A journalist who paid a visit to Sarah Ferguson was taken aback to find Princess Beatrice also in attendance at the meeting – and her behaviour left the reporter astounded.
The former Duchess of York and her daughters, along with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, have been embroiled in controversy in recent months after all were repeatedly mentioned in the Epstein Files. There is no implication of misconduct by Beatrice, her sister Eugenie and Sarah whilst Andrew refutes any wrongdoing in relation to their association with Epstein.
The scandal surrounding their parents has put Beatrice and Eugenie in a challenging situation, and now individuals who have had direct encounters with the York family are voicing their opinions on their behaviour.
Kate Mansey, The Times’ royal editor, went to see Sarah to discuss the potential for an interview, but stated “to my great surprise, Princess Beatrice was there”.
However, it was Beatrice’s participation in the meeting that truly astonished the journalist, as she reportedly scrutinised everything her mother said before elucidating her remarks, reports the Daily Mirror.
Speaking on the Times Royal podcast, Kate said: “She sat and she took notes. I thought it was fascinating how she interacted, she’s super smart, she was kind of analysing everything Sarah Ferguson was saying and kind of clarifying.
“Fergie was like: ‘I want to come across as this, and I’d like to be known as this, and if we do it I want it to be done like this, and I want you to talk about my work over here with this charity.’
“I was taking it all in, she’s hitting me with this barrage of thoughts and ideas, and Beatrice was to the side.
“She was analysing. ‘You know just to clarify what mummy’s saying….’ She was very organised, she was very thoughtful and processing her mother’s thoughts in real-time and acting as a conduit.”
There has been considerable discussion surrounding Beatrice and Eugenie’s position within the royal hierarchy following the controversy embroiling their parents.
This includes demands for them to be stripped from the line of succession alongside suggestions that they won’t be appearing at royal occasions where they would typically have been invited, such as Royal Ascot.
According to Kate, her account is now “interesting” given the allegations of misconduct in a public office against her father Andrew.
She said: “That is interesting now of course because you wonder how close she was to any of the business deals that Sarah Ferguson or perhaps her father was doing at the time.
“Now we know from people who worked on that infamous Newsnight interview that the talks about talks, as journalists often call them, where you have the preliminary chats about the possibility of doing an interview.
“There’s talks about talks that happened at the Palace with Andrew, with Amanda Thirsk, his then-private secretary, and the Newsnight team, Beatrice was there taking notes.”
Andrew was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. He was subsequently released under investigation.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk ’
