They have always been close, but on Thursday afternoon on the busy streets of Mayfair the depth of that bond was clear for the world to see.
In an unguarded moment, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie shared a heartfelt hug. Dressed in long, autumn coats with their hair scraped back from their faces and wearing barely any make-up, the pair seemed oblivious to any passers-by who witnessed this extraordinary loving moment.
It’s been quite the tumultuous few weeks for the beleaguered sisters, who have kept hold of the titles bestowed on them at birth while watching their scandal-ridden parents being royally stripped of theirs.
Despite last week’s announcement by the King that their father would henceforth be known as plain old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ‘Mumsy’ demoted back to Sarah Ferguson, the disgraced pair’s vertiginous fall from grace is far from over.
Indeed, the decision to remove Andrew from the official peerage roll, say experts, has made him more ‘vulnerable’ than ever to potential legal action in relation to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
This week he received a written request to appear before the US Congress and reveal what he knows about billionaire Epstein’s vile sex-trafficking exploits, although there is almost no chance he will agree to comply.
For the time being, 65-year-old Mountbatten Windsor’s focus remains on ironing out the finer details surrounding his departure from the bosom of the Royal Family.
For while the erstwhile Duke and Duchess of York may have been given their marching orders from 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor, the commoner formerly known as prince continues to wrangle over the finer points of his brutal banishment.

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The decision to remove Andrew from the official peerage roll, say experts, has made him more ‘vulnerable’ than ever to potential legal action in relation to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein

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In an unguarded moment, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie shared a heartfelt hug. The pair seemed oblivious to any passers-by who witnessed this extraordinary loving moment

Beatrice and Eugenie share a hug after Andrew is stripped of his titles

He is insisting, as we shall see, on an appropriate home and a rota of staff fit for the son – however debased – of a queen and the father of two royal princesses, who ironically can now insist that Andrew bows to them.
No agreement has yet been reached on where he is going to be rehoused and, more importantly, who will look after him. And until it is, his vast teddy bear collection – he is reported to have 72, which staff have to arrange perfectly on his bed – will remain unpacked.
Disgraced Andrew, it is understood, is playing hardball. He wants a cook, a housekeeper and a secretary-cum-butler, plus gardeners – either his own or the use of those already working for the Royal Family. He also wants the right to roam, rather than being confined to quarters.
Then there is the fate of his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who having lived alongside her former husband for the past 17 years is said to have spent the past week on the phone to friends as well as Beatrice, 37, and 35-year-old Eugenie, in the throes of a meltdown over the sudden downturn in her fortunes.
Despite widespread outrage at her own friendship with convicted sex offender Epstein, not to mention the number of times she has cashed in on her royal links, the Daily Mail can reveal that plans are afoot to quietly – and discreetly – rehome the 66-year-old former duchess, albeit at the King’s expense, to compensate her for the loss of a roof over her head.
Not surprisingly, given all these tumultuous goings-on, life has become somewhat chaotic at Royal Lodge where, according to sources, confused staff – having not been told otherwise – continue to tug the forelock in Mountbatten Windsor’s presence and scurry around, doing his bidding.
Meanwhile, Andrew is banned from riding in the grounds of Windsor Castle, although plans are afoot to allow him, should he yearn for a hack, to trot around the castle Quadrangle unobserved by the public.
Indeed, while the King formally removed his brother’s titles this week by issuing a rare Letters Patent, what is becoming painfully clear is that getting rid of a troublesome prince will take more than a wax stamp from the Great Seal of the Realm.

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Sarah Ferguson is said to have spent the past week on the phone to friends, as well as Beatrice and Eugenie, in the throes of a meltdown over the sudden downturn in her fortunes

Not surprisingly, given all these tumultuous goings-on, life has become somewhat chaotic at Royal Lodge

