Princess Anne is just weeks away from turning 75, however age doesn’t seem to deter her from carrying out royal duties. Despite being among the older working royals, The Princess Royal is usually dubbed the most hard-working, carrying out hundreds of engagements each year.
While Anne is now well above the age in which most people retire, the King’s sister has previously spoken about how she does not see retirement on the cards. However, this may not be the case, according to a source who knows the royal well.
Instead, it has been claimed that Anne will eventually retire from her royal duty, with the age she reportedly plans to potentially surprising many.
The source told The Times ahead of Anne’s birthday next month: “She (Anne) has said her plan is to push on until she is 80, then start winding down a bit, and then copy the (late) Duke of Edinburgh and wind down completely at 90.
“The head of state has to go on but the princess is in a position where she can wind down and say, ‘I’ve done my bit’, just like the Duke of Edinburgh did.”
While it is believed Anne may replicate her father’s actions when it comes to slowly stepping back from royal duty, this is not what the princess has said herself.
Instead, Anne told PA news at the end of her two-day visit to South Africa in January that retirement is not “an option”.
When asked if she will retire, she said: “It really isn’t written in, no. It isn’t really an option, no, I don’t think so.
“You’re jolly lucky… if you can continue to be more or less compos mentis and last summer I was very close to not being. Take each day as it comes, they say.”
Princess Anne was named the hardest-working royal of 2024 after carrying out the most royal engagements.
This allowed her to keep her title of hardest-working royal for the fourth year in a row, despite the fact that a horse injury in 2024 resulted in Princess Anne having to temporarily step back from duty as she was monitored in hospital for a minor head injury and concussion.