This week, some royal gossip sort of got buried. Over the weekend, the Times of London published a semi-authorized profile on Princess Anne ahead of her 75th birthday. Anne does not want any fuss for herself or her birthday, but some “royal insiders” spoke on her behalf to the Times. It’s very common for the palace to authorize these kinds of birthday profiles, which is why it was fascinating to see those “sources” criticize Prince William within Anne’s b-day profile. The Times noted that while Anne is “fond of her nephew,” several sources told them that Anne wants to see William do more “bread and butter” royal engagements, especially hosting investitures at Windsor Castle. Per a source close to Anne: “She’s still doing most of the investitures [at Windsor] even though William lives there. It annoys her.” Well, funny story. Anne had to shlep all the way over to Windsor Castle this week to host another investiture. While William, Kate and the kids were lounging on a superyacht in Greece.
Princess Anne is holding an investiture at Windsor Castle after a report claimed that she thinks Prince William should be leading more of these ceremonies. On July 22, the Princess Royal, 74, hosted an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle, where she presented medals to a group including actress Sarah Lancashire. Investitures are services in which a working member of the royal family presents insignias to individuals recognized for outstanding contributions in honors lists, which are released twice annually.
Currently, just three royals can host the events. The royal family’s website outlines that only King Charles, Princess Anne and Prince William can conduct the honor, leaving the small group responsible for about 30 investitures a year.
So far in 2025, Princess Anne has held the most investiture ceremonies. According to a tally from Gert’s Royals, she has hosted 10 of the events including Tuesday’s, while King Charles has done six and Prince William has done five.
Over the weekend, The Sunday Times published a new profile on the Princess Royal ahead of her 75th birthday in August, where a source said that Anne would like to see William, 43, partake in more “bread-and-butter” royal duties.
“She’s still doing most of the investitures [at Windsor] even though William lives there. It annoys her,” a source told the Sunday Times.
While the Prince of Wales and his wife, Kate Middleton, live minutes away from Windsor Castle at Adelaide Cottage with their children, his calendar already had a commitment on July 22 — his son Prince George’s 12th birthday.
For a moment, consider a world where no parent ever has to work on their kids’ birthdays? What the hell kind of excuse is that from People Mag? “It was George’s birthday, how dare you expect William to work!” They use a similar excuse for the kids’ school holidays too, like it would be a fate worse than death for parents to work at all while their kids are out of school. Anyway, it’s just funny, it’s almost as if Anne set it up on purpose, knowing that William and Kate were going to be squirrelled away on an Arab prince’s superyacht while Anne was trudging through her tenth investiture of the year.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
