Can it really be true that Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are ‘agonising’ over a ‘tug-of-love’ dilemma? Whether to spend Christmas with the Royal Family at Sandringham or with their father Andrew at Royal Lodge in Windsor before he moves out?
How could they have any doubt about what to do? How could they possibly contemplate leaving Dad alone at Christmas?
However disgraced Andrew is, whatever the shame he has dumped on the monarchy, he is their father. A father being chucked out of the home he loves, and which happens to be where they were both brought up.
Yes, they may have been invited to Sandringham by the King But surely Christian charity and daughterly duty demand they turn that invitation down – I really hope they do.
I may be wronging them, but my fear there is not a hope in hell they will choose Daddy over the King. In fact I would bet each of the Princesses’ grace-and-favour homes – inhabited at greatly reduced rents courtesy of the Crown Estate – that they abandon Andrew this Christmas.
After all, these two privileged princesses, neither of whom are working royals, will surely be determined to secure and strengthen their special relationship with Charles in order to continue to make the most of the royal status.
Andrew’s biographer Andrew Lownie has said both of them have been earning large sums of money in the Middle East, while there have been claims that the sisters received money from a Turkish millionaire linked to Andrew.
Whether true or not, there is no doubt being royal – and in particular the HRH title which even Diana was stripped of after divorce from Charles – gives them earning powers beyond ordinary folk like you and me.
Beatrice, right, and Eugenie are facing a dilemma about whether to spend Christmas at Sandringham or with Andrew at Royal Lodge
If the princesses have a shred of decency, they’d remember the years and years Andrew spoilt them rotten before his fall from grace, writes Amanda Platell
So, for them, that link with King Charles and Prince William is crucial – it’s something they can monetise even if it continues to bewilder the diminishing ranks of us loyal monarchists.
Let’s not forget it was only in October this year that ‘Princess Beatrice HRH’, as she styled herself, hosted a women’s business-leaders’ tea at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital.
It was at the same Ritz-Carlton in 2017 that 400 of the Saudi establishment’s old guard – princes, tycoons and ministers – were rounded up and detained, some even tortured, in what became the most contentious purge of power in the country’s history.
What on earth was Princess Beatrice doing fawning over some of the richest people on the planet in the very building where the purge took place? What was she thinking?
Did she attend out of the goodness of her heart, or was she paid to grace the occasion with her presence? We will never know as her personal finances, like that of her father’s, are private and not publicly disclosed.
Which provides us with another uncomfortable truth. Why are the princesses, both married to wealthy men and both having their own fortunes, still sponging off the royal purse?
As recent investigations into the royals household accommodations revealed, Princess Beatrice retains a grace-and-favour apartment in St James’s Palace, while also living in a private home in the Cotswolds.
Meanwhile, Eugenie has Ivy Cottage within Kensington Palace, as well as her Portugal home.
Which takes us back to the original question. Will the two princesses this Christmas choose to suck up to the King this Christmas – or prove themselves loving daughters to their fatally flawed father who adores them and gifted them privilege and prosperity their entire lives?
If Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, have a shred of decency, they’d remember the years and years Andrew spoilt them rotten, before his fall from grace.
For them even to consider their choice of Christmas venues a ‘tug-of-love’ dilemma would be unforgivable. Surely the least their father can now expect is that they do not leave him home alone at Christmas.
