UK’s Queen Camilla and Princess Anne are ‘holding up the ceiling’

Both are ladies in their 70s and approaching a time of life when they might expect to slow down. Instead Queen Camilla (pictured right), 76, and the Princess Royal (pictured top left), 73, are, in the words of one well-placed source, ‘holding up the ceiling’ while both King Charles and the Princess of Wales are recuperating from surgery and Prince William is supporting his wife.

Yesterday, Camilla (pictured) was cheered by around 1,000 excited, flag-waving schoolchildren in Bath as she completed her third engagement in as many days. She was at the St John’s Foundation almshouses in Bath, who provide shelter for older adults, to mark the group’s 850th anniversary. Sitting down for a cup of tea and a chat, she told 90-year-old Lisa Anderson that her husband was ‘recovering well, thank you’.

As Rita Willis, 86, stood up to greet the Queen, her St John’s Foundation pin badge fell off, leaving Camilla (pictured) – a sprightly decade younger – to kneel down on the floor and pick it up for her. Showing no sign of fatigue despite her busy workload, the Queen also engaged in a lively discussion about the benefits of ballet, which she dabbles in, and gardening. Looking smart in an Anna Valentine coat and Fiona Clare blouse, she said of the latter: ‘It gets everybody outside, I find it the most relaxing thing in the world, you come in and everything starts stiffening up [but] it’s worth it.’

Meanwhile the Princess Royal (pictured) has just appointed five new ‘Extra Ladies in Waiting’ – and announced a new private secretary – to cope with her workload. Four of her ‘older’ Ladies are now retiring. The notoriously no-nonsense princess has also shown she has a nostalgic side. Of her new Ladies in Waiting, two worked for her mother, Queen Elizabeth, until her death, part of the late monarch’s gang of much-loved ‘head girls’. 

And in a sign of just how devoted her own staff are to her, one of the retirees, Dame Rowena Feilden, has been by her side for more than 50 years. She was with the princess in 1974 when Anne was the subject of a violent kidnap attempt from her car. Her bodyguard and chauffeur were shot – and yet she famously snapped at her would-be abductor: ‘Not bloody likely.’ Dame Rowena’s loyalty was rewarded in December when she was made a Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for her personal service to the Crown in the New Year Honors. 

The princess now has 13 Ladies in Waiting and Extra Ladies in Waiting, all personal friends or people she has worked closely with over the years. ‘Her Royal Highness likes a close-knit, tight-ship,’ says one who knows her well. Ladies in Waiting are unpaid assistants who help with correspondence, organize engagements, assist at official events and generally make sure members of the Royal Family’s lives run smoothly. Pictured: Princess Anne, Princess Royal smiles during her visit to the opening of the Reaseheath Equestrian College on January 30, 2024 in Nantwich, England.

While the late Queen’s were all based at Buckingham Palace, Princess Anne has only a small ‘inner core’ of staff in London. Instead, she prefers to have a wide network of friends she can call on around the country as and when she is in the area for work. ‘She is so hard-working people can’t necessarily give their lives over to support her, and nor would she want or expect them to,’ explained a source. ‘Having a large number of effective part-time staff – friends – she can call on for help, without any cost to the public purse, when she knows she has engagements in a particular area, is an ideal solution.’

Another added: ‘It’s rather like having your own football team with a large number of reserves.’ They certainly have their work cut out for them. Last year the princess undertook 427 engagements and in the past week alone has been everywhere from Norfolk to Scotland. Pictured: Princess Anne, Princess Royal attends day two of Royal Ascot 2023 at Ascot Racecourse on June 21, 2023.

The Mail can also reveal that she will be standing in for the King and conducting extra investitures – the handing out of honours – while he recovers from prostate surgery. Those retiring are Dame Rowena, Lady Carew Pole, The Hon Dame Shan Legge-Bourke – mother of former nanny to a young Princes William and Harry, Tiggy Pettifer – and Mrs Margaret Hammond. Her new assistants include Lady Elizabeth Leeming, a member of the Bowes-Lyon family and the daughter of the 17th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a distant cousin of Anne. She was appointed as a Lady in Waiting by Queen Elizabeth in 2017 and was considered among the ‘younger’ members of the close-knit royal team.

Also appointed by the late Queen was Mrs Susan Rhodes, who is married to Simon Rhodes, son of the late Margaret Rhodes, Elizabeth II’s cousin and lifelong friend whom she would visit after church at her home on the Windsor Estate most Sundays. Simon and Susan were former inhabitants of Adelaide Cottage, now the home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The veteran royal aides will be joined by Dolly Maude, a midwife and best friend of Anne’s daughter, Zara Tindall (pictured). She even helped to deliver her children. Last year Ms Maude was spotted with a Lady in Waiting badge at the races – brushed off as a joke at the time.

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