As the House of York continues to face turmoil, Princess Beatrice demonstrated her unwavering support by visiting her troubled parents.

The family meeting at Royal Lodge in Windsor on Monday reportedly turned into a tense gathering.

Royal sources reveal that Prince Andrew did not consult or inform his daughters, Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, before hastily agreeing to a statement last week. This announcement involved relinquishing the titles bestowed upon him by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth.

In the midst of the household’s upheaval, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson was said to have been in a state of panic. She was distressed over the potential loss of her ‘Duchess’ title, which had proven financially beneficial for nearly four decades, and begged him not to proceed.

Princess Eugenie, caught off guard by last week’s shocking revelation, chose not to attend the crisis meeting at her parents’ opulent residence. A royal insider remarked, “The Royal Lodge meeting was anything but joyful, leaving the once tight-knit family divided.”

It was no surprise then that Beatrice appeared visibly upset as she was seen driving her luxury Range Rover away from Royal Lodge. Her face was etched with worry, her hair hastily tied back in a messy bun.

Just a day earlier, she had been spotted with her two young daughters in a children’s playground in central London, where eagle-eyed bystanders said she appeared ‘poleaxed’ as yet more grim allegations emerged about Prince Andrew.

According to one: ‘She was on the phone saying she couldn’t bring herself to look at the Sunday papers. She looked absolutely devastated.’

Indeed, over the past decade, amid a host of grim allegations against him, Beatrice has done her best to stand by her father.

She is said to be the closest of both daughters to Andrew and played a key role in setting up his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview – believing that, given his constant denials of any wrongdoing, he had nothing to fear from telling the truth.

In the wake of that debacle, both she and Eugenie appeared to distance themselves from him, spending more time with their mother than their father, and cutting Andrew out of their social media posts. They had even taken to calling themselves ‘The Tripod’ because of their unbreakable three-way relationship.

Then details of Fergie’s own involvement with Jeffrey Epstein were laid bare last month. Now the events of the past seven days may mark a dramatic turning point in their relationship with their mother too. And with no sign of the Andrew saga abating, fears are growing that the controversy surrounding his past financial and business affairs may now extend towards his daughters.

The princesses have already found themselves caught up in their mother’s ongoing scandals – not least the revelation that, aged 19 and 20, they went with her to the US to visit paedophile billionaire Epstein following his release from prison in 2009.

Now further details have emerged of their father’s alleged treatment of Virginia Giuffre. Last weekend, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Andrew had asked his police protection officer to investigate claims she had a criminal record.

And in her posthumous memoir, Ms Giuffre alleged that Andrew’s team tried to hire ‘internet trolls to hassle’ her in an attempt to avoid being served court papers.

Andrew has always denied all the allegations against him.

Damning emails between him and Epstein have also been released and further questions raised about how he is living at the 30-room Royal Lodge. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the princesses now appear to be facing a stark choice: should they flee the sinking York ship and safeguard their own reputations? Or stand by, in their darkest hour, the parents whose sins threaten to overshadow their lives?

One royal expert told the Daily Mail this week that the sisters should consider going one step further and rescind their princess titles – even though they themselves have done nothing wrong.

According to Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and author of Sarah: The Life of A Duchess: ‘Giving up their titles would give them freedom from their parents, stop them being tarred with the same brush and be a clear sign that they want to make their own way in the world. I think people would hugely respect them for it and, I think, ultimately, they would be happier.’

Such a move, of course, would fly in the face of everything these two wealthy and hugely privileged young women were brought up to expect from their royal lives.

Raised by two entitled parents, the sisters were exposed to their parents’ money-making ventures from their earliest years. Beatrice was still a baby when the then Duke and Duchess of York were paid a whopping £250,000 for a 48-page spread in Hello! magazine, including pictures of their daughter in the bath.

During the years ahead, as the sisters gallivanted around the world on private jets with their parents – trailed by nannies and royal protection officers – they rubbed shoulders with foreign royals, celebrities and wealthy business associates, and undoubtedly saw the huge financial benefits that being a royal could bring.

‘They were brought up to be entitled, to believe that blue blood matters,’ says a royal insider who spoke to the Daily Mail this week. ‘And they expected to live life in that gilded cage for ever. Gifts from the rich and powerful were taken for granted, as was the offer of free holidays. Money just seemed to be plentiful even when Andrew was only earning a £17k salary in the Navy.’

Such gifts included a £180,000 necklace given to Beatrice in 2009 on her 21st birthday by convicted Libyan gun-smuggler Tarek Kaituni. Kaituni was later a guest at Eugenie’s 2018 wedding, as well as at Fergie’s surprise 60th birthday bash in 2019 and was reported to have boasted of being able to enlist Andrew’s support for commercial projects.

In 2011, amid reports that Andrew had received gifts from the Abu Dhabi royal family, The Sunday Times quoted the wife of an international politician saying: ‘Beatrice, who was there with him, got jewellery worth several thousand pounds.’

