Four-year-old girl offered to ‘show’ Princess Royal how to curtsy

An American professor of law who flew from Texas to receive an honorary knighthood said his four-year-old daughter once offered to show the Princess Royal how to curtsy.

Sir Philip Bobbitt, who received an honorary knighthood at Buckingham Palace on Friday for “services to UK/USA relations and public life”, is known in the UK for his work on international security and constitutional law.

Speaking after the ceremony, the 76-year-old professor of jurisprudence at the Columbia University School of Law said he and Anne reminisced about the time they met in New York in 2023 – when one of Sir Philip’s twin daughters offered her a lesson in curtseying.

“When the Princess Royal and I had met in New York, one of my then four-year-old twins had curtsied,” Sir Philip said. “And the Princess Royal had complimented her on her curtsy.

“And my child said: ‘You see, it’s all in the back. You have to keep your back straight’.

“She said, ‘I could show you’.

Professor Sir Philip Bobbitt with family members after being made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (Andrew Matthews/PA)PA Wire/PA Images - Andrew Matthews

“She (Anne) and I just talked about that.”

The professor, who was once dubbed the “James Bond of Columbia Law” in a New York Observer profile, said he was “extremely pleased” at being made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

He said: “It reminds me that I’m really just a stand-in for the millions of Americans who are devoted to the Anglo-American relationship.”

He added: “Of course it’s a great honour.

“But the point I would like to make is that never in my lifetime has that relationship been of more importance – not just to the two countries, but to the world itself.”

Commenting on the soon-to-conclude presidential race between vice-president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, Sir Philip said: “It’s a very close election, so there is a good deal of uncertainty about the future.

“The underlying relationship is more than any individual, even the president, could really disturb.

“It goes back to our shared culture and history, and our faith in the liberal democratic institutions.”

Sir Philip, who lives in Austin and New York City with his wife, Maya Ondalikoglu Bobbitt, and their four children Pasha, Rebekah, and twins Louisa and Eliza, is the author of 10 books on political theory and history – including The Shield of Achilles, The Ages of American Law, and Terror and Consent: the Wars for the Twenty-first Century.