Exclusive: Andrew seen waving off woman at Epstein’s home in 2010

‘Andrew will certainly go quietly and allow the Royal Family to save face,’ a royal insider told the Daily Mail this week, ‘but he has conditions and he isn’t prepared to give much ground on them.’
Meanwhile, iron-willed William is proving to be just as intransigent. As the insider puts it: ‘He isn’t prepared to sign on the dotted line just yet.’
Amid back-and-forth negotiations the sticking point is whether the 43-year-old Prince of Wales, who has taken a harder line than his father when it comes to his scandalous uncle, will promise to abide by whatever is agreed when he himself one day becomes King.
‘There is the question of future-proofing any deal,’ explains the royal insider. ‘There is also the question of long-term funding and housing.
‘It is assumed that the King will make Andrew a generous allowance, something that may not continue under King William, so Andrew wants guarantees.’ Complex three-way discussions were set back this week by the Prince of Wales’s visit to Brazil for the 2025 Earthshot Prize, the global environmental award he founded in 2020.
On camera, he deftly batted away questions about his troubled family, pointedly telling CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour that he just wanted to surround himself with people ‘who want to do good’.
Back in Blighty, in the chaotic aftermath of Andrew’s titular stripping, it is not even a given that Andrew’s next home will be in Sandringham, as has been widely reported.
While the royal estate, privately owned by the King, spans approximately 31 square miles – the size of Nottingham or Brighton – the choice among its 150 or so properties is limited. Wood Farm has been ruled out because of its links to the late Queen and Prince Philip, who spent his final years there. York Cottage, used to house staff in recent years, is seen as inappropriate because of its name.
Other homes which might have suited are, it is said, already tenanted. Evicting anyone to make way for disgraced Andrew could provoke a wave of public outrage and yet more unwanted publicity for the Royal Family on an issue the King wants more than anything to go away.
One of the key obstacles in settlement negotiations is said to be Andrew’s refusal to give up his murky business interests.
With the spotlight intensifying on the shamed former royal’s financial affairs, the Prince of Wales is said to be adamant that his disgraced uncle should step back from his money-making schemes as part of any deal.
Mystery has long surrounded the question of how the former Duke of York has become so wealthy and has lived in luxury for decades while having no obvious means of support.
His declared income is only the £20,000-a-year pension he gets from the Royal Navy. When he retired from the service in 2001, he was paid £249,000-a-year from the public purse, a significant amount for the man on the street but nowhere near enough to fund Andrew’s entitled life.
His appointment as UK trade envoy, the same year, saw ‘Air Miles Andy’ making frequent trips abroad, particularly to the Gulf States. He was meant to be drumming up business for British companies, but it has long been alleged that he exploited that role to make his own contacts and enrich himself.
How, for example, was he able to buy a £14million Swiss ski lodge in 2014 and pay for the upkeep of Royal Lodge, including a £million payment when he took over the lease and £7.5million spent on refurbishment?
Back in 2019, when his mother forced him to step back from public duties and cease being a ‘working royal’, he is said to have adjusted quickly to his new way of life largely thanks to his new-found freedom to, as one source put it, ‘do his own thing and earn money with out the faff of duty getting in the way’.
Moving forwards, he was given an annual allowance by the late Queen and Charles, a sum believed to have been around a million a year. Those payments stopped last year, but Andrew has somehow continued to fund his lifestyle. His bill for police security alone, no longer funded by the King, is reportedly £3million a year.
In the past he has used the name ‘Andrew Inverness’ for UK business registrations, a reference to his Earl of Inverness title, handed to him by the late Queen in 1986 at the same time she made him Duke of York and among those titles now stripped away by the King.
But Andrew’s commercial enterprises have been largely conducted overseas, often out of sight of public scrutiny via dealings with wealthy, mainly foreign, businessmen. He is said to have resisted attempts by the King to get an oversight of his goings-on.
‘He isn’t short of cash but I suspect we will never know where it came from,’ says the royal insider.
Among his contacts, it was recently revealed, was alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who visited Andrew at Buckingham Palace and was invited to his 60th birthday party.
He revealed his connection to the former Duke of York when trying to get his ban from the UK lifted and, in doing so, gave an unsettling glimpse of how Andrew goes about his business.
In a letter to Tengbo, Andrew’s senior aide Dominic Hampshire wrote: ‘Outside of his internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.’
Royal Lodge’s proximity to Heathrow airport, and the private jets which whisked him away on business trips, has made it an ideal location for the ex-prince over the past two decades.
Late last year, when the rulers of Qatar and Bahrain visited the King at Windsor, members of their entourage slipped away to see Andrew for private discussions and went largely unnoticed.
A more attractive prospect for Andrew might be a move overseas. He has been offered the use of a £10million luxury waterfront villa in Abu Dhabi by ruler Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nayhan, an old friend from his days at Gordonstoun School.
According to the royal insider: ‘Heading overseas, at least for a while, is still on the cards, especially as it would place him at a comfortable distance from the Met Police and the FBI who may yet want to have a chat about his links to Epstein.’
A new home abroad might also be found for Fergie, who is said to have spent the past week pottering around the Royal Lodge garden, walking her dogs and chatting on the phone to friends and her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie.
Her relationship with the princesses has been seriously dented by recent revelations about her own close ties to Epstein. The sisters, who appeared deep in serious conversation as they walked arm in arm on Thursday before they hugged tightly and went their separate ways, are said to be concerned about her fragile state of mind.
The ‘Sarah problem’ has now become as pressing as the ‘Andrew problem’. According to the royal insider there are fears that she could just ‘go for broke’ and tell everything ‘even if means bringing down the roof on her own head’.
A source says: ‘There is to be some settlement made on Sarah, officially to compensate her for the loss of her home. It won’t be a house on a royal estate but cash, either a lump sum or a regular allowance.’
That amount, it was said, will ‘come from the King rather than out of Andrew’s pocket’.
How she spends that amount, and where she lives, will ultimately be up to her.
Her daughters remain firmly in the royal fold however, as yesterday’s announcement that Beatrice has been made Deputy Patron of the adventure charity Outward Bound proved.
She will be joining her uncle Prince Edward, who has succeeded Andrew as patron of the charity. Andrew resigned his position there in 2019 following his disastrous Newsnight interview.
Meanwhile, Fergie is said to be plotting her ‘post-Andrew’ comeback and has held talks with a ‘brand rescue’ company about her desire to become a leader in the ‘female positivity world’.
The best place for such a reinvention might well be the US where, ever since her 1992 separation from Andrew, she has made – and lost – most of her money.
Earlier this year – and last – the then Duchess of York was feted as a royal when she returned to Palm Beach in Florida, where once she hung out with Epstein, and appeared as guest speaker at a ‘Shop The Day Away’ luncheon hosted by the charity Cancer Alliance of Help and Hope.
The event took place at The Breakers, the oceanfront hotel where, according to her recently published memoir, the late Virginia Giuffre was first taken by Epstein to have sex with one of his friends.
Luxury items sold at a silent auction included a portrait of a youthful looking Fergie and a bespoke Duchess handbag.
On stage in the Venetian ballroom, Ferguson, who was treated for breast cancer in 2023, was introduced as ‘author, businesswoman, cancer survivor and philanthropist’ and ‘enthralled’ the audience with an address, during which she urged her brother-in-law King Charles to ‘keep fighting on’ with his own cancer battle and telling the room that ‘His Majesty is very dear to me’.

