They’re still trying to push Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie out of any kind of public life or royal life. This whole “B&E need to go far away” issue was a big storyline a few months ago, but then the left-behinds got distracted by other things (like a successful tour of Australia), so they stopped attacking the York princesses every single day. But with several big events coming up on the royal calendar, they’re back to attacking and scapegoating Beatrice and Eugenie. According to a Royalist Substack exclusive, B&E will not attend Peter Phillips’ wedding, nor will they attend Royal Ascot! Prince William has been screaming and threatening B&E about Ascot for months, so it sounds like he finally got his way (at least, according to Tom Sykes).
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie will likely skip the wedding of their first cousin Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling after it was revealed their father, ex-Prince Andrew, is being investigated over a suspected sex offense at Royal Ascot in 2002, I can exclusively reveal.
The two princesses have been left mortified “all over again” by the latest developments and do not want to overshadow the bride and groom’s big day, I am told.
Although it has been widely reported that the princesses would attend the wedding in recent days, a source said this was “never as concrete” as had been portrayed. The source said that while they had indeed RSVP’d to say they intended to come, and those RSVPs had not as yet been canceled, they would “never want to overshadow the bride and groom’s happy day.”
The source said that the new revelations about Andrew which emerged on Friday, with Thames Valley Police saying they had widened their inquiry into misconduct in public office to include sexual misconduct, had cast doubt on the prospect of the princesses attending either the wedding, on June 6 or Royal Ascot which runs from June 16-20.
The source said the revelation in today’s Sunday Times that Andrew was now being investigated for alleged sex misconduct while attending Royal Ascot himself in 2002, after arriving in the royal procession with his brother (below) and while his mother was also present, had effectively ended any prospect that his daughters could attend either the race meeting or the wedding.
The news that they are likely to now pull out will be a grim and Pyrrhic victory for Prince William, who considers that his father acted with undue haste to show solidarity with the princesses by inviting them to Christmas at Sandringham, and was furious at briefings that he believes emanated from his father’s office saying that the King wanted the princesses to attend Ascot.
He was particularly dismayed by his father’s decision given the fact that documents emerged after Christmas from the Epstein files showing that in one business deal Andrew proposed to the Rowland banking family that his daughters should receive “$50k each.” Sources close to Beatrice and Eugenie told the Mail on Sunday that the princesses have no memory of the alleged $50,000 payments proposed by their father and have sought access to their historical bank records.
William has demanded the princesses submit to an “ethical audit” of their finances before he will rubber-stamp their reintegration into the family’s inner circle.
The question of whether Beatrice and Eugenie would attend Ascot had already become another fault line between Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace in recent months, producing a prolonged and undignified briefing war between the two camps.
I actually forgot the drama about B&E skipping Easter Sunday with King Charles, and that did seem like an admission that the princesses were no longer welcome at more high-profile royal events. Anyway, this reads like a briefing from William’s office, where William is trying to publicly order B&E to stay away from a family wedding AND Ascot. For what it’s worth, I think B&E will attend Peter’s wedding. But I do enjoy the fact that William and Kate’s brand remains strong: they are childish drama queens about other people’s weddings, and they both seek to control wedding guest lists, bridesmaids’ dresses, wedding locations, etc. Will and Kate are the Wedding Grinches. As for Ascot, that sounds like wishful thinking too, but we’ll see how it pans out. My guess? B&E will be allowed to go to Ascot, just not on the day Will & Kate are there.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
