On Monday, British journalist Emily Maitlis spilled some interesting tea about an odd moment last week. Last Thursday, late in the day in the UK, there was a sudden buzz that some big news would be coming out of Windsor. Maitlis claimed that Buckingham Palace told various media outlets to station reporters and photographers somewhat close to Royal Lodge, and that they should expect some interesting “passing traffic.” Several royal reporters were camped out for hours, and the BBC apparently sent a helicopter. Then, the palace “chickened out,” according to Maitlis. They decided not to do whatever staged skit they had planned. Maitlis also revealed what she thought it was going to be: either a meeting between Prince William and the York princesses OR King Charles arriving at Royal Lodge to personally demand that Prince Andrew vacate the premises. From the Royalist Substack:
According to Emily Maitlis, palace officials even tipped off the media that King Charles would be photographed driving into Royal Lodge to read his brother the riot act last Thursday. Cameras trained their lenses on the gates.
But when a BBC chopper began hovering above Windsor Great Park, Buckingham Palace “chickened out,” suddenly calling off what would have been the most public act of royal discipline in years.
“There was a question,” Maitlis then said, “over whether there had been, earlier in the day, a meeting between Prince William and the princesses Beatrice and Eugenie saying: ‘You’ve got to get your dad to move out of Royal Lodge, otherwise we will start re-examining the state of your own titles.’”
It is a remark that is brutally, unmistakably William, given that the continued status of a whole raft of non-working royals as princes and princesses has long grieved William, who is planning a wholesale rewriting of the royal settlement when he accedes. William’s decision to threaten Beatrice and Eugenie is clearly tactical, but it will be seen as a personal betrayal by them, as he used to be close to them.
Yeah, at no point did Maitlis say that she definitively knows that William was in the area or that he would be part of this stunt. Personally, given the facts at hand, this whole incident strikes me as more of a “classic Charles” bungling. Charles and his courtiers have f–ked up the York situation from start to finish, and these days, they’re even trying to shove the late QEII under the bus and blame everything on her.
As for the idea that William would personally go to Eugenie and Beatrice and threaten them with the removal of their titles… I don’t see it. He would send someone to do that, or he would demand that his father do it and then Scooter King would take credit for it. This whole story is also fascinating because I’m almost positive that William was nowhere near Windsor last week. His kids’ school break, remember? He was either in Norfolk or he was on vacation in some undisclosed location. Interestingly, as Maitlis’s quotes went viral throughout the day, “sources” piped up and told the Telegraph this: “Sources close to both the Prince and the Princesses deny the existence of any meeting. The Prince also does not have the power to remove their titles, or to ask Parliament to do so.” Again, Maitlis was just theorizing, and I suspect William was nowhere near Windsor last week.
All that being said, people are gunning for Eugenie and Beatrice’s titles, HRHs and everything else. That’s abundantly clear, but I believe that Buckingham Palace is the one trying to manipulate the parents through the daughters.
“The Palace got very nervous… they blamed a “media circus” – a circus entirely of their own making.”
Journalists were tipped there “may be passing traffic” outside Royal Lodge on Thursday night… but it didn’t materialise.
@maitlis | @jonsopel pic.twitter.com/En5NScmpS2 — The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) October 27, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
