'The women of the Royal Family's supporting cast have shone in an extraordinarily turbulent year'

Never one to let a crisis get in the way of a good engagement - 28 of them in November alone in fact - Princess Anne has carried on carrying on, as she has done for years

First up, let’s hear it for the ladies!

For recent times it has - as ever one may argue - been the females of the pack who have been leading from the front. Much has been said about the Queen “stepping up”, being “front and centre” or “holding the fort” (add further hot key phrases here), but let us take a moment to examine the supporting cast on what has been the most extraordinary year for the Royal Family at large.

Never one to let a crisis get in the way of a good engagement - 28 of them in November alone in fact - Princess Anne has carried on carrying on. As her elder brother, the King, was forced to take a backseat on royal matters for a large chunk of these last 11 months with his ongoing treatment for cancer, the Princess Royal has quite literally been the hardest working royal in the room.

No stranger to this quite subjective accolade, not that she would care for such matters you understand, Anne has been doing this while recovering from being kicked in the head by a horse one summer evening. Less than three weeks after spending five nights in hospital she was back in business, despite a rather spectacular shiner demonstrating the force at which the offending horse had knocked her unconscious.

The princess was on hand this week showing a more tender side to present her sister-in-law, the Queen, with an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by the University of London. Anne, in her role as the University Chancellor and Camilla, arrived together by car having travelled from St James’s Palace for the rare joint engagement.

Guests at the event said the pair exuded real warmth and sisterly closeness, seldom seen before. The same was said earlier this month at the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph when the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Edinburgh appeared together on the balcony of the Foreign Office to pay their respects to our war dead.

Now, we won’t be delving into the ludicrous realms of so-called “body language experts” (certainly a case filed under we’ve had enough of experts!) but it was plain to see that the two women do share a bond. The Duchess did indeed place a tender hand on Kate’s shoulder when they went back inside after the ceremony, but their relationship has often shown us who cover or follow the royals so much more than that.

Regular listeners to our award winning podcast, Pod Save The King, available to download every Thursday, will know how much I have emphasised the benefits of collaboration for the royals, especially in times of need. And boy has that been upon us this year.

The royals have been through the wringer, with the King still undergoing weekly treatment for cancer and the Princess only just having finished her chemotherapy treatment. Even Camilla was shaking a “nasty” check infection to get back to business last week, promising she would be at a Booker Prize event not wishing to let anyone down.

This could be and very much should be in my humble opinion, the future of the monarchy. We hear a lot about impact and scale for the bigger picture projects from the Prince and Princess of Wales, but the smaller, more traditional elements of royal life need a focus too.

Whether it’s the slimmed down monarchy or the pack taking much needed time out to concentrate on their health and wellbeing, there should be support for those holding the front line. And I for one am all for it.