Following reports in March that Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have been banned from joining the Royal Family at the Royal Ascot races this year, last weekend saw the sisters facing what appears to be another epic snub.
While no official notice was made, both Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 36, were noticeably absent from the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show – an event close to their hearts and one they had been attending for years, until now.
And while this subtle shift appears to have flown under the radar publicly, behind palace walls we’re told one unlikely senior royal has become increasingly ‘protective’ over the siblings, who have increasingly been swept up in the fallout of the scandal swirling around their parents in recent months.
A source tells us how Princess Anne, the girls’ aunt, believes the treatment Beatrice and Eugenie have reportedly received from the firm is ‘awful’. So much so, we’re told that a new palace feud has erupted between her and Queen Camilla, who Anne believes has been driving a ‘cruel’ campaign to oust the sisters from the royal fold.
An insider says, ‘Anne is not happy that Eugenie and Beatrice are being frozen out. As their aunt she’s very protective of them and she doesn’t take kindly to someone she sees as an outsider being cruel to them.
‘She thinks it’s awful that they’re paying the price for what their parents have been accused of, especially considering Eugenie is pregnant, and she doesn’t for one moment believe Charles would be doing this if it weren’t for Camilla calling the shots and insisting on it. She says this level of coldness is not in her brother’s character, she says it’s got Camilla’s fingerprints all over it.’
©Getty Images for Ascot Racecourse
And if Charles doesn’t have enough on his plate with his two feuding sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, the monarch could now be set to reach the end of his tether, as we’re told Anne is now insisting on talking some ‘sense’ to her brother and refuses to heed to any of Camilla’s commands.
‘Anne is not the type to sit back and let things go unaddressed, she is pushing back and demanding an audience with Charles over this, she wants it reversed and intends to talk sense to him,’ the insider says.
‘In the meantime, she still has to go along with protocol and show Camilla every ounce of respect in public but behind closed doors it’s another story, she’s not afraid to stand up to Camilla. The bad blood between these two goes back over half a century, to when Camilla’s ex-husband briefly dumped her to have a fling with Anne, so this frostiness between them is nothing new.’
The alleged ‘bad blood’ between Camilla and Anne is believed to stem from Anne’s brief but notable romance with Camilla’s ex-husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles in the early 1970s.
At the time, Andrew had already been in a relationship with Camilla, who was also the love interest of Charles, for five years, but was further deemed unlikely to be a marriage match for Anne due to him being Catholic.
The so-called ‘love quandrangle’ was later depicted in Netflix’s royal drama, The Crown, much to the surprise of younger viewers, who were especially shocked by ‘Anne’s’ dramatised bedroom talk.
Andrew married Camilla in 1975 and the former couple share two grown up children together. Meanwhile, Anne married equestrian Mark Phillips in 1973, before divorcing him in 1992 and marrying retired royal naval officer Timothy Laurence later that year.
Yet over five decades later, we’re told that the two senior royals still struggle to hide their ‘distaste’ for each other; a feeling that has only grown now that Camilla perceives Anne to be siding with the younger Yorks.
The insider says, ‘They’re very practiced at throwing barbs at each other through pasted on smiles. They act friendly when all eyes are on them but their distaste for each other is an open secret and has been for so many years.
And now that Anne appears to be protecting her nieces, the tension between her and Camilla has become impossible to ignore. They were just forced into a joint appearance [for a garden party at Buckingham Palace] and the tension between them at the event was all anyone could talk about, it was so apparent that neither of them wanted to be there.’
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Meanwhile, ahead of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest in February, Anne was widely reported to have disputed Charles’ treatment of their younger brother, who was stripped of his royal titles and evicted from Royal Lodge in September.
So we’re told it comes as little surprise that Anne, who is reportedly ‘backed’ somewhat by Prince Edward in their mutual consideration of Andrew, continues to protect her nieces, too.
‘Anne and Edward have been urging Charles to ease up on Andrew a little because they’re worried about his state of mind, so it hasn’t surprised anyone that Anne is now throwing her weight behind Eugenie and Beatrice,’ the insider says.
‘She says she’s acting as an aunt and on behalf of her late mother, Queen Elzabeth II, as well, who would not want to see her dear granddaughters mistreated this way.’
Anne is also reported to have extended an invitation to Beatrice and Eugenie to attend the wedding of her son, Peter Phillips, to his fiancé Harriet Sterling in the Cotswolds next month – although their attendance has not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, the source says Camilla is ‘doubling down on her efforts to push Eugenie and Beatrice out’ and has found an unlikely ally in Prince William, who is widely reported to have wanted to boot Andrew out of the royal fold for years before his father was all but forced to.
The insider adds, ‘She has an ally in William so she’s roped him into this as well. They rarely see eye to eye but in this case he does agree with her and she’s using it to her full advantage.
‘It’s admirable that Anne wants to stick up for Beatrice and Eugenie and their children but there’s no doubt it’s a real uphill battle, Camilla has so much power these days and she clearly enjoys wielding it.’
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