Princess Anne appeared to make a ‘pointed’ remark about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during a recent interview, a royal editor has said.
The Queen’s only daughter, who celebrated her 70th birthday last month, spoke about how the younger generation should not try to “reinvent the wheel” and instead “go back to basics”.
She made the comments to Vanity Fair as she opened up about the life in Britain’s most famous family.
Anne described herself as the “boring old fuddy-duddy at the back saying, ‘Don’t forget the basics’”.
And she added: “I don’t think the younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and it’s often true, isn’t it?
“You don’t necessarily look at the previous generation and say, ‘Oh you did that?’ or ‘You went there?’
“Nowadays, they’re much more looking for, ‘Oh let’s do it in a new way.’
“And I’m already at the stage, ‘Please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We’ve been there, done that. Some of these things don’t work. You may need to go back to basics.’”
Now the Daily Mirror’s Royal Editor Russell Myers believes this may be a subtle reference to Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Speaking on podcast Pod Save The Queen, Russell commented: “She said in that interview, ‘Don’t try and reinvent the wheel, don’t try and run before you can walk’ and maybe that was a pointed reference to Harry and Meghan and I think it was definitely a reference to the younger members.
“She had spoken about ‘listen, I’m the old fuddy duddy at the back, but we have been doing things before you were born, sonny.’
“And that is very interesting and I think that has come across that she’s very very experienced, she’s patron of so many charities and good causes.
“She has seen the pitfalls of royal life whether that’s Fergie, Diana, Andrew, her own divorce – and these issues are very, very interesting.
“And I would lean on her for counsel as I’m sure several other members of the Royal Family have done.”
Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior members in March – months after their bombshell announcement.
Meanwhile the Express reports that royal photographer Steve Wood told the 2003 Channel 4 documentary The Real Princess Anne, that Anne thought Diana was “lessening the stature of the Royal Family” and that she and Fergie were “too tabloid for her”.
Anne’s children Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall also recently revealed their mum had a strict set of rules she expected young royals to follow in public – or they risked getting a “clip round the ear.”
She fired the warning to the youngsters for when they appeared on Buckingham Palace’s famous balcony.
The rules included ‘no picking noses and no yawning.’
Zara, 39, told ITV documentary, Anne: The Princess Royal at 70: “For me family occasions were all about hanging out with our cousins and just having as much fun as possible.”
Older brother Peter, 42, added: “You then get a clip round the ear and say right, behave yourself, you know, we’re going out on the balcony. Don’t pick your nose and don’t yawn.”
The pair would often appear on the balcony with cousins Prince William and Prince Harry and try “have as much fun as possible”.