This Day in History | 1973 – Crowds cheer marriage of Princess Anne

The wedding of the Queen’s only daughter, Princess Anne, has taken place at Westminster Abbey.

Princess Anne, 23, married Mark Phillips, a lieutenant in the Army.

An estimated 500 million television viewers around the world are believed to have watched the ceremony.

Princess Anne wore an embroidered Tudor-style wedding dress with a high collar and mediaeval sleeves.

Lieutenant Phillips was in the full scarlet and blue uniform of his regiment, the Queen’s Dragoon Guards.

The princess’ bridesmaid was her nine-year-old cousin, Lady Sarah-Armstrong Jones, daughter of Princess Margaret.

Her youngest brother, nine-year-old Prince Edward, was her pageboy.

The wedding day had been declared a national holiday and crowds lined the streets to watch the newly married couple on their way back to Buckingham Palace.

Many well-wishers had spent the night sleeping in the Mall to guarantee a good view of the pair who travelled in a horse-drawn carriage.

Later they appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace and waved to the crowd below.

After a wedding lunch, the Princess and her new husband left to stay overnight at White House Lodge in Richmond Park.

They are due to travel to Barbados tomorrow where they will board the royal yacht Britannia for 18 days sailing in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The couple met through their mutual interest in horse riding and their engagement was announced in May.

It is only the second time in more than 200 years that a member of the British royal family has married a commoner.

The last commoner to marry into the royal family was the Queen Mother in 1923.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

The couple had two children – Peter, born in 1977 and Zara in 1981.

Princess Anne and Mark Phillips were divorced in April 1992 – only the second royal couple to part in the 20th century.

The first was the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon.

In December 1992 Princess Anne married Commander Timothy Laurence, who was formerly one of the Queen’s equerries.

Captain Mark Phillips remarried in 1997 and had a daughter, with his new wife, a former Olympic horse rider.

The baby, Stephanie, was Captain Phillips’ third daughter – he fathered an illegitimate child during his marriage to Princess Anne.