Prince Harry’s blunt account of royal competition has reignited debate and one remark has particularly struck a nerve.

Princess Anne greets fans following Christmas service

Prince Harry didn’t hold back when reflecting on royal life in his memoir Spare, lifting the lid on the quiet rivalries that simmered behind palace doors. In particular, he took aim at the Court Circular – the official record of royal engagements.

He claims this fuelled competition, resentment and press-led comparisons within the family. While the royal, 41, stops short of naming names, his sharp criticism of how royal work was counted has set tongues wagging. Many readers believe his remarks land uncomfortably close to Princess Anne, long celebrated as the Royal Family’s hardest-working member, but this year was beat. 

In his 2023 memoir, the King’s youngest son recalled how the New Year period at Sandringham was far from peaceful for the the Firm, describing it as a time marked by tension and unspoken rivalry.

Prince Harry makes brutal swipe at Princess Anne and fans will be furious (Image: Getty)

Prince Harry has lifted the lid on how the royals really viewed public engagements (Image: Getty)

Writing about a Christmas spent with relatives after returning from a life-changing expedition to the South Pole in 2013, Harry said the experience clashed sharply with the clarity he had found away from royal life.

“I told myself to make the best of it, use this time to protect the serenity I’d achieved at the Pole,” he wrote. “My hard drive was cleaned. Alas, my family at that moment was infected with some very scary malware.”

King Charle’s son explained that the so-called “malware” centred on the Court Circular, the long-standing document issued daily by St James’s Palace and published in national newspapers, which details each royal’s official engagements.

While the record has existed for generations, Harry argued it had evolved into something far more toxic.

Princess Anne has been dubbed as the ‘hardest working royal’ after carrying out most royal engagements (Image: Getty)

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“The Court Circular was an ancient document, but it had lately morphed into a circular firing squad,” he wrote. “It didn’t create the feelings of competitiveness that ran in my family, but it amplified them, weaponized them.”

According to Harry, the pressure surrounding the end-of-year tally of engagements often led to silent comparisons among family members, even though the subject was never openly discussed.

“That only created more tension under the surface, which built invisibly as the last day of the calendar year approached,” he recalled.

He claimed that some royals became fixated on boosting their numbers, regardless of the substance behind the engagements.

Back in December Prince Harry took part in The St. Regis World Snow Polo Championships (Image: Getty)

“Certain family members had become obsessed, feverishly striving to have the highest number of official engagements recorded in the Circular each year, no matter what,” he wrote, adding that this was sometimes achieved by logging interactions that “weren’t, strictly speaking, engagements.”

Harry went on to criticise the way royal work was assessed, arguing that meaningful but private efforts were often overlooked.

“It was all self-reported, all subjective. Nine private visits with veterans, helping with their mental health? Zero points. Flying via helicopter to cut a ribbon at a horse farm? Winner!”

While he did not single out any individual, royal watchers have noted that Princess Anne has frequently topped lists of the most engagements carried out each year – often praised publicly for her tireless work ethic.