To have one parent mired in scandal is unfortunate. To have two? This is where the luckless Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice now find themselves.
The various sins of their father, the former Prince Andrew, have long been piled high in public view. After all, this is a man who once offered Beatrice’s Pizza Express birthday party in Woking as an alibi.
Now, Sarah Ferguson – who, by her own admission, has the judgment of an ass – is in the headlines for having taken her two daughters, then aged 19 and 20, to meet Jeffrey Epstein just days after he left jail, having served 13 months in Florida for procuring a minor.
One of the millions of emails contained in the latest “Epstein files”, released last week from the Department of Justice, reveal the casualness of his friendship with Ferguson: “Ferg and the two girls come [sic] yesterday,” writes Epstein.
Ferguson’s decision in 2009 to give the convicted paedophile a metaphorical hug, despite him having pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, came with an obvious upside: the then Sarah, Duchess of York, international entrepreneur, would be able to update the disgraced financier on her potential business opportunities…
In an email shortly afterwards, she wrote how, following the meeting, a US retailing giant now wants to “get behind my entire Sarah Ferguson brand… Tommy Hilfiger wants to build my entire apparel, fragrance etc and sell it on QVC…
“In just one week, after your lunch, it seems the energy has lifted. I have never been more touched by a friends [sic] kindness than your compliment to me infront [sic] of my girls. Thank you Jeffrey for being the brother I have always wished for.” She later told Epstein, in another, equally nauseating email: “Just marry me.”
Ferguson has always been close to her daughters. I recall meeting her at a party in Covent Garden with one of them – I forget which – and it was unclear who was the invitee and who was on the coat-tails. They were, for a long time, co-dependent on each other: by being mother to none-too-distant heirs to the throne, Ferguson kept herself in the game, while the daughters made their own contacts by association.
Should the princesses, not long out of school at the time, have declined their mother’s invitation to fly to the US to meet her “supreme friend” as he readjusted to post-prison life? Or had family loyalties superseded their own good judgment?
Because the central problem here is being in the royal family. To be in the luxurious position of being part of the monarchy, the heart of power, is also to be powerless when young. You have no choice. Titles are simply bestowed upon you. But you are also in a family. You cannot escape the titles of mother, father, daughter. They too are bestowed upon you, and you kind of tag along.
Now, what has been tabloid fodder is fast turning Shakespearean for this family. The King has the power to make judgments on his own brother. But can the children also make a judgment on their father and mother?
Estrangement from the royal family is no small matter – nor is it without recent precendent. The Duke of Windsor, Princess Diana, Prince Harry. Even the late Katharine, Duchess of Kent, did a certain amount of quiet quitting by teaching piano anonymously in Hull.
Each time it is subject to much conversation. You are either accused of betraying the great traditions of the family, or exposing the dark heart of it. Leaving draws as much attention as does the sticking-with-it.
That we commentate at all on the royal family is because it is a game of morals, played out in fancy costumes. That we now ask questions of Beatrice and Eugenie is itself a hazard. If they continue to use their titles, or ever show public sympathy with their despicable parents’ predicaments, it means they find themselves implicated in the Epstein saga by just tagging along.
At every turn of this Epstein story, the two innocent daughters have found themselves dragged in. Who could blame them at this point for doing a full Jeremy Kyle and ditching their parents publicly?