Royal Ascot week is a key event in the Royal Family’s calendar and the opening day kicked off in style yesterday with the royal carriage procession delighting racegoers and royal watchers. Princess Anne is a keen racing aficionado, as well as an accomplished horsewoman herself, and is a familiar sight at the prestigious race meeting. Keen-eyed royal observers may have spotted the Princess Royal in the company of Camilla Parker Bowles’ ex-husband Andrew at Ascot this afternoon, although some may not realise that the two had a “torrid affair” in the past.
Podcast "Royals" from Australian magazine New Idea, heard from royal commentator Angela Mollard in an episode that first aired in March.
Ms Mollard said: “It was well-known that Andrew Parker Bowles had multiple lovers.
“When Charles and Camilla reignited their relationship some years into his marriage with Diana, he was forever known as the man who laid his wife down for the country.”
However, she continued: “This is really funny. Princess Anne, who we always think is the grumpy one with the bun – she had an affair with Andrew Parker Bowles.
Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles had a love affair in the Seventies (Image: Getty)
The pair pictured together at Royal Ascot last year (Image: Getty)
“The fact is, they had an affair and they’ve remained friends.
“They’re both obsessed with horses and when they get together at Royal Ascot they get on really well.”
Royal biographer Penny Junor also writes about the romantic liaison, which came to be noticed when Anne brought Andrew to Ascot with the Queen.
In her 2017 book “The Duchess”, she writes that in 1972: “To [Camilla’s] fury, Andrew was also seeing Princess Anne, Charles’ feisty younger sister.
