Princess Anne has always been one of her mother Queen Elizabeth II's biggest supporters, and she proved that by defending the monarch's reaction following Princess Diana's death in 1997.
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In an interview with ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship in 2017, which was broadcast for the first time on Sunday 11 September, the Princess Royal revealed the criticism the Queen received for her response to the late Princess of Wales' car crash in Paris was unfair.
WATCH: Queen's coffin driven through the Royal Mile in Edinburgh
Instead of immediately travelling to London to meet thousands of royal fans who grieved for the Princess, the Queen stayed in Balmoral Castle in Scotland with her son King Charles III and grandsons Prince William and Prince Harry. Anne said the "structure" she offered the young royals, who were 15 and 12 at the time, to allow them to process their mother's passing away from the public eye was "exactly the right thing".
"I think it's absolutely extraordinary that any right-minded thinking parents should believe… [there] would have been an alternative to bring those children down here to London in all that hoo ha," she began.
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READ: Why Prince Charles and Princess Anne were first at Queen's bedside at Balmoral
Her Majesty stayed at Balmoral with her grandchildren following their mother's death in 1997
"I just don't know how you could think that that would have been a better thing to do…I don't think either of those two could, would have been able to cope if they'd been anywhere else.
"That was the only good thing that happened was that they were there, and they had that structure, they had people around them who could understand, give them the time, little time that they had, which was never going to be very much, to try and come - even in a fleeting sense - to terms with what had happened.
"It's not possible for most people to do that in that space, never mind children at that age," Anne continued.
Prince William and Prince Harry pictured at Princess Diana's funeral
On 6 September 1997, just six days after Diana died, her sons were pictured walking behind her coffin at Westminster Abbey.
Harry recently recalled on The Me You Can't See, his mental health series with Oprah Winfrey: "For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses' hooves going along the pavement. Along the Mall, the red brick road. By this point I was, both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me.
"Showing one-tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, 'This is my mum. You never even met her.'"
Anne's interview was broadcast days after Her Majesty passed away "peacefully" at Balmoral on 8 September. The royal accompanied her mother's coffin on its journey from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and she will also join her when she travels to London to lie in state in Westminster Hall. The Queen's funeral will take place on Monday 19 September.
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