Today In History – The Botched Kidnapping Attempt on Princess Anne

2026-03-20 - 09:34

Four people were shot in a botched kidnapping attempt on Princess Anne on March 20, 1974. The princess was returning to Buckingham Palace from a movie when a car forced her Rolls Royce to stop on Pall Mall. The would-be kidnapper Ian Ball jumped from his car and opened fire, striking driver Alexander Callender and bodyguard James Beaton. “I want you to come with me for a day or two, because I want two million,” Ball told Anne as she hid in the backseat. “Will you get out of the car?” Anne famously replied: “Not bloody likely. And I haven’t got two million.” A reporter who just happened to be walking past recognised Anne’s car and approached the gunman. “Don’t be silly, old boy. Put the gun down,” he said. Ball shot him in the chest. When a police officer arrived, Ball shot him in the stomach. Over the course of 15 minutes, Ball and Anne argued, with the princess refusing to get out of the car. It was at this point that retired heavyweight Ronnie Russell happened to drive past and saw the commotion. The 6’4′′ heavyweight parked his car, walked over and intervened as Anne became caught in a tug-of-war between Ball and her newlywed husband Mark Phillips. “She was calm. She said: ‘Go away you silly man’,” Russell said later. “At that point I thought it was now or never. I hit Ball very hard, square on the chin.” “The only person I did not want to get shot was Princess Anne.” All the men shot in the kidnapping attempt survived. Russell later said that two police officers told him that the Queen would pay off his mortgage as a thank you. In anticipation of this, he stopped making his repayments. But the policemen’s comments turned out not to be true, and he lost his home. The Queen did later award him the George Cross, the highest civilian honour for bravery. Ball would plead guilty to three counts of attempted murder and kidnapping. He was detained for 45 years and released in 2019.