In a family that depends on genetic inheritance, you’d have thought blood was thicker than water. But the King has cast his nieces Beatrice and Eugenie out into the cold this Easter.
They won’t be staying at Sandringham with him – though, who knows, they might hang out with their disgraced father in his newly acquired plastic caravan, just down the road on the Sandringham Estate.
It’s unfair of the King – but the right thing to do. He realises that, for the monarchy to survive, there must be broad public affection for and trust in the institution.
Beatrice and Eugenie would hog the headlines if they went to church – and turn them negative with the inevitable references to the royal Alan Partridge slumming it in the neighbouring caravan.
And the slow drip-drip of bad headlines has its long-term effect on the monarchy. The Firm remains broadly popular but its approval ratings have declined in recent years after the death of the Queen, the disgrace of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the exile and tittle-tattle of the Sussexes.
It’s better for the King to see his nieces in private, as I’m sure he does. The public-facing side of the monarchy must reduce the fallout from Andrew’s disgrace. In private, the Royal Family can remain exactly that – a family who see each other as much, or as little, as they want to.
Beatrice and Eugenie’s marginalisation is an accidental part of the progress of the Royal Family over the last 21 years. Ever since Charles’s marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, first the Queen and now the King have slimmed down the Royal Family.
The cousins – the Gloucesters and the Kents, who have done so many royal duties over the years – have necessarily cut down on them, due to age, retirement and, in the case of the late Duchess of Kent, death.
The plan was originally for the Royal Family to be whittled down to a thin line from the late Queen, through the direct line of succession, to Charles, William and Harry – and, in time, William and Harry’s children.
With the late Queen’s death and Harry’s self-imposed exile, that leaves the monarchy in the hands of Charles and William – with special guest star roles for Princess Anne and Prince Edward, who have admirably followed the royal duties path.
It isn’t just their father’s catastrophe that leaves Beatrice and Eugenie out in the cold. The nature of the Royal Family means they are increasingly slipping away from the limelight. Princess Beatrice was fifth in line to the throne when she was born; she’s now ninth. Eugenie, sixth in line when she was born, is now 12th.
It’s increasingly the case, too, that royal status is all or nothing. Either you give over your life entirely to royal duties – and accept the perks, as well as the tedium, that come with it. Or you live a private life and earn your own living, free of the tedium – but deprived, too, of the Ready Brek glow of royal status.
You can’t be half-in, half-out, as the late Queen essentially decided in her 2020 statement. The Sussexes then agreed to step back from royal duties, including official military appointments, and would no longer receive public funds for royal duties.
The Sussexes have stuck to the letter of that agreement. But they have failed in its spirit. They are still essentially piggybacking off their royal connections to flog second-rate TV and overpriced jam – that no one would give a second glance to but for Harry’s bloodline.
Princess Beatrice and Eugenie both have private working lives, for a software company and the Hauser and Wirth gallery respectively. Their husbands, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Jack Brooksbank, work, too, as a property developer and marketing executive.
There’s bound to be a little inheritance cash floating around in the princesses’ current accounts. And Beatrice and Eugenie each have a London bolt-hole, in St James’s Palace and Kensington Palace (addresses billionaires would kill for).
Between all these things, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t retire into a comfortable, private life, looking after their families, developing their careers and enjoying the pleasures that come from close proximity in blood and geography to the most famous family on the planet.
But any hope of royal duties for the princesses – which Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is said to covet for them – are over. Of course, they will go to big royal events: weddings, christenings, funerals and coronations. But the big picture opportunities like the Easter church service at Sandringham are over.
The princesses would never spark the same horror as Andrew and Fergie did, standing in the front row outside Westminster Cathedral at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral last year.
But, still, the princesses are now distinctly back-row material in the Royal Family.
Harry Mount is author of How England Made the English (Penguin, £12.99)
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