What next for princesses Beatrice and Eugenie?
Kate Samuelson
Prince Andrew has avoided a potential public trial over sex abuse claims against him by agreeing a multimillion-pound settlement with his accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
But while the Duke of York continues to deny all the allegations against him, the case will now never be settled in the court of public opinion – leaving the rest of the Royal Family facing the fallout from the scandal.
Andrew’s road back to official royal status appears forever barred, and a question mark hovers over where his out-of-court settlement leaves his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Their royal duties had been expected to expand after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit the UK, but the future role to be played by the sisters in royal life is now unclear.
When Harry and Meghan made the sensational decision to step back from royal duties two years ago, ultimately moving to California, it was widely believed that Beatrice and Eugenie would take on more prominent public roles for “the Firm”.
Over the years, the sisters have appeared at large royal events, from Westminster Abbey services to the annual Trooping of the Colour ceremony. However, they are not full-time working members of the family and have civilian jobs, a combination that Beatrice described as “hard to navigate… because there is no precedent, there is no protocol” in an interview with Vogue’s Ellie Pithers in 2018.
In the days following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell announcement, Robert Lacey, the historical consultant for The Crown, told Mail Online that he thought Beatrice and Eugenie would “be brought forward” because it’s “what the royal family needs”.
This was something Prince Andrew pushed for from within the family, according to Hilary Rose in The Times. She wrote that the Duke of York had “hoped that Megxit” would lead to “greater roles on the royal stage for his daughters”.
However, this promotion that royal experts had anticipated and Prince Andrew had pinned his hopes on never happened. “Andrew’s years of lobbying for the ‘blood Princesses’ to have a greater role in The Firm… has finally been thwarted,” said royal correspondent Rebecca English and columnist Alison Boshoff in the Daily Mail.
Following the Duke of York’s disastrous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis in November 2019, a royal aide confirmed that Beatrice and Eugenie would continue undertaking “a small number of royal engagements each year”.
When Prince Charles inherits the throne, their number of engagements may shrink even further. The Prince of Wales is famously in favour of a streamlined future monarchy with fewer public-facing family members.
“Under his plan the number of front-rank royals, we would see at formal ceremonial occasions would be considerably reduced with Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie the most likely to be surplus to requirements,” said Richard Kay.
