{"id":2150053,"date":"2025-11-11T23:16:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2150053"},"modified":"2025-11-11T23:16:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:16:16","slug":"princess-anne-welcomed-with-open-arms-during-australian-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/princess-anne-welcomed-with-open-arms-during-australian-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Anne welcomed with open arms during Australian tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was early on Saturday morning when Princess Anne flew into Sydney for a packed four days of engagements across three capital cities.<\/p>\n

Some commentators suggested the lack of fanfare \u2014 and access to the royal \u2014 was designed to keep media away and avoid awkward questions about the scandals surrounding her brother, the newly demoted Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.<\/p>\n

But the plans for the princess royal’s Australian tour had been in the diary for more than a year and it was always going to be a tightly focused military mission to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals of which she is colonel-in-chief.<\/p>\n

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Palace advisers explained that the aim of this trip would be to pay tribute to and spend time with Australia’s military and their families. (AAP Image\/Damian Shaw<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Not a royal PR offensive<\/h2>\n

Early interview requests pitched by the ABC months ago were politely declined. Palace advisers explained that the aim of this trip would be to pay tribute to and spend time with Australia’s military and their families, and that is certainly what transpired. This was not a royal PR offensive.<\/p>\n

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Plans for the princess royal’s Australian tour had been in the diary for more than a year. (Australian Defence Force: CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

There were wreaths laid, ceremonies held and Anne even donned the uniform of the Australian Army for the first time \u2014 complete with iconic slouch hat. If the princess royal was nervous, she certainly didn’t show it, nor did the palace feel the need to engage minders. The royal family’s most consummate professional had this.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne lays a wreath at the Cross of Sacrifice during a service at the Sydney War Cemetery. (Australian Defence Force: CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Watching her on the ground, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s only daughter wasn’t just calm \u2014 there was more to it than that \u2014 she seemed to be relishing the pacey program of formal military ceremony and intimate garden parties, chatting to the troops and their families, and swapping stories with the corps she had been leading for 48 years.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne speaks with ADF members at Simpson Barracks in Melbourne. (ABC News<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Quiet achievers<\/h2>\n

Signallers are the quiet achievers of the military world, working diligently in the shadows. They’re described by head of corps Brigadier Deane Limmer as “the glue that binds the force: connecting, informing and targeting”.<\/p>\n

You could say Princess Anne, who turned 75 in August, plays a similar role in the monarchy. And despite a crescendo of personal popularity in recent years which regularly serves her top billing in polls, this royal’s modus operandi hasn’t changed. Anne travels with a tiny retinue \u2014 on this visit just security and her private secretary \u2014 and rarely has a media pack on her tail.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne participated in a smoking ceremony during her formal welcome to Government House in Sydney. (Australian Defence Force: CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Indeed, there was no-one from the British royal rota in Australia for the visit \u2014 likely because they were all either in Brazil for Prince William’s glitzy Earthshot Prize Awards, followed by a landmark speech on behalf of the king at the COP30 leaders’ summit, or back in Blighty for the annual Remembrance Day events.<\/p>\n

The vital date in the royal calendar this year included a 12-year-old Prince George for the first time joining the royal turnout at the Royal British Legion’s Festival event in London’s Albert Hall. But perhaps another reason for the lack of the “Britpack” was because this was very much an Australian story about a specific role for the princess royal Down Under.<\/p>\n

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The low-key temperature of this tour has helped create a feeling of connection rather than alienation from the monarchy. (Supplied: David Swift\u00a0<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

‘The hardest-working royal’<\/h2>\n

Furthermore, a key difference for this royal tour was that the invitation came from the Australian Army, rather than an official visit requested by the prime minister and paid for by the government. In consequence, public walkabouts were never on the agenda. That would have required a more intensive security plan calling on state and federal police and input from the public purse.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne inspects the Royal Australian Corps of Signals centenary parade at Victoria Barracks in Sydney. (Australian Defence Force CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

One addition to the tour was the princess royal’s husband, retired naval officer Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, who was by his wife’s side throughout, inspecting troops and talking to soldiers and families. Even though the general public saw very little of HRH, the receptions were busy and the royal couple didn’t want invitees to leave feeling short-changed. Sir Tim, 70, is used to being more in the shadows, but here he was very much sharing the load, a necessary helping hand.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne’s husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, joined her in Australia. (Australian Defence Force: CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Brigadier Limmer joined the Corps of Signals in 1998 and has held appointments in land, special operations, strategic and training, and has served in Timor Leste and Afghanistan. When he began, he says: “I hadn’t appreciated the level of warmth with which the corp’s royal colonel-in-chief is held.” But very quickly he realised Anne was much more than a royal figurehead; the troops were genuinely proud to have her.<\/p>\n

“I think what makes it even more an honour is the reputation that Her Royal Highness holds. The hardest-working royal is so commonly bantered around, but I suppose a life just like her mother, a lifetime of service following in her footsteps, what an example,” he says.<\/p>\n

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There were wreaths laid, ceremonies held and Anne even donned the uniform of the Australian Army for the first time \u2014 complete with iconic slouch hat. (Supplied: Facebook<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The governor-general’s signals connection<\/h2>\n

On Saturday the royal couple’s first call was made to the governor-general, who told the ABC she had her own special connection to this visit. Her Excellency Sam Mostyn’s father Colonel Mostyn MBE, now 91, is a Signals Corp veteran, and on Sunday, as commander-in-chief and governor-general, Sam Mostyn was a special guest alongside the royal couple at the Centenary Parade and garden party at Victoria Barracks in Sydney. She said she felt “deeply honoured”.<\/p>\n

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Princess Anne’s Australian tour was filled with formal engagements. (Australian Defence Force: CPL Cameron Pegg<\/a><\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

“I am proud of my father’s service, as I am of the generations of serving women and men that have followed in his footsteps and of the mighty contribution that the Royal Australian Corps of Signals has made to our nation,” Mostyn says.<\/p>\n

“Her Royal Highness’s visit and close connection to generations of Signallers is a sign of the respect in which she holds Australia and Australians.”<\/p>\n

Brigadier Limmer echoes the governor-general’s sentiments: “For our corps, we celebrate that dedication, that commitment to service. I think what matters is the way someone lives their life \u2014 their behaviours and the example they set. And there’s none finer than our colonel-in-chief.”<\/p>\n

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Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, Princess Anne, Governor-General Sam Mostyn and Simeon Beckett meet in Sydney. (Supplied: Facebook<\/span>)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Fallout from Andrew’s banishment momentous<\/h2>\n

The contrast with Princess Anne’s younger brother Andrew’s reputation couldn’t be starker. It was January 2022 when the late queen stripped then-Prince Andrew of his military affiliations and royal patronages as he prepared to face the civil sexual assault lawsuit brought by the late Virginia Giuffre in the US. He later settled out of court without admitting or denying the allegations, and pledged to “demonstrate his regret for his association” with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by supporting the “fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims”.<\/p>\n

There’s little evidence that the former prince delivered on that promise and, three years later, King Charles III scored a vital line in royal history books when he formally stripped Andrew of his royal titles and honours a week ago.<\/p>\n

The fallout from the Andrew banishment has been momentous, with media and public around the world questioning the role of the monarchy. But those tremors didn’t appear to affect this visit.<\/p>\n