Princess Anne, as played by Erin Doherty, was the breakout hit of The Crown’s third season—a refreshingly no-nonsense royal who stomped around Buckingham Palace in riding boots; told off Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies); and appalled the queen with her frank conversation. But in The Crown’s fourth season, Anne finds competition for the favorite princess title in Diana (Emma Corrin).
“It’s not easy, working in the heat and the squalor of a third world country doing real work for real charities. But do I get as much as a mention in any newspaper?” Princess Anne laments, in the episode “Favourites.” “And yet all [Diana] has to do is put on a frock, and she’s all over all the front pages, and everyone’s falling over in shock at how wonderful she is.”
Anne complains that she is constantly compared to Diana in the press, given that they are the only two young female members of the royal family. “Lovely her, dumpy me,” Anne grumbles. “Smiling her, grumpy me. Charming her, awful me.”
In real life, however, the dynamic between the royal sisters-in-law was even more tense. Royal biographer Ingrid Seward has claimed, “Anne was indifferent to Diana from the very beginning. . .she called her ‘a silly girl.’”
The two women could not have been more different. Anne, who was 11 years older than Diana, is an avid outdoorswoman and workhorse un-interested in frou-frou or frivolity. Diana, meanwhile, was a fun-loving, fragile young woman who craved affection and a good time. Seward claimed that tensions between Anne and Diana “came to an early head at the end of Ascot week in June 1981, barely a month before Diana’s marriage.”
“Sensing Anne’s apathy towards her and wanting to ingratiate herself, [Diana] ventured up to the nursery in the Queen’s Tower where Anne was settling in with her son Peter, who was three, and her four-week-old daughter, Zara,” wrote Seward, recalling the Windsor encounter. “Diana, still only a Lady, gave the Princess the benefit of a full curtsey and declared: 'Ma’am, how wonderful to see you.’
“Anne is contemptuous of pretension at the best of times,” added Seward. “When she was struggling with two small children she had no time for it at all. She looked up at Diana—and looked straight through her. Diana, confronted by the searing force of Anne’s scorn, fled the room.”
More awkward encounters ensued, including a reportedly cringe-worthy present exchange at Christmas later that year. Diana, not realizing that the royals exchange gag gifts, presented Anne with a cashmere sweater—only to receive a toilet paper cover from her new sister-in-law.
Royal reporter Richard Kay confirmed that Anne “did not have time for Diana. . .She didn’t like the way she went about her duty and the way she used the cameras and the media to promote herself, in her eyes. . .Anne had a much more traditional approach to monarchy and royal duty.”
But Diana was not the only sister-in-law whom Anne reportedly resented. “She was extremely annoyed when Diana became center stage and then [Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife] became center stage for a while,” according to Daily Express royal photographer Steve Wood. He recalled that Anne thought both women—whom she dismissed as “those girls”—were “lessening the stature” of the royal family. “Too much tabloid for her.”
In turn, Diana began to actively avoid her sister-in-law, according to Kay. “I remember Diana saying ‘if Anne’s there I’m off,’” Kay said, “because Anne would usually say something rather cutting to her.”
In 1984, in Diana’s most notable snub of Anne, the late princess reportedly refused to invite Anne to be a godmother to Prince Harry. In turn, Anne elected to skip Harry’s christening—though the Palace’s official excuse for Anne’s absence was that she was hosting a shooting party at Gatcombe Park and could not leave her guests.
According to biographer James Whitaker, the palace statement “fooled no one.” He continued, “There was no love lost between the two women. They had little in common and Anne was irritated by Diana, the constant carry-on in the press about her clothes and her charm. When it was suggested to Diana that she might have Anne as a godmother for any daughter she might have, Diana retorted: ‘I just don’t like her. She may be wonderful doing all that charity work for Save the Children and others, but I can do it as well.’”
Even though Anne was not Harry’s godmother, the princess stepped up to support Harry at a critical time. Tina Brown wrote in her Diana biography that, after Diana’s 1997 death, “Princess Anne was especially kind to Harry, whose fragility was manifest. She took him alone with her exploring the Balmoral wilds on foot and on horseback.”
— Princess Diana—and the ’80s—Give New Life to The Crown in Season Four
— Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin on Playing One of the Most Famous (and Ill-Fated) Couples of the 20th Century
— Gillian Anderson Plays Margaret Thatcher, the Perfect Counterpoint to the Queen
— After The Crown, Here’s Where to Get Your Princess Diana Fix
— Prince Philip’s Impressive “Bullshit-o-Meter,” According to Tobias Menzies
— How to Recreate Diana’s Most Memorable Style Moments
— From the Archive: Tina Brown on Princess Diana, the Mouse That Roared
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