Princess Beatrice and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor deliberately enacted a ‘power play’ over the rest of the Royal Family during the Queen’s 93rd birthday celebrations, a body language expert has claimed.
When Queen Elizabeth II arrived at Windsor’s St George’s Chapel in April 2019, she was joyously greeted by several royal women outside, including Zara Tindall, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Kate, The Princess of Wales.
Yet while all of the women observed the traditional etiquette of curtseying for Her Majesty, there was one obvious exemption: her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice.
As Beatrice, 37, stood at the entrance of the Chapel with her now disgraced father, the princess deviated from the norm by simply smiling at her grandmother, rather than respectfully curtseying.
It comes as Andrew and Beatrice’s relationship with the Royal Family has faced renewed scrutiny amid the unfolding scandal involving their ties to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Yet, according to Judi James, there were already signs that the pair were perhaps prone to deviating from royal protocol – six years before the scandal truly unfolded.
She claimed that Beatrice and Andrew’s positioning away from the rest of the royals and nearest to the entrance was deliberately taken by the ex-Duke to ‘gloat about his legendary role as the late Queen’s “favourite” son’.
Ms James told the Daily Mail: ‘Beatrice clearly shuns the act of respectfully greeting the other royal women so studiously and emphatically and stands upright and stares as her grandmother passes and walks into the church.
‘It gives the impression that Andrew is performing some status-leap frogging to define his own “special role” in the family with a spot of non-verbal power play.
‘He makes a bee-line for the spot nearest the door so he and Beatrice can dart in right behind the Queen, leaving Princess Anne lingering to one side and his brother Edward right at the back of the royal line.’
When Queen Elizabeth II arrived at Windsor’s St George’s Chapel in April 2019, all of the women observed the traditional etiquette of curtseying for Her Majesty apart from her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice
According to Judi James , Beatrice and Andrew’s positioning away from the rest of the royals and nearest to the entrance was deliberately taken by the ex-Duke to ‘gloat about his legendary role as the late Queen’s “favourite” son’. Pictured: Kate curtseying for the Queen
Ms James noted that both Andrew and Beatrice’s greeting towards the late Queen looked ‘deliberately casual’ as Andrew greeted his mother with ‘a cocked head and puckered brows that suggest he’s making an informal joke’.
‘Beatrice smiles but the smile drops as the Queen passes,’ she added.
In contrast, Kate, Zara and Sophie were all seen curtseying to her Majesty ‘with the addition of a warm, loving, more family-based smile’.
In particular, Ms James observed that Kate, then the Duchess of Cambridge, holds a degree of eye contact and smiles in a manner which shows the Queen that she is ‘delighted to have the chance to register her love and respect in public’.
Beatrice may well have curtseyed to her grandmother earlier in the day, and therefore did not technically need to do it again, according to traditional royal protocol.
However, in that instance, her seeming refusal to ‘pop an extra curtsey in as an added act of open respect on the Queen’s birthday’ and ‘avoid the ritual of the others’ appeared, Ms James suggested, ‘to send out a rather deliberate-looking message’.
She added that in contrast, the ‘other women bob down one after the other in public and the men lower their heads in an of deference and dedication’.
While Beatrice’s behaviour suggests a possibly more ‘distant’ relationship with the late Queen, there is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that the pair shared a rather close bond.
Ms James told the Daily Mail: ‘Beatrice clearly shuns the act of respectfully greeting the other royal women so studiously and emphatically and stands upright and stares as her grandmother passes and walks into the church’
In contrast, Kate, Zara and Sophie were all seen curtseying to her Majesty ‘with the addition of a warm, loving, more family-based smile’
Indeed, Her Majesty was said to have stayed especially close to Beatrice and Eugenie and felt strongly they should retain an important role in the Firm, despite calls for a streamlined or ‘slimmed-down’ monarchy in the final years of her life.
A senior member of the Queen’s court previously told The Mail on Sunday that, while she would publicly be seen to support Charles as he plans for the future, she was adamant that his hopes of sidelining Beatrice and Eugenie could prove impractical.
‘The Queen adores the girls and is keen for them to have some kind of a role,’ said the source. ‘Charles’s vision for a streamlined family is all very well, but how can the Royal Family do everything it currently does with just five players?,’ they said.
So fond of her two granddaughters was the late Queen that she even gifted Beatrice and Eugenie the lavish Grade II-listed Birch Hall in 1997, following their parents’ separation.
