Princess Anne Has Likely Been “Loathing Being the Center of Attention” This Week Following a Concussion and Subsequent Hospital Stay

Following a five night stay in hospital as a result of an incident at her home, Gatcombe Park, on Sunday night, Princess Anne has been discharged from Southmead Hospital in Bristol and is home continuing her recuperation, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace today.

The update comes after the Palace shared earlier in the week that the Princess Royal had sustained “minor injuries and concussion” following a “working hypothesis” that her injury “involved hard impact from a horse.” The Palace also shared that Anne “is expected to make a full and swift recovery.” 

In addition to the Palace’s statement, Anne’s husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, added “I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the team at Southmead Hospital for their care, expertise, and kindness during my wife’s short stay,” he said, per People. This comes after comments from Laurence earlier in the week to well-wishers, telling them “We are both deeply touched by all the kind messages we have received from so many people near and far,” he said. “It means a great deal.”

He also, per The Daily Beast, said at one point this week that his wife of 22 years was “doing fine—slow but sure” and that he’d brought her “a few little treats from home.” 

On June 25, The Telegraph reported that Anne suffered memory loss from the incident, thought to be temporary. Anne—the only sister of King Charles and only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip—has long been considered the hardest working member of the royal family, based on the number of royal engagements she undertakes each year, as recorded in the Court Circular. According to People, in 2023, Anne undertook a staggering 457 engagements—more than one per day.

“She just gets on with it, often carrying out multiple engagements in one day,” Queen Elizabeth’s former press spokesman Dickie Arbiter previously told The Telegraph about Anne’s dedication to duty. According to People—in verbiage we’ve heard time and time again when it comes to the royal family this year—the Princess Royal “will only return to public duties once her medical team says it’s safe to do so.” 

Known not just for her work ethic but her no nonsense approach to life, Anne is a sturdy backbone of the royal family—dependable, loyal, and often eschewing the spotlight and the drama that often comes with it. “You can just imagine Anne absolutely loathing being the center of attention,” The Sunday Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah said on her podcast, “The Royals with Roya and Kate,” per The Mirror. “She’ll have really disliked the fact that, while her brother was hosting a state visit—a very high profile state visit—Anne was the main news of the day, because she loathes being center of attention.”

Nikkhah’s co-host Kate Mansey, who is royal editor for The Times, added “And she would have wanted to be there to represent the family.” Indeed, Anne was due to attend the June 25 state banquet, and was also scheduled to go on tour to Canada this week—and, following her injury, she, of course, had to cancel her appearance at both. 

Anne is a passionate equestrian and even competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics representing Team Great Britain. She has also previously been injured on horseback, including at the Games itself, when her horse Goodwill missed a jump—“but she bravely completed the competition,” The Mirror writes.

“She will definitely, I think, fingers crossed, when she comes out of hospital, I think she will be around horses very soon,” Nikkhah said.

For now, though, Anne is recuperating at Gatcombe Park, her home in Gloucestershire that was a wedding present from her mother, Her late Majesty, when Anne married Captain Mark Phillips in 1973. They subsequently divorced in 1992, and share two children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall.