Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have made a major move to distance themselves from their recently-disgraced parents, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson.
Back in October, Buckingham Palace officials announced that King Charles III had stripped his brother, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, of his final military titles, and his dukedom, in light of damning new allegations regarding his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It was simultaneously revealed that the father-of-two had been evicted from Royal Lodge, where he and ex-wife Ferguson have lived since 2004.
Less than a month later, ahead of the posthumous release of Andrew’s alleged victim Virginia Giuffre’s harrowing memoir, in which she detailed sexual encounters with the 65-year-old which allegedly occurred when she was a minor, it was also revealed that his ‘Prince’ title had been dropped.
Andrew wasn’t the only royal to face the humiliating ritual, however, with 66-year-old Ferguson also being forced to surrender her ‘Duchess of York’ title, which she’d previously retained in something of a rarity after the pair’s divorce in 1996.
The honour was revoked following the emergence of an email sent by her to Epstein – who took his own life in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking offences – back in 2011, in which she described the paedophile as both a ‘supreme’ and ‘dear, dear friend’.
In response, Ferguson’s team insisted that the messages had been sent as a counter to a defamation threat by the late media mogul, and that she’d previously spoken ‘of her regret about her association with Epstein many years ago’.
As a result of the double disgrace, it was later confirmed that neither Andrew nor Ferguson would be invited to spend Christmas at Sandringham with King Charles, Queen Camilla, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, amongst other senior royals.
Naturally, questions were then raised as to how their daughters, Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, would spend the build-up to 25 December, as well as the big day itself.
By the looks of things, however, the King is refusing to let his nieces pay the price of their parents’ mistakes, and as such, the pair were spotted arriving at Buckingham Palace yesterday (16 December), to celebrate the family’s annual Christmas Lunch.
Beatrice, who shares two daughters, Sienna, four, and Athena, 11 months, with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, was seen smiling alongside her little sister, as they met with Prince William and Kate Middleton outside the royal residence.
Eugenie, who has two sons, August, four, and Ernest, one, with other-half Jack Brooksbank, also appeared thrilled to be joining her cousin and their three children, George, Charlotte and Louis, for the special reunion.
The group were also joined by the King’s youngest brother, Prince Edward, and his wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh, Sophie, who were later seen arriving alongside their daughter, Lady Amelia Windsor.
According to The Mail (among other sources), around the same time in the morning, Andrew was photographed several miles away, riding his horse around Windsor Park in the pouring rain.
