Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have been left “aghast” and
“deeply embarrassed” by the latest tranche of material released in
the US justice department’s Epstein files, which has dragged their
parents back into the public glare and revived painful questions
about judgment at the heart of the former Duke and Duchess of
York’s circle.
According to reports in the Daily
Mail, sources close to the sisters say they were unprepared for
the tone and content of emails attributed to their mother, Sarah,
Duchess of York, in which she is said to have expressed effusive
warmth towards Jeffrey Epstein years after his conviction for child
sex offences. The correspondence, which has circulated widely in
the British press, has compounded the distress caused by newly
released photographs of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with a woman
lying on the floor – images that, while unexplained, have again
placed the disgraced former prince under scrutiny.
Friends of the sisters say the disclosures have been acutely
personal. Beatrice and Eugenie, both of whom have sought to build
adult lives at a careful distance from their father’s downfall, are
said to be particularly upset by claims that they were mentioned in
emails exchanged between their mother and Epstein, including
references to their private lives and to a lunch with him when they
were teenagers.
Sarah Ferguson has long acknowledged that Epstein helped her
financially during a period of severe money troubles, a
relationship that has previously attracted criticism. What has
shocked observers this time is the apparent intimacy of the
language attributed to her in messages sent after Epstein’s 2008
conviction, and the suggestion that the association continued well
beyond the point at which many would have severed contact.
For Beatrice and Eugenie, the sense of exposure is compounded by
the renewed focus on their father. Andrew’s friendship with Epstein
has already cost him his public role, his military titles and his
standing within the royal family. The appearance of further images
and documents has reopened a chapter the sisters had hoped was
closed.
“Whatever their parents did or didn’t do, the girls are now old
enough to feel the full force of the embarrassment,” said one
source familiar with their thinking. “They are trying to live
responsible, private lives, and this drags them straight back into
something they had no control over.”
The fallout has not been confined to the York household.
According to people close to the royal family, there was an
awareness at senior levels that further damaging material was
likely to emerge, helping to explain the hardening of attitudes
towards Andrew and Sarah in recent months. Decisions that once
appeared severe now look, to some, like an attempt to draw a firm
line.
No suggestion of wrongdoing has been made against Beatrice or
Eugenie, and neither has commented publicly. Yet the episode
underlines a recurring truth about royal scandal: its consequences
are rarely limited to those directly responsible.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk ’
