Sarah and ex-husband Andrew were left out in the cold as the royal family gathered for Christmas at Sandringham – including their two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie faced a difficult decision last month about where to spend Christmas. The sisters ultimately decided to join the King at Sandringham for the royal celebrations, choosing to visibly align themselves with the monarchy following Andrew and Sarah’s very public fall from grace.
The former Prince and his ex-wife were banned from the festive gathering but, according to a friend, the former couple supported their daughters joining the royals for Christmas. “They live and die by the monarchy, so this didn’t surprise me at all. And Andrew and Sarah would have 1,000 percent supported it,” the insider told People.
“Sarah has always said her greatest gift to the monarchy was her girls. She’s going to still hold her allegiance to the Crown.”
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According to royal biographer Robert Jobson, it was the right decision for the sisters to show loyalty to the King, and honour his Christmas invitation. “It’s easy to say this is a snub, but they would say, ‘I’m a royal princess, I’m in line to the throne, I have been invited to attend the King’s Christmas celebrations and you don’t turn down the King’s invitation,'” he said. “If you have an invitation, you go. It’s not an invitation – it’s a command, really.”
It follows reports that Andrew might well have encouraged his girls to attend the Sandringham event – for his own gain. Expert Ingrid Seward has suggested that the disgraced royal pushed Beatrice and Eugenie to attend so he could find out what family members were saying about him.
She told The Sun: “I don’t think Beatrice and Eugenie had a choice. Andrew said to them ‘you have to go’. He wants to know what’s going on and what people are saying about him. They are Andrew’s only passport into the Royal Family now. I’m absolutely sure he persuaded them.”
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Ahead of the Christmas celebrations, the York family did reunite at the christening of Beatrice’s daughter Athena at St. James’s Palace on 12 December. But Andrew and Sarah kept a very low profile, deliberately avoiding attention by arriving and leaving discreetly. They were not photographed with Beatrice and are believed to have skipped the after-party that followed at a pub in central London.
The King has publicly “distanced” himself from both Andrew and Sarah in light of their association with Jeffrey Epstein, stripping his brother of his titles and forcing the pair to give up their shared home, Royal Lodge. But it’s been claimed that the public cold shoulder hasn’t stopped Sarah from trying to make amends with her former brother-in-law, Charles.
Sarah reportedly sent an “overly effusive and almost pleading” Christmas missive to Charles and Queen Camilla , described as an attempt to “smooth over” the ongoing fraying of relationships, a palace aide was quoted as saying. Another insider said that Fergie is “disgracing herself with these cringey Christmas messages”.
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“She even sent one to King Charles and Queen Camilla. Considering it was Charles who stripped her and Andrew of their royal titles, it just seems embarrassingly desperate and like a better letter,” a source told OK! magazine.
Sarah is alleged to have apologised for the ongoing controversy and wrote that she was “expressing regret for past events involving the House of York”. Whether or not the attempt to ingratiate herself with the King and Queen will work remains to be seen, but biographer Andrew Lownie pointed out to the Mirror that whilst her “reputation is pretty much at an all-time low. She may well pop back because she has this gift for reinventing herself.”
The expert added, “She just plays the victim, and that plays well in the States. She says, ‘Well, I can pick myself up, it’s my own fault, I’ll be different in the future, that was a different person,’ and then she just goes and repeats the mistakes all over again.”
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