Speaking to the Daily Mail this week, Cancer Alliance committee members said they’d welcome Fergie back with open arms.
‘She will always be welcome in Florida,’ said Lisa Peterfreund. ‘I don’t judge her. I think she made mistakes and I feel bad for her.
Fellow committee member Samantha Marulli added: ‘We’d treat her still like she was the Duchess of York.’
Above all, what seems certain is that after decades together, Andrew and Fergie will finally go their separate ways. What kept them together – her need for a free roof over her head and her knowledge of all the skeletons in his closet – no longer stands.
Their impending parting marks a grim final chapter for what, for years, Sarah Ferguson liked to describe as, the ‘happiest divorced couple in the world’.
In reality, while she ‘dotes’ on her former husband, and has even been seen to stand up when he enters a room, he is ‘much less keen on her’ – as a source told the Daily Mail last week.
But if the pair’s symbiotic coupling has come to the end of its useful life, what they will never do is turn on each other.
‘They both know where each other’s skeletons are hidden but in the end they will both stay silent because any mudslinging will end in mutually assured destruction,’ says the royal insider.
Royal biographer and editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward says: ‘Whatever happens, she will never desert him. She is incredibly loyal in that regard.’
Wherever they end up, the ‘Odd Couple’ – as they are known within the Royal Family – will forever be bound together by a dark web of secrets and lies.
As for the couple’s numerous dogs, they will go with their ‘carer’ Fergie, as Andrew likes to refer to his ex-wife.
The animals include five Norfolk terriers as well as the late Queen’s two beloved Corgis, Sandy and Muick – (pronounced Mick) – who sleep in raised wicker baskets at Royal Lodge.
While Fergie claims that Her late Majesty communicates with her through them, Andrew, it is said, ‘can’t stand’ the privileged pair and will be glad to see the back of them. He has apparently loathed the breed since he was nipped by another of his mother’s dogs as a boy.