Princess Anne Walks As The Only Women In Her Father’s Funeral Procession

Princess Anne, the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, took part as the only women to walk with other male senior Royals in the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral procession at St. George’s Cathedral.

Anne, dressed in black with her military medals, mirrored her grandmother, the Queen Mother’s funeral in 2002, where Anne also broke the tradition of only men taking part in the procession.

“You know it’s going to happen but you are never really ready,” Anne said in a statement following her father’s death. “My father has been my teacher, my supporter and my critic but mostly it is his example of a life well lived and service freely given that I want to emulate.”

In an interview with ITV, the Princess Royal, Anne, spoke about how she encouraged teenaged Prince William and Harry to take part in the funeral procession for their mother, Princess Diana.

“I seem to remember him saying that in face, it was a question of, ‘If you’ll do it, I’ll do it.’ And that was him as a grandfather saying, ‘If you want me to be there—if that’s what you want to do—if you want me to be there, I will be there’,” Anne said about her father wanting to comfort the young princes at their mother’s funeral.

Anne, married twice—first to Captain Mark Phillips and later to Timothy Laurence, decided to not give her children formal royal titles. “I think it was probably easier for them and I think most people would argue that there are downsides to having titles. I think that was probably the right thing to do,” she said in a 2020 Vanity Fair interview.