andrew, says Richard Kay. But her attitude has hardened with the release of the Epstein files

When both Charles and Kate were being treated for cancer, she almost single-handedly kept the show on the road, and when she herself was injured in the summer of 2024 after suffering a suspected blow to the head from a horse, her three-week absence while recuperating revealed just how threadbare Windsor family resources are.

At the same time, it is hard to picture the princess issuing a statement as Charles did on the day that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested last month, in which he failed to refer to the former prince as a ‘brother’.

Indeed, when it comes to relations with her middle brother, I have learned that her approach has been notably independent-minded.

It is why many have been wondering how Anne views the crisis surrounding Andrew.

She is famously inscrutable, but when she does intervene publicly it is always worth taking note. Three years ago, she offered a frank intervention on the King’s much-discussed plans for a ‘slimmed down’ monarchy. ‘It doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing,’ she observed. On an earlier occasion she offered another sisterly rebuke when Charles complained through his authorised biographer about his childhood lack of parental affection. Her recollection of their early years, she said, was of warmth, love and attention from her father and mother. Unlike her brother she understood that the Queen was both her monarch and her mother.

Until last Christmas at least, Anne was still holding a sympathetic and tolerant line towards Andrew – she apparently made a point of telephoning Royal Lodge, where he was still holed up, on Christmas Day when the rest of the family were at Sandringham.

But she has also been angry with him for his links to Jeffrey Epstein and the shadow they have cast over the royals, and has questioned him about them. The former prince’s love of money and unchecked libido were as well-known inside the family as they were outside it.

She raised the idea of Andrew moving to her Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire as a bolthole when the calls for him to be evicted from Royal Lodge grew shrill. This was not just an act of Christian charity but a willingness to surround him with family love – and totally in character.

After divorcing her first husband, equestrian Captain Mark Phillips, she allowed Philips to settle in a farmhouse at Gatcombe so he could be close to their children, Peter and Zara.

She also believed Andrew’s protestations of innocence at some of the more lurid allegations. But her attitude is said to have hardened with the release of the Epstein files.

After the emergence of compromising photographs and damaging claims about him allegedly passing confidential government information to Epstein and others in his circle – potentially enriching them – Anne recognised it had become harder to defend Andrew.

As a result, say insiders, she came to share the family view that unless Andrew was distanced, the risk of reputational damage to the institution would be considerable.

Carole Middleton, the Princess of Wales’s mother, clutched Anne’s arm during a race at the Cheltenham Festival. On the princess’s face, a look of congenial and contented amusement

For all her blunt-speaking style, Anne does firmly believe in family, dynasty and tradition. Which is why, I am told, she at first found it difficult to fathom that the son, brother, and uncle of monarchs could no longer be an actual royal.

Andrew’s argument that the King’s decision to strip him of his titles was a public declaration of his guilt, even though he denies doing anything wrong, originally found some support among the family, including Anne. She now shares the family view that the King has done the right thing in banishing Andrew – but she still is reluctant to see him excluded from private family gatherings.

Shaken by his arrest, I understand she has continued to be in contact with him. Despite that familiar gruff and just-get-on-with-it approach she inherited from Prince Philip, Anne has been concerned about Andrew’s mental welfare as his world has imploded.

Intriguingly, this has been encouraged by her son in law, former rugby player Mike Tindall, who may have more real-world experience than any other royal.

Like her late father she does not suffer fools gladly, dislikes limp handshakes and fawning obsequiousness. And in the manner of her late mother she feels no need for constant conversation.

As Lord (Sebastian) Coe, president of the British Olympic Association, and who knows her well, has observed: ‘She has a quality I value highly, companionable silence.’

It is these unmistakable characteristics which have made Anne such a formidable and respected figure. She is authentic, from the swept-up, unchanging hairdo to her thrift and the clothes she recycles.

But for all the comparisons that are made of her with Philip, it is the influence of Queen Elizabeth which is most striking – the uncomplaining approach to public duty and an ability to remain interested on the most tedious of engagements.

However, she strongly believes that although the royals are public figures – and indeed public servants – they are also private people. Any sharing of intimate family matters is frowned on. It’s why she loathed Princess Diana for going public about her marriage to Charles – and why she never had any time for Sarah Ferguson, Andrew’s ex-wife, who did more than any to monetise royal confession.

Nothing, though, was guaranteed to annoy her more than when she was questioned about her different style to her baby-cuddling former sister-in-law, Diana.

She once snapped in an interview that she had been on the charity scene years before the princess. It was a rare crack in her normally polished royal exterior.

C harity work is the contemporary raison d’etre of the Royal Family and in any objective assessment the Princess Royal was more productive than Diana – or any other royal for that matter.

She can come across as imperious and aloof but, as she has aged, that haughtiness is increasingly seen as a strength. Apart from her views on horses – and occasionally on motherhood – we know little of her private passions and thoughts.

Even questions about her own accident she typically brushed off as simply not important. When asked if it might mean slowing down, Anne, now 75, dismissed the idea as ‘not an option’.

This is not just modesty but part of her make-up. In this way she is very much her mother’s daughter and is the only contemporary royal to embody those stoical and noble traditions we remember so fondly from the late Queen and Philip. Anne would rather not be a lone outlier in this regard and dislikes the way the family has moved away from Queen Elizabeth’s approach.

For example, she likes Kate very much but she is not entirely comfortable with the way Catherine and William have opened their hearts at times of personal difficulty.

It is also the case that for someone who has often presented herself publicly as unbending, Anne can also be surprisingly vulnerable.

In a rare moment of candour, she once admitted she didn’t much like children, remarkable for someone who has been the hardworking president of the charity Save the Children since 1970.

As the Andrew case has rumbled on, she has felt no need to speak out about sex abuse victims, as Charles and Queen Camilla have done. But then she has always been an enigma who in public maintains an old-world sense of royalty.

It is why when Anne is out and about, one can never quite be sure which princess will turn up.