“Britain’s Princess Anne paid tribute to her father, Prince Philip, as the royal family grieved his death ahead of the funeral this weekend.

““My father has been my teacher, my supporter and my critic, but mostly it is his example of a life well lived and service freely given that I most wanted to emulate,” Anne, Queen Elizabeth II and Philip’s only daughter, said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace on Sunday.

““You know it’s going to happen but you are never really ready,” she said of her father’s death Friday.

“Along with Anne’s tribute, the royal family shared a black-and-white photo of the princess and her father laughing at the 2012 London Olympic. The two were known to have had an especially close relationship.”

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