No balcony, no public statement, no carefully worded palace memo. Just a fallen royal, his eldest daughter, and a horse ride that feels like a message to the world.
Because while Beatrice is still publicly standing by her disgraced father, her sister Princess Eugenie is, according to explosive new claims, done.
Two Sisters, One Fallen Father
The Daily Mail reports that Beatrice joined Andrew for more than 45 minutes of gentle riding and walking through Windsor’s Home Park, after the trio were seen in the Royal Mews. It was a rare, visible show of solidarity at a moment when his circle appears to be collapsing.
The same report claims that Beatrice has also been visiting her father at Royal Lodge, his long-time Windsor residence that he is expected to leave as part of his post-scandal reshuffle of homes and status.
Yet behind the scenes, sources say the York sisters are no longer united on one crucial point. Their father.
A source told the Mail on Sunday that Eugenie has severed ties in brutal fashion, saying: “There is no contact at all, nothing. It’s Brooklyn Beckham level – she has completely cut him off.”
The Ride That Said Everything
According to the report, Andrew, now largely stripped of his former public roles over his links to Jeffrey Epstein, cut a downcast figure in the Windsor winter light. He rode ahead, alone in the saddle, while Beatrice stayed firmly on foot beside Sienna.
The detail is striking. Andrew still clinging to one of his few remaining pleasures, Beatrice literally walking the line between a disgraced parent and the next generation of the royal family.
For royal watchers, the outing reads almost like choreography. A quiet, family-coded statement that, whatever the scandals, Beatrice has not abandoned her father. At least not yet.
Insiders quoted by the Daily Mail describe her approach as more “nuanced” than her sister’s. She is said to be maintaining contact with Andrew while carefully protecting her own standing within the royal family.
Eugenie Draws a Hard Line
The contrast with Eugenie, if the sources are correct, is stark. The younger York princess, who co-founded The Anti-Slavery Collective to campaign against modern slavery and sex trafficking, is reported to be taking a much harder view of her father’s refusal to offer a direct apology to Epstein’s victims.
According to the Mail on Sunday, months of damaging headlines have left Eugenie unwilling to even speak to her father. The paper reports that she did not visit him over Christmas and that there is now, according to one source, a “total” rift.
It is not clear, the article adds, whether she had any contact with him when the wider family gathered in London for the christening of Beatrice’s younger daughter, Athena. Andrew was reportedly invited to the ceremony but is said not to have attended a party at a local pub afterward.
For a family that has spent decades presenting a united front, especially around Andrew, the suggestion that one daughter has chosen distance while the other still appears at his side is nothing short of seismic.
Inside Andrew’s Shrinking World
All of this is unfolding, the Daily Mail reports, at the very moment Andrew is being forced to dismantle the life he built at Royal Lodge. A removals van has reportedly been seen at the sprawling property on the Windsor estate as decades of possessions are sorted and packed.
According to the report, Andrew is expected to move first into a temporary property on King Charles’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, before eventually settling at Marsh Farm, a smaller residence also on the estate.
One source told the paper: “He’ll probably have to live in Sandringham House until Marsh Farm is finished.” Building work is said to still be ongoing at the new home.
Even the staff around him is thinning out. The Daily Mail reports that the four or five long-serving employees at Royal Lodge, including a butler, chef, gardener, and housekeepers, are being paid off rather than uprooted to Norfolk.
“They obviously don’t want to move to Norfolk, and as most of them are nearing retirement age, they’ve basically been made redundant on generous terms,” a source said. “I suspect that Andrew will have more of a skeleton staff when he eventually moves into Marsh Farm, as it’s not realistic to employ so many people to look after one person on their own.”
Sarah Ferguson in Tears, Security Tightens
The fallout is not only hitting Andrew. The same report claims that the handful of people still close to Andrew and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, are increasingly worried about both of them.
Sources quoted by the paper say Ferguson has been prone to tears almost daily as the couple’s shared world shrinks. Once a powerhouse royal double act and then an unusually close post-divorce partnership, they now find themselves adrift from the center of royal life.
There are also claims of heightened concern over Andrew’s mental health. According to the Daily Mail, police revoked his firearms license and removed his gun collection for safekeeping at other royal properties, a stark symbol of how far his circumstances have changed.
Even Marsh Farm itself, the home he is said to be moving toward, offers little comfort in the story. The property reportedly sits on a flood plain below sea level, in an area where residents are advised to sign up for Environment Agency alerts in case local defenses fail.
Christmas Choices, Future Loyalties
Inside the family, loyalties are being tested in quieter, more intimate ways. According to the report, Beatrice and Eugenie faced an agonizing decision over where to spend Christmas, ultimately joining the royal walk to church in Norfolk before heading to Sandringham at the invitation of King Charles.
He is said to be keen to shield the princesses from the worst of their father’s scandal, even as he oversees the practical unravelling of Andrew’s royal privileges and properties.
The political reality is brutal. Andrew’s presence anywhere near the heart of royal life risks overshadowing the monarchy’s carefully managed public image. Yet for Beatrice and Eugenie, he is also the man who walked them into church on Christmas mornings long before the cameras ever cared.
That tension now appears to be playing out in the open. One daughter still seen walking beside him at Windsor. The other, if sources are to be believed, choosing distance and silence.
The York Sisters’ Defining Split
For fans who remember Beatrice and Eugenie as the inseparable York girls in coordinating fascinators at royal weddings, this reported divide lands like a plot twist in a long-running royal drama.
On one side, Beatrice, carving out a careful role as a working mother and supportive daughter, quietly threading the needle between personal loyalty and public perception. On the other hand, Eugenie, activist, charity founder, and, according to those quoted by the Mail on Sunday, a woman no longer willing to blur the line between family love and accountability.
And at the center, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, better known to the world as Prince Andrew. Once a Falklands war hero and a fixture of palace balcony lineups, now a man whose most public moment of late is a subdued ride through the Windsor grounds with a single daughter by his side.
There were no statements after that ride. No carefully curated family photo. Just the lingering question of which path, in the long sweep of royal history, will be remembered as the braver choice. The daughter who stayed in the saddle beside him, or the one who quietly walked away.
