There are lots of conversations about Princess Beatrice and Eugenie this week. My working theory is that Prince Andrew only agreed to relinquish his royal titles and honors with the understanding that A) he could continue to live in Royal Lodge and B) his daughters’ titles would be unaffected. Well, people are coming for Royal Lodge, but I’m not sure if anything will happen with Beatrice and Eugenie. Eugenie is better positioned to weather this moment – she lives part-time in Portugal with her husband, she is less visible than her sister, and (imo) Eugenie has had one foot out the door of royal life for several years now. Beatrice, on the other hand, has historically enjoyed her parents’ contacts and she has involved herself in their disgraceful behavior. Well, one royalist is trying to help save the York princesses. From Richard Palmer’s piece in the i Newspaper:
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are expected to publicly distance themselves from their disgraced parents in the fallout over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The sisters – who are both said to be in shock amid lurid revelations about Prince Andrew and Sarah Feguson’s friendship with Epstein – want to remain loyal to their parents but wish to disentangle themselves from the toxic York brand, according to some royal insiders. But in private, the sisters have both been spending time with Andrew and Sarah, offering them solace amid ongoing revelations about their friendship with the late paedophile, according to those who know the family well.
“They’ve always been a very resilient family who support each other in times of crisis,” one friend said, denying rumours in royal circles over the weekend that the sisters had cut off contact with their parents. On Monday, Beatrice, 37, drove to see her parents at Royal Lodge as Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir – which details alleged sexual encounters with Andrew – hit the shelves.
As the elder daughter, Beatrice has been more involved in her parents’ affairs, offering advice to her father in particular, although her judgment has sometimes been called into question. She took notes for two hours when Andrew met the BBC Newsnight team in November 2019 and is reported to have advised him that agreeing to that ill-fated interview with Emily Maitlis would help clear the air. Beatrice has told friends, “I’m just numbed by it all,” as she struggles to process a succession of new revelations about her father.
Beatrice and Eugenie, 35, now face a difficult trick trying to navigate through the chaos left by their father’s enforced decision to give up using his Duke of York title and various honours. Andrew Lownie, whose biography Entitled gave a blistering account of the scandals surrounding Andrew and Sarah, believes Beatrice and Eugenie will have to try to distance themselves further now. “I think the sisters need to lie low until the dust has settled and to keep their hands clean,” he said. “They have their careers, families and charities.”
Professionally, however, it is in their interests to emphasise their connection to their uncle, King Charles, and the institution that has just heaped humiliation on their branch of the family. Being royal helps boost their profiles. The two Princesses, who occasionally attend royal events, both have business careers and receive no taxpayer-funded support. The King regards both Beatrice and Eugenie, who are respectively ninth and 12th in line to the throne, as blameless and has made it clear that they remain Princesses as the male-line grandchildren of a sovereign. Unlike Andrew and Sarah, they will be welcome to join the rest of the Royal Family at Sandringham for Christmas. “The King is fond of both of them and his intention is that they are unaffected,” one source said.
It’s like the royal reporters are trying to publicly convince Beatrice and Eugenie that they need to distance themselves from their parents, despite the royalists also knowing full well that Bea and Eugenie remain very close to Andrew and Sarah (they’re said to be especially close to Sarah, especially during and after her cancer battle). Well, at least one royalist is prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater – Amanda Platell devoted her Mail column to the princesses and how they need to be exiled from royal life as well.
After the disgraced Andrew and, by association, Fergie gave up their royal titles over links to the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein last week, the King and Prince William both made it clear that their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie will continue to be princesses – with all the trappings that royal blood brings. I – and I’m sure many others – am flabbergasted by the decision.
Why should we feel a shred of sympathy for the two pampered princesses who have lived their lives enjoying, unknowingly perhaps, vast privileges and wealth courtesy of their dishonoured father and his dodgy millionaire friends? And was this really the moment for Charles and his heir to go out on a limb for two non-working royals who have fed, like blue-blooded leeches, off their parents’ connections – and are now mothers and businesswomen in their own right? I think not.
Prince Andrew’s biographer Andrew Lownie, in his bombshell book Entitled, wrote that Beatrice and Eugenie ‘claim they’re modern princesses juggling jobs and children, but they’re just as entitled as their parents’. And he claimed that they, like their parents, have ‘shady’ connections to the super-rich of Saudi Arabia. Do the King and the Prince not realise that every time the public sees the pair, we are reminded of their awful, money-grubbing parents? Embracing them now only further damages their dwindling support, especially among young people – polls show of Generation Z, upon which the future of the Royal Family depends, only 30 per cent believe the monarchy is ‘good for Britain’.
King Charles and Prince William need a reality check: they must now go further and ban the princesses, as every time Beatrice and Eugenie appear in public they will again shine the spotlight on their family’s disgraceful legacy – and remind us that their father, still eighth in line to the throne, befriended a paedophile and then repeatedly lied about it. And, though the King and William might disagree, it is unthinkable to me that the princesses should be invited to the royal Christmas at Sandringham and the traditional walkabout after attending the Church of St Mary Magdalene.
Harsh it may be, but I feel little sympathy for Beatrice and Eugenie, however innocent they may be. They should be self-aware enough to know that their presence at any royal event would be a disastrous distraction – and serves no one but themselves. If, unlike their parents, they have a shred of decency and indeed care for the future of the Royal family, they could completely disappear from royal life and get on with their happy married lives and children and their successful businesses. That would be the appropriate way to show respect for the enduring pain suffered by Epstein’s young victims.
I mean… a broken clock, etc. Platell is heavy-handed, for sure, and I’m not prepared to put this much on Beatrice and Eugenie’s shoulders. Despite everything, I still have some sympathy for them and I can’t even imagine what it was like growing up with those ghastly parents. As I said, I think Eugenie has had the right idea for years now – she’s carved out her own life, away from the Windsors. She has a job, her husband works and makes a good salary, she lives abroad for part of the year. Beatrice is the one who wants to be accepted by the family, and she wants to be a working royal. And that’s not going to happen. PS… I always love how royalists treat “Sandringham Christmas” like it’s the most coveted invitation out there. Please. No one gives a sh-t.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Sarah’s social media and Eugenie’s social media.
