Both the Queen and Philip stood by her, but insisted she withdrew from her business life and that Edward gave up work at his film company, Ardent Productions. Prince Philip had wanted Edward to learn accountancy, or at the very least take a management training course, but it was not what Edward had wanted. To even suggest it was something of a radical step; for the son of a reigning sovereign to be directly involved in business was a new and worrying notion to some. Commerce had always been an anathema to the royal family. It was partly a snobbish thing; the British upper classes, bought up to regard land as the only honourable measure of wealth, traditionally looked down on ‘trade’. That was not going to influence Philip’s judgement. He had always been impatient and, on occasion, rudely dismissive of the establishment’s prejudices as patronising and old-fashioned.

But direct involvement also went against the grain of the impartiality so vital to the good name of the royal family, and even Philip had to take that into consideration. It is why they prefer to play the role of ‘ambassador’ for all British industry, rather than be a salesman for any one company. As Philip acknowledged: ‘Any member of the family who has been anywhere near a commercial activity is always criticised because it is going to give them an unfair advantage.’

Only Princess Anne managed to break free from the royal conventions to bring up her children in a relaxed and truly normal way, and she could do that only by turning her back on her royal inheritance. She was the first of the Queen’s children to marry. In keeping with royal tradition, the Queen offered her husband, commoner Mark Phillips, an earldom on their wedding day, but he declined, meaning that the couple’s children were the first grandchildren of the sovereign to have no title. Princess Anne had said she would prefer a quiet wedding, but in deference to her mother she eventually agreed to Westminster Abbey, the traditional venue for royal weddings.

The ceremony on 14 November 1973, a showcase event for the royal family, was watched by an estimated 500 million television viewers around the world, and on the streets of London, crowds of people lined the streets to share in the celebrations, which had been declared a national holiday. Prince Philip walked his daughter up the aisle in much the same way he once did the Queen’s sister at her wedding. The bridegroom was a likeable man, educated at Marlborough College and Sandhurst, and eventually became a captain in the army. He was an excellent horseman, which was very important for Princess Anne at the time, and the Queen and Philip had high hopes for the marriage. They also liked Mark’s parents, Peter and Anne Phillips, who were the first in-laws to be integrated into the immediate royal family.