Royals who’ve had shocking near-dear experiences

In 1981. Queen Elizabeth was riding in the Trooping the Colour ceremony when she was fired at by 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant - who luckily only fired six blank shots at her. Her horse was startled by the noise but the Queen managed to calm her steed and continued on with the parade. Her would-be assassin was prosecuted under the 1842 Treason Act and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in a Psychiatric facility.

That same year while she was touring New Zealand, another disturbed teenager called Christopher John Lewis shot at her from a building in Dunedin as the Queen's motorcade passed five storeys below. In the 1981 annual police report, the security breach was highlighted: "The discharge of a firearm during the visit of Her Majesty the Queen serves to remind us all of the potential risks to royalty, particularly during public walks."

Several years later she was nearly shot at again by her own guardsman as she took a 3am stroll around the gardens of Buckingham Palace . “Bloody hell, Your Majesty. I nearly shot you,” the man said after he realized that the figure in the garden wasn't an intruder. According to an account of the astonishing encounter, Her Majesty quipped in response: “That’s quite all right. Next time I’ll ring through beforehand so you don’t have to shoot me!”

Guards at Buckingham Palace had been on high alert ever since an intruder managed to break into the Queen's bedroom in 1982. Michael Fagan had climbed the walls around the Palace and then spent 10 minutes talking to the Queen in her room. She calmly called for a footman who held the intruder until the police arrived.

The year was 1974 and Princess Anne and then husband Captain Mark Phillips were being driven back to Buckingham Palace after a charity event when Ian Ball pulled up his car in front of the Princess' limousine. Royal protection officer James Beaton was shot three times as he fought off the would-be kidnapper. The driver and a passing journalist were also caught in the crossfire. Thanks to James' bravery, the kidnap was thwarted and a group of civilians and police officers wrestled the gunman to the ground. Thankfully, no-one was killed and Princess Anne and Captain Phillips were uninjured.

In 1988 Anne's brother Prince Charles was himself involved in a tragic accident. Skiing with a group of friends in Switzerland, the party was suddenly hit by an avalanche. The Prince was able to ski to safety but his close friend Major Hugh Lindsay was killed and another member of the party suffered serious leg injuries. A day after the tragedy the royal party, with Major Hugh Lindsay's coffin, flew back to RAF Northolt in London to a guard of honor from his regiment, the 9th/12th Lancers.

Charles' wife Camilla also had a hair-raising experience in 2018. The Duchess of Cornwall was traveling from the Sandringham Flower Show in the royal helicopter when it almost crashed into a Canadian 19-passenger utility aircraft that had failed to alert flight controllers to its presence. Then, 45 minutes later, Camilla's helicopter made another emergency manoeuvre as it prepared to land to avoid hitting a glider.

Prince Andrew's ex-wife revealed exclusively to our sister publication HELLO! that she narrowly escaped getting caught up in the September 11 tragedy, thanks to being held up in traffic on the day. The mother-of-two explained that in 2001 her charity Chances For Children had an office on the 101st floor of the North Tower of the Twin Towers in New York. Since she got caught in a traffic jam for 20 minutes, she hadn't arrived at the office when the terrorist attack occurred.

"I take every minute as a blessing, I really do, and I really work hard at it. Because the minute you look far forward then you're missing now. The minute you look back…you can't go back. Hindsight is a wonderful thing," she told HELLO!

During the national holiday of Konininnedag (or Queen's Day) a Dutch nationalist drove his car at high speed into a crowd of people, aiming to kill Queen Beatrix and Prince Willem-Alexander. The attack resulted in eight deaths (including that of the attacker) and ten injuries. No members of the royal family were hurt.

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Of course, some royals haven't been so fortunate. Princess Diana was killed in a traffic accident in Paris in 1997, when the car she was travelling in at high speed span out of control in a tunnel.

Prince Friso of the Netherlands was in a coma for 18 months after a skiing accident and died in 2013.

And Grace Kelly died in a car accident in Monaco in 1982 in which daughter Princess Stephanie luckily escaped with fractured vertebra in her neck.