Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have been keeping “a low profile” after their father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested on February 19. The pair have reportedly been asked not to attend Royal Ascot this June, and Eugenie recently stepped down from her role at the charity she co-founded, The Anti-Slavery Collective. Amid the continued fallout from the York family’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, one royal expert has predicted that the sisters will either lose their princess titles or give them up voluntarily.“In my view, in the future, they will end up losing their royal titles,” royal correspondent Richard Palmer told the Mirror. “It might be cleaner for all involved,” he added. “Being princesses who are non-working royals is confusing for people already because they have titles but they don’t do anything for the monarchy, they don’t do anything for the nation.” Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie both have full-time jobs, with Eugenie working for art gallery Hauser & Wirth and Beatrice employed at software company Afiniti. “They’re essentially just private individuals who get privileges of being members of the Royal Family—but they’re probably going to have to say goodbye to some of those privileges which they’ve enjoyed for a long, long time,” Palmer said.
Eugenie and Beatrice have been entitled to stay princesses due to their father being the son of a monarch, per King George V's Letters Patent of 1917. But as King Charles showed when he stripped Andrew of his prince title, these could be removed at any time. “Part of me thinks that they might actually relish shedding the royal links and just getting on with their lives and careers, and they both seem to have happy marriages,” Palmer noted.Touching on Andrew’s scandal and the sisters’ absence from Royal Ascot, Palmer said, “It’s likely that this is still going to be rumbling on for many months, if not years, and it won’t look brilliant, if for example Beatrice and Eugenie are at Ascot in a carriage going down the course with 70,000 people watching while they’re involved in one way or another in the controversy surrounding their parents.”
The sisters were invited to Sandringham for Christmas by their uncle, The King, and even if they distance themselves from official royal events, Palmer notes that it’s likely Eugenie and Beatrice will still stay retain ties with the Royal Family “behind the scenes.”“Like any family, they enjoy big family get-togethers, particularly when their kids can play with each other, especially the cousins,” the royal journalist said. “I don’t think they’ll lose that completely, I think they will still be given that, but it will all be behind the scenes.” However, Palmer notes, “I think we’re going to see a lot less of them,” adding, “I think they’ll just fade into the background.”
