Beatrice and Eugenie are being largely excluded from royal events (Image: Getty)
The King’s decision to exclude Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie from this weekend’s Easter service at St George’s Chapel in Windsor is a sign that “the Royal Family seem to be repeating their mistakes with Andrew when it comes to Beatrice and Eugenie,” says royal biographer Andrew Lownie. In recent weeks, Lownie says, King Charles appears to have been sending “mixed signals” when it comes to the York sisters.
While Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s names appear hundreds of times in the latest batch of documents released by the US Department of Justice, there has never been any suggestion that they were involved in any wrongdoing. However, Lownie points out on his Lownie Report Substack that the sisters are being cut out of some royal occasions, but not others: “They’re banned from Royal Ascot, they’re banned from Easter, then suddenly they are now coming to Ascot.”
There’s a suggestion that William and Charles have different ideas on the Yorks (Image: Getty)
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He adds that the confused signals coming out of the palace could be the result of a power struggle behind the scenes. He explains: “Tom Sykes has pointed out that the Easter ban shows the waning power of the King in the face of an increasingly dominant William. This may well be the case, but if it is, then isn’t he repeating the mistakes of his father and grandmother?”
By contrast with Beatrice and Eugenie’s “half in, half out” status, their father Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor remains completely isolated. He is expected to spend a lonely Easter Sunday in his modest new quarters on the Sandringham estate.
Last year, Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson joined King Charles and Queen Camilla at St George’s Chapel for the Easter Sunday service.
The Prince and Princess of Wales missed last year’s event, choosing instead to spend the weekend with their children in Norfolk. They were also absent from the Easter celebrations in 2024, which came just over a week after Kate released an emotional video message revealing that she had started a course of preventative chemotherapy.
Andrew finds himself out in the cold (Image: Getty)
There is no possibility of Andrew making a public appearance at today’s traditional service at the 15th-century chapel. It also seems unlikely that he will ever again take part in a Windsor walkabout with the King, Queen, and Prince and Princess of Wales.
Beatrice and Eugenie’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, also finds herself very much out in the cold. She has almost completely disappeared from public view in recent weeks, apparently “sofa surfing” in the homes of famous and wealthy friends around the world.
While Sarah has been rumoured to have been staying with various celebrities, including her ex-boyfriend Paddy McNally and long-time friend Priscilla Presley, her exact whereabouts over the past few months remain unclear. She was last seen in public on December 12, 2025, arriving at St James’s Palace for the christening of her granddaughter Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi.
Sarah Ferguson has disappeared from public view (Image: Getty)
« She went to Northern Ireland. She went to a spa there. She went to Verbier. She stayed in a chalet lent to her by Paddy McNally, who’s an old friend, » royal expert Matt Wilkinson said on HELLO!’s A Right Royal podcast.
Meanwhile, according to Vogue writer Plum Sykes, Beatrice and Eugenie appeared in good form and “doing fine” at a Cotswolds party last month, but their mother is reportedly looking increasingly dishevelled and worn down by her recent travails.
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