The King has gained quite a reputation for his love/ hate relationship with fountain pens and it appears his younger sister has decided a much firmer attitude is needed in her family’s attitude to writing.
As she was asked to sign the visitor’s book as she arrived at the official residence of the President of Ireland, Princess Anne picked up the pen and was just about start writing when she paused and took total control.
Before committing pen to paper, the ever practical princess realised she had been presented with a totally blank page to fill with her one word signature. And so Anne flicked back to make sure there wasn’t space for her to squeeze her name in on a previous sheet.
She then made the pen wait a little longer as she asked whether she was ”wasting” a whole page. Her hosts, President Michael D. Higgins and his wife, Sabina, told her she was ”worth a whole page” at which point Anne put the pen through its paces and signed her first name with a flourish before adding the date.
The pen, as expected, was utterly obedient beneath the withering gaze of the princess.
(Office of the President of Ireland)
The signature was the official record of an important meeting. President Higgins is set to leave office in November having served the maximum two terms permitted under the Irish constitution. Just ahead of elections to find his successor, Princess Anne arrived as part of an informal farewell between the President and the Royal Family.
President Higgins acknowledged the importance of the bond when he said after the meeting ”it was a pleasure to renew my conversations with Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, and to recognise the significant contribution which she has made over so many years to the relationship between our two countries.….I further took the opportunity to extend my best wishes to His Majesty King Charles and to recall his unwavering support for peace and reconciliation.”
The Presidency of Michael D. Higgins has contained some hugely significant moments in the ongoing building of relations between the Republic of Ireland and the Unit4ed Kingdom. In 2014, he became the first Irish President to make a State Visit to the UK when he was hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle.
He often spoke of his admiration for Queen Elizabeth and attended her funeral in September 2022. In May 2023, he made history again by becoming the first Irish President to attend a coronation when he was in Westminster Abbey to see Charles III crowned.
Both visits were seen as a significant steps in the strengthening of ties between the two nations.
Princess Anne is on a one day visit to Dublin which will also see her attend the 150th Dublin Horse Show.
There may be another guest book to sign there in which case the Princess is ready to keep the pen under control. Her brother found himself in difficulty with a fountain pen at one of the most crucial and hardest moments of his life when the instrument he’d been given to sign documents with at his proclamation as King just two days after the death of his mother got in the way of what he was doing and he grimaced to have it removed.
There was another hold up with a fountain pen soon afterwards with Queen Camilla intervening to help the situation.
