Princess Anne 'wanted to' take Prince Harry under her wing, royal biographer says
By Karishma Sarkari|
Princess Anne managed to escape the trappings of being the spare after younger brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward were born, pushing her down the line of succession.
However, royal biographer Ingrid Seward tells 9honey she's the best example of a spare any of the royals could model themselves on.
Seward says the Princess Royal took Prince Edward under her wing as he grew up, moulding him into the Duke of Edinburgh we know today.
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Anne had "wanted to" do the same with a young Prince Harry, the My Mother and I author claims.
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"Princess Anne saw Harry as a little boy riding and she thought 'My goodness he has a supreme talent'," Seward says
"It's a shame because Princess Anne took Edward under her wing and Prince Edward used to go to spend every holiday, when he wasn't in Scotland with his mum, with Anne at Gatcombe.
"He and [Princess Margaret's daughter] Sarah Chatto, and they rode and they made hay and they lived the sort of life of farm kids.
"I think it's a shame that Harry hadn't had someone like that to do that for him."
Princess Anne's devotion to duty has long been applauded, with the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip regularly topping the list of the hardest-working royal, taking on more official engagements each year than any of the others.?
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It's this dedication that earned her the title of King Charles' Gold-Stick-in-Waiting for his coronation - a ceremonial role ?symbolising the monarch's most trusted protection officer - becoming the first woman to take on the role.
"I think that Anne just ploughed her own furrow - sorry, it's an awful old clichจฆ but she really did," Seward tells 9honey.
"I mean, she was a very tricky sort of teenager and a very, very boisterous, tricky little girl.
"Gorgeous looking with all those sort of wild curls, but I think she was her father, she was a sort of mini-Philip.
"I think it was really her work with Save the Children that people started to begin to fully appreciate what she did.
"She is absolutely straight จC what you see is what you get, and I think that she and Charles over the years have had their differences but I think in their older age, they really bond with each other."
Seward notes the world got a glimpse of that in the behind-the-scenes BBC documentary Charles III: The Coronation Year.?
"She sees the funny side of life with Charles and of course she sees what Camilla has done for him," the royal biographer adds.?
My Mother and I is out in Australia now.
