Princess Eugenie announced her pregnancy last week. She’s expecting her third, with husband Jack Brooksbank. Interestingly, Eugenie allowed Buckingham Palace to make the announcement or confirmation, and the palace’s statement very carefully avoided saying the names of Eugenie’s parents. I mean, Eugenie’s father was arrested in February and Eugenie’s mother has been on the run and in hiding abroad for the better part of five months. I don’t blame anyone for not including Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s names in the pregnancy announcement. Allegedly, Eugenie didn’t even tell her father the pregnancy news – Andrew reportedly found out in a phone conversation with Sarah. This is all according to the Mail, which had several big stories about the House of York this weekend, almost all of which were centered on Eugenie’s pregnancy and how the knives are out for the Yorks.
Eugenie wondered about how to announce her pregnancy: The Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal that the Palace became involved in issuing a formal proclamation only after Eugenie’s cousin Zara Tindall, one of the few to have been entrusted with the news, persuaded her to write to the King. A royal source has told me that Eugenie did so via an Easter card accompanied by a carefully written letter sent to her uncle. ‘She and Jack were quite surprised by the warmth of the Palace response,’ says the well-placed source, who claims that while the King is reported to feel protectively towards his nieces, they have seen little real sign of it in recent months….The couple had feared a frostier reception and had been contemplating making a media announcement of their own without the Palace being involved, but the King made contact and asked his officials to make a formal announcement.’ That proclamation, the MoS has learned, was purposefully delayed to ensure it didn’t overshadow the King and Queen’s recent overseas trip to the US and Bermuda.
Camilla wants the Yorks obliterated! But if the King’s kind-hearted response was something of a surprise then so too was the absence of Queen Camilla’s name from the congratulatory missive. Queen Camilla, the MoS has been told, is among those ‘leading the anti-York faction’, closely followed by Prince William, who remains furious at the way his uncle’s misdemeanours have cast a shadow across the monarchy he will one day inherit. According to the source: ‘She took a back seat on the scandal for quite a while out of deference to the King’s familial loyalties and to his health. But as the King’s health has improved she was instrumental in pushing him to act.’ More recently, she is said to have formed the opinion that Eugenie, who is a director of Mayfair art gallery Hauser & Wirth, and Beatrice should stop using their titles, albeit on a voluntary basis.
Eugenie hasn’t been in contact with her father in months: Eugenie is said to have left it to her scandal-ridden mother to share news of a new Baby Brooksbank by phone with her 66-year-old father, the erstwhile Duke of York. While Fergie was one of the first to hear of the pregnancy, I am told that Eugenie has not been in touch with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor since he was stripped of his titles and kicked out of Royal Lodge in Windsor. ‘Andrew found out that he was to be a grandpa again via Sarah,’ says the source.
Sarah & Andrew aren’t issuing statements: ‘Sarah is in hiding, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate for her to talk about the expected baby publicly,’ one of her old friends said last week. ‘But of course she was one of the first to hear the news, directly from Eugenie. They spoke at length. This is what mothers and daughters do.’
How Prince William feels: Prince William, too, is said to be concerned about his cousins’ links to Epstein, a subject on which both have maintained an uncomfortable silence. According to the source: ‘William was keen to keep the girls close and not let them be tainted by the sins of their father and the stupidity of both parents, but the Epstein revelations mean he has abandoned that plan. The way he and Kate have pointedly not publicly welcomed the baby news is a sign of how things have changed.’
Line of succession: The impending arrival of Eugenie’s third child has also heaped further pressure on the ongoing debate about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s place in the line of succession. Calls for him to be removed have extended to suggestions that the entire House of York, including Beatrice, Eugenie and their descendants, should suffer the same brutal fate. While Eugenie is currently 12th in line to the throne, her new baby will be 15th, displacing Prince Edward who, unlike his nieces, is a working royal, clocking up 313 official engagements in 2025.
Camilla wants all of them out of the line of succession: The Queen has apparently concluded that all of the Yorks, including Beatrice, Eugenie and their children, should be excluded from the royal line. ‘Her attitude is that they are all a stain on the monarchy,’ says the source. However, when it comes to his younger brother, the King is said to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
The drumbeat of “eliminate all of the Yorks from the line of succession” is getting louder by the day, especially given that Eugenie’s Baby #3 will soon be ahead of Prince Edward and Princess Anne in the succession. While I think it’s likely that, in the next few years, Andrew will be removed from the line of succession, I kind of doubt that King Charles will remove Eugenie, Beatrice and their children. Now, a Scooter King might try, and when he does… well, say goodbye to the whole “royal blood is magic” thing. If someone can be removed from the succession just because their father is a degenerate criminal, then the line of the succession is going to have to remove a lot of people. The fact that Camilla is in some dark corner, leading the anti-York contingency is certainly interesting too, because Camilla used to be a great cheerleader for both Andrew and Sarah just a few years ago. Anyway, I’ve argued that both Eugenie and Beatrice need to get the hell out of there and I still believe it. F–k those titles and f–k royal privilege. Just get out of there and start new lives with your families.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.
