Inside the Unique Royal World of the Unflappable Princess Anne

“We had a sort of discussion about where or where not we were going to go,” Anne said humorously, recalling her exchange with Ball in an interview with Michael Parkinson in the 1980s, prompting laughter from the audience. “Well, he said I had to go with him—I can’t remember why,” she added facetiously, turning to Phillips, who replied, “You were quite obstinate about it.”

The princess said, smiling, “I said I didn’t think I wanted to go. I was scrupulously polite, ’cause I thought, silly to be too rude at that stage.”

The audience was in stitches.

“And we had a fairly low-key discussion about the fact that I wasn’t going to go anywhere, and wouldn’t it be much better if he went away and we’d all forget about it,” Anne continued. She asked Phillips, “It got slightly rougher, didn’t it, at one stage?”

“I mean, public figures have always been in danger to some degree…” the ever-unflappable Anne continued. Though myriad threats were directed at the royal family over the years, she mused, “perhaps your greatest danger is still the lone nut case who has just got enough to put it together. But it would be fair to say that if anybody was seriously intent on wiping one out, it would be very easy to do.”

The party line shortly after the attack was that the royal family “had no intention of living in bullet proof cages,” least of all Anne, who resumed her usual routine the next day.