Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie are reportedly “quite worried” about their father, Prince Andrew, and are “taking it in turns to visit him”, according to a royal expert. The Duke of York is currently embroiled in a dispute with his elder brother, King Charles, who allegedly wants him to vacate the Royal Lodge.
The 64-year-old prince signed a 75-year lease for the 30-room property from the Crown Estate in 2003, which requires him to fund its maintenance. However, recent images reveal parts of the mansion have fallen into disrepair.
With the King discontinuing Andrew’s personal allowance and withdrawing funding for his security team, the prince is left facing a hefty bill. There were doubts about how Andrew would cover these costs, but it’s reported that he has received funds from an unidentified donor.
Andrew’s income has been under scrutiny since he resigned as a working royal and gave up his HRH titles in 2019 after his disastrous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis. The prince’s popularity plummeted following the BBC interview where he discussed his association with the late convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
Royal insiders claim Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie are becoming “increasingly worried” about their father Prince Andrew and have started to visit him by turns. On the Palace Confidential podcast, Charlotte Griffiths of the Daily Mail revealed: “Beatrice is very protective of her father, even more so than Eugenie, and I think they are quite worried about him. So they are taking it in turns to visit him like he is in an old people’s home or something.”
This comes amidst reports that suggest that the sisters are spending alternate weekends at the Royal Lodge to enhance their father’s morale, bringing their young families with them, reports Cambridgeshire Live.
Griffiths added further insight into the Duke’s state of mind: “The implication being he is really in the doldrums, he’s sitting on his own, and can’t bear to leave the house, occasionally goes riding, and doesn’t have much social life.”
According to her, the York siblings are adopting a caring, almost parental role towards their father: “So they’ve taken on this very parental, nurturing role, and they are taking care of their father.”
Rounding up her comments, Griffiths noted: “And I have to say, it kind of rings true because I keep hearing things about how he is very reluctant to leave the house more or less. I don’t want to say agoraphobic, I think that’s pushing it too far, but who can blame him in some ways because he has had this terrible siege of Royal Lodge going on around him and probably doesn’t dare to leave the place in case they lock the doors behind him.”
The Duke’s entire sense of self has been dismantled, it’s claimed. “Everything he has known has been stripped away from him. This is a man who lived by his bombastic ability to appear at a dinner party and show off who he knows and how fabulous he is, that is his identity and for wrong and right, that is who he was.”
Despite this, Andrew appears to be finding solace in family life, taking his granddaughter Sienna Mapelli Mozzi on horse-riding excursions through the park and enjoying dog walks with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their seven canine companions.