With a price tag of £1.5million, the seven-bedroom sprawling estate came fit with a tennis court and pool. However, their mother, Sarah Ferguson, declined the kind offer as she was reportedly concerned about the vast upkeep of the large home.
Meanwhile, when Beatrice wed Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in an intimate ceremony at Windsor’s Royal Chapel of All Saints, the Queen loaned Beatrice a Sir Norman Hartnell gown as her wedding dress.
The vintage Norman Hartnell dress, remodelled by Angela Kelly and Stewart Parvin, was worn by the late Queen for a state dinner in Rome in 1961, the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia premiere and the 1966 State Opening of Parliament.
Beatrice was said to have made a ‘last minute request’ to borrow her grandmother’s gown after having a sudden ‘change of heart’ about her original wedding dress, according to insiders.
The princess also wore the same tiara the Queen wore at her own wedding to Philip in 1947 – the Queen Mary diamond fringe tiara.
Fashioned in 1919 from a necklace given to Queen Victoria, it is a treasured heirloom and was lent to Queen Elizabeth and Princess Anne on their wedding days.
On Beatrice’s big day, the Queen was pictured beaming at her beloved granddaughter, with one friend later telling the Daily Mail that the princess often spoke fondly about her grandmother.
They added that it was ‘clear’ there was a ‘strong bond’ between the two royals, making the borrowed dress ‘perfect’.
When Beatrice wed Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in an intimate ceremony at Windsor’s Royal Chapel of All Saints, the Queen loaned her own vintage gown as her wedding dress. She also wore the same tiara the monarch had worn on her wedding day in 1947
However, while the grandmother and granddaughter were always said to have been close, Her Majesty was forced to intervene in May 2006 when Beatrice started a relationship with then 24-year-old Paolo Liuzzo, a troubled playboy.
According to royal author Andrew Lownie, the late Queen ‘ordered’ Beatrice to break up with her polo-playing American beau because of his dark past.
Liuzzo had been charged with manslaughter during his time at university in Massachusetts after a drunken fight led to the death of a teenager.
The charge was later reduced to assault, with Liuzzo, who was studying at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, serving a suspended sentence instead of a jail term.
When Her Majesty learned of Liuzzo’s criminal charges, she immediately called a ‘secret summit’ with Beatrice’s parents and ordered that her granddaughter cut ties with Liuzzo.
He recalled: ‘The Queen was so concerned that a scandal was about to engulf yet another young Royal that she ordered the Duke, Fergie and Beatrice to attend a secret summit with her to discuss the situation.’
On another occasion, Mr Lownie described how Beatrice was rather disgruntled when she was unable to ride in a carriage with the Queen at a Royal Ascot in 1992, with Her Majesty seemingly less than sympathetic towards the young princess.
The princess, then aged four ‘watched from the roadside as the Queen passed by’ and ‘cried out: “Can we come, too?”‘
The Queen, however, ‘just carried on waving’.
According to Ms James, the body language of Beatrice and Andrew during the Queen’s 93rd birthday celebrations suggests that Andrew was ‘keen to promote the idea of having a high level of status within the royal Firm’.
She added: ‘The bond between the Queen and the Princess must have been strong, meaning the body language in this clip might be more about Andrew’s attempt to pull royal rank.’
Yet six years on, Andrew’s status in the Royal Family has almost entirely dissipated.
The disgraced ex-Duke was arrested on his 66th birthday and detained by officers during an 8am raid on his new home at Wood Farm. In events that rocked the Royal Family, he became the first senior royal to be arrested in modern times.
However, during Queen Elizabeth’s lifetime, Andrew was widely believed to be her favourite child who had ‘never done anything wrong in her eyes’.
She remained fiercely protective of her second son throughout her life, even after Andrew was accused of sexual assault by late Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, in 2019.
Weeks after the Giuffre settlement, Andrew escorted the Queen to Prince Philip’s memorial service at London’s Westminster Abbey in March 2022.
‘In her final days, she kept him close, shielding him as palace insiders continued to push for his total exile,’ royal author Robert Jobson noted in his book The Windsor Legacy.
Confiding ‘her support’ for Andrew to a trusted aide, the monarch allegedly said: ‘You have to remember, he is my son’.
Following her tragic death in September 2022, Andrew was said to have ‘lost his strongest ally’ while Charles wanted his brother to be ‘cut adrift’.
