Today marks Princess Anne’s 75th birthday, and fans are recalling the moment the Princess Royal had the perfect response when she was asked whether she’d make a good housewife
Royal fans are recalling the moment Princess Anne had the perfect response about whether she would make a good housewife. The Princess Royal turns 75 today. But it was more than 50 years ago that she put an interviewer in their place shortly after her engagement to her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, with whom she shares two children.
During a joint interview with her fiancĂ© in 1973, Anne – then 22 – was asked how she rated her skillset as a stay-at-home wife, including whether she could cook or sew. The princess fielded each question, but eventually appeared to reach her limit. “[Do you think you’d] make a good housewife?” the interviewer asked.
“Can you cook, for example?”
“It’s hardly up to me to say,” she responded, before adding: “Yes, I’ve done a bit of cooking in my time.”
When asked if she’d “like to cook” her fiancĂ©’s breakfast in the morning, she responded: “I can manage that. That’s easy. Especially when he’s eventing because he’s not going to get more than a cup of coffee,” after which the couple shared a giggle.
Anne was then asked: “Can you sew? Can you put… sew on a button?”
It was then that Anne issued the blunt reply: “I’m not totally useless.”
She continued: “I was quite well-educated, one way or another.”
The interview made its way to TikTok, where one person commented: “Can you imagine those questions this day.”
Another said: “Princess Anne could wipe the floor with him,” followed by a cry-laughing emoji.
Meanwhile a third chimed in: “She was restraining herself.”
“HRH The Princess Anne, The Princess Royal is the most hard working royal there is. And he expects her to be a housewife?!” someone else remarked.
The Princess Royal was born at Clarence House and attended the coveted Benenden school, where she obtained six O-Levels and two A-Levels.
At just 18 years of age she began to undertake royal engagements, which she has been carrying out ever since.
Anne, a champion horseback rider, met Mark on the equestrian circuit and the couple wed in November 1973. Together they had a son and a daughter, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, who each have two children.
However, Mark and Anne had a rocky relationship, with both rumoured to be involved in extramarital affairs. They separated in 1989 and eventually divorced in 1992, with Anne marrying Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence – a commander in the Royal Navy – later that year.
The ceremony at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral Castle was attended by around 30 guests, while the private reception took place at Craigowan Lodge.
Mark also remarried in 1997 but divorced his second wife, American equestrian Sandy Pflueger, in 2012. He was later linked to another American equestrian, Lauren Hough.
