Anne at Queen’s side for f inal f light

PRINCESS ANNE is known as one of the most diligent and hard-working members of the royal family. Now it has emerged that, before her death, the Queen gave instructions to entrust her only daughter with one final act of service.

On Tuesday, Anne – pictured left with the Queen in 2013 – will accompany her mother’s coffin as it is flown on an RAF plane from Edinburgh to Northolt airport. From there it will be taken to Buckingham Palace. Anne had been at her mother’s side when she fell ill, after the Queen had greeted the outgoing and incoming PMs.

The Princess Royal, 72, has in latter years developed a strong bond with her brother, now King Charles III. She shares his view that the monarchy should be slimmed down. When her children – Peter and Zara – were born, she declined royal titles for them. A hands-on grandmother, she lives on the same estate as her children and grandchildren in Gloucestershire, a few miles from Charles’s Highgrove estate.

In a BBC tribute to the Queen, Anne told of the bond she shared with her mother. She recalled how ‘the holiday times were pretty well kept, actually, from our perspective’, also saying that at such times her parents were ‘nearly always around’.

She added: ‘Partly because it included all the things that she enjoyed, included the countryside, the dogs, the horses and just being out and about, and being able to get away a bit from that public gaze.’