Engulfed by unprecedented crisis, the monarchy is fast discovering how its devotees divide into two camps: fair weather friends… and foul weather friends.
And no one better embodies the steadfastness of the second camp than the self- effacing figure who represented Princess Anne at Tuesday’s memorial service for Field Marshal Lord Guthrie at the Guards’ Chapel in London.
While some focused on the likes of Lords Heseltine, Palumbo, Soames and Spencer, others remarked on the presence of the ever unassuming Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, first husband of Queen Camilla – but also one of the first intense loves of the Princess Royal.
APB, as he’s invariably known in Household Cavalry circles, has occasionally represented Anne before. But it’s a role from which he could reasonably now be asked to be excused, given that he’s 86.
Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles at the Cheltenham races together
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Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles at the Cheltenham races together
Yet the bond between them means, I’m told, that he’ll soldier on for as long as he’s able.
The couple’s romance is generally thought to have begun in Ascot week in June 1970 – as might have been scripted, given that the Parker Bowleses were as ardent about horse flesh as the Windsors, to whom they were linked by the friendship between APB’s father, Derek, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Queen Camilla, Princess Eugenie and Tom Parker-Bowles put on …
There was no prospect, though, that romance would ever lead to marriage. Parker Bowles was a Catholic, meaning that Anne, then fourth in line to the throne – and thereby bound to the Church of England, of which she would become titular head if ever crowned – could not even consider marrying him.
As it was, within three years, Andrew was married to Camilla and Anne to her first husband, Mark Phillips.
When, in 1981, Anne gave birth to her second child, Zara, she made APB her daughter’s godfather – a very public declaration of a friendship which endures to this day.
La princesse Anne et la reine Camilla ont fréquenté le même homme, une romance vouée à l’échec pour l’une d’elle – Purepeople
Over the decades their connection quietly endured, shaped less by romance than by mutual respect and a shared understanding of royal duty. Though their lives followed different paths, they remained trusted confidants within the same social orbit. Friends say Anne values Parker Bowles’ discretion and loyalty, qualities rare in circles often defined by shifting allegiances.
Even now, when age has slowed his once formidable cavalry stride, he continues to appear when needed. For Anne, such constancy matters far more than ceremony or headlines. It is the quiet loyalty that sustains friendships long after youthful passion fades into history and memory.
