With just six weeks to go until Christmas, a royal guessing game
has begun and two princesses are at the centre of it.
There are already reports that Princess Beatrice and Princess
Eugenie are planning to spend the festive season with the Royal
Family at Sandringham despite both their parents not expecting
invitations to The King’s Norfolk home this Christmas.
The two princesses were regulars at the royal celebrations at
Sandringham until last year. In 2024, both announced they would be
spending Christmas with their husband’s families and not at the
estate where King Charles gathers his relations, following the
tradition beloved by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
However, as controversy swirled around their father, Andrew
Mountbatten Windsor, last autumn after questions were raised over
his links with a suspected Chinese spy, he said he would stay away
from the royal Christmas at Sandringham and Beatrice and Eugenie
made other festive plans.
In the end, Princess Beatrice did head to Norfolk for the season
after doctors advised her not to travel – she was in the later
stages of her pregnancy with her daughter, Athena Mapelli Mozzi,
who was born at the start of 2025.
Princess Eugenie wasn’t there, spending the holidays elsewhere
with her husband, Jack Brooksbank, and their two sons, August and
Ernest.
However, this year it’s already thought the two princesses will
join the Royal Family at Sandringham. In recent days, royal author
Robert Hardman, has told the Daily Mail that King Charles is
concerned that the ”sins of the father” don’t have a negative
impact on Beatrice and Eugenie.
In the paper, Robert Hardman said ”they are blameless, they
have led a pretty upright life and are level-headed and very nice
young women.”
It’s led to speculation about where they will spend Christmas
with reports now indicting that they will choose the royal
gathering this December.
It’s expected that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, who was formally
stripped of his HRH and Prince last week when The King issued
Letters Patent, could spend Christmas at Royal Lodge. He is set to
leave the thirty room residence on the Windsor estate in early 2026
after surrendering his lease after further controversy when it was
revealed he didn’t pay a monetary rent on the property that he has
lived in since 2003.
Beatrice and Eugenie’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, lives at Royal
Lodge with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor but is understood to be
making her own living arrangements as they leave the property.
Buckingham Palace announced at the end of October that The King
had begun the process of removing the HRH and Prince and taking
away Andrew’s title of Duke of York.
The King later instructed the Lord Chancellor to remove the
title of Duke of York from the Roll of the Peerage.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has faced a number of fresh claims
about his friendship with convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, in
recent months. The posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre also
claimed she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times when she
was just 17. He denies that.
Andrew had originally said he would no longer use his title of
Duke of York but there was more anger when it became clear he would
still retain it. King Charles moved swiftly to remove the title for
good and the second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip has
now lost that and the other two titles he received on his wedding
day, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh.
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s titles aren’t affected
by the decision. They are both HRH and Princess because of the
Letters Patent issued in 1917 by their great, great grandfather,
King George V. Those state that all grandchildren of a Monarch in
the male line (ie the children of a Monarch’s son) are entitled to
use HRH and Prince or Princess.
