AWARDED NEW SENIOR MILITARY ROLE THE PRINCESS ROYAL EXPRESSES HER LOYALTY TO BIG BROTHER CHARLES IN A T.V. INTERVIEW AHEAD OF CORONATION
REPORT: LAURA BENJAMIN
T he Princess Royal has been appointed to a new role, it was confirmed by Buckingham Palace last week. Princess Anne has been made the Senior Colonel of the Household Division by the King; a role she was given by her brother when he became Colonel-in-Chief of the Household Division’s regiments after the Queen died.
The news was revealed after Anne visited Wellington Barracks in central London last Wednesday, when she chatted to officers and senior non-commissioned officers of the division who were due to take part in the coronation, escorting the King to and from Westminster Abbey during the processions.
She also thanked members of the military who had worked through the night to carry out a full rehearsal in the streets of London ahead of Saturday’s ceremony.
News of Anne’s appointment came a day after she gave her full support to her brother’s reign. Speaking in a rare interview about what type of King Charles will be, Anne said: “You know what you’re getting, because he’s been practising for a bit, and I don’t think he’ll change. He is committed to his own level of service. That will remain true.”
ENSURING CONTINUITY
Speaking to Canadian TV channel CBC News’s chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault last week, Princess Anne – the only senior royal to give an interview in the run-up to the coronation – said the family will support the new monarch just as they did when the Queen was alive.
Saying the sovereign was “key”, she added: “We see ourselves as there to support that role. What we do, we hope, contributes to the monarchy in the way it can convey continuity – of not just interest, but of service, of understanding, of the way that people in communities want to live their lives.
“So often we get the chance to see communities and people who do things really well and are very generous with their time in a way that, if you look at the media, you tend not to get that impression,” she said.
Anne was also asked if she thought a “slimmed-down” monarchy – a concept that Charles favours – was a good idea. “Well, I think the ‘slimmed-down’ [remark] was made in a day when there were a few more people around to make that seem like a justifiable comment,” she said. When it was put to her that the world can change, she replied: “It changes a bit. I mean, it doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing, I have to say. I’m not quite sure what else we can do.”
Anne