In 2022, Beatrice and Eugenie’s names also featured alongside their parents during a long-running High Court fraud dispute when it emerged that large amounts of cash belonging to Turkish millionaire Nebahat Isbilen had been paid to the Yorks by her former business adviser and fellow Turkish national, Selman Turk, a man introduced to Prince Andrew in 2019 by his Libyan gun-smuggler friend.

Mrs Isbilen claimed she had been hoodwinked into sending a £750,000 ‘wedding gift’ for Princess Beatrice by Mr Turk just nine days after he won a funding award at one of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace events.

When the amount, paid into Andrew’s Coutts account, was queried by Mrs Isbilen’s bank, his then-private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, told them: ‘It’s a gift for the wedding, a wedding gift.’

According to a transcript of their conversation, obtained by the Daily Mail, when asked to clarify if the ‘very unusual’ transaction was for the cost of the wedding, or simply a gift, Ms Thirsk replied: ‘I’m not sure it makes much difference, does it? I think it’s a gift for the wedding. What she and her family decide to do with it is really to do with them, isn’t it?’

The £750,000 was later returned.

Eugenie also received £25,000 into her own bank account, including £15,000 given the reference ‘birthday gift’ and paid five months before the actual day.

When these payments came to light in 2022, Princess Eugenie claimed that the £25,000 from ‘a long-standing family friend’ had been to help with the cost of a surprise party for her mother’s 60th birthday and added that she did not know either Mr Turk or Mrs Isbilen.

Meanwhile, a friend of Beatrice’s claimed that she knew nothing about the cash gift sent in the run-up to her private 2020 wedding to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi which took place during the pandemic in front of only 20 guests.

While there is no suggestion that either princess did anything wrong, the debacle was an indication of how easily the sisters were dragged into their parents’ shady business dealings.

According to the insider who spoke to the Daily Mail this week: ‘Royal officials are pushing for the princesses’ own investments to be subject to an “ethics check” to ensure nothing can be linked back to their father’s less salubrious contacts and thus avoid a future scandal.’

Andrew is said to have ensured that his daughters, like him, have impeccable contacts in the Gulf States.

Beatrice was just a teenager when she first joined her father on one of his trade envoy jaunts to the United Arab Emirates.

In recent years both princesses have been regular visitors to the Middle East, so much so that an article in The Times last November suggested they were becoming unofficial ‘cultural ambassadors’ in the region. Beatrice, a private equity analyst, attended a World Economic Forum event in Saudi Arabia in April 2024 and returned to Riyadh with Eugenie in tow, last October, for a Future Investment Initiative event.

Beatrice is CEO of BY-EQ, the tech advisory firm she founded in 2022. According to government records, she is the only employee of the firm which is registered to an address next to the Savoy Hotel in London. And according to its website, the company ‘works with stakeholders to deliver purpose focused initiatives’.

According to records BY-EQ’s net worth at the end of 2023 was around £38,749.

In December last year that figure had increased to £274,856.

A month earlier, Beatrice spoke about artificial intelligence at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi where she attended a private conference with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

That same month, art gallery director Eugenie visited an exhibition in Qatar. In January this year, she visited Saudi again for the Islamic Arts Biennale. Earlier this month, she joined forces with Princess Rajwa al Hussein, a Saudi married to the Crown Prince of Jordan, to visit a London psychiatric hospital.

Both sisters have also been regulars at Formula 1 Grand Prix events in the region, often with their husbands.

In 2023, Eugenie was at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Earlier this year, they both attended the Formula 1 event in Bahrain.

In August, Beatrice’s links to the UAE were underlined once again when she and her husband attended the opening of a new London branch of the First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Within the King’s slimmed-down Royal Family, Beatrice and Eugenie, of course, are not full-time working royals. Neither receives public money from the Sovereign Grant – which funds the monarch’s official duties – and both juggle private careers with family life and charity work.

But there can be little doubt that their titles are of huge benefit to them in the world of business, particularly in the Gulf States where royalty and the status it brings are held in high regard.

Meanwhile, the princesses are still ninth and 12th in line to the throne. Beatrice was also made a Counsellor of State when the Queen died in 2022, meaning that technically she can perform the King’s official duties if called on to do so.

Just last year, amid cancer battles which saw both the King and the Princess of Wales cut back their public engagements, there was much speculation that she and Eugenie might fill some of the gaps in the royal diary.

In May 2024, Beatrice and Eugenie stood in and helped Prince William host the annual garden party at Buckingham Palace. And in November, Beatrice filled in for Charles at a King’s Foundation event at the Garrison Chapel in London.

In April last year they were feted as the ‘Royal Family’s Secret Weapon’ on the cover of Hello! magazine. Their mother, a long-time Hello! devotee, gave quotes reminding readers of her ‘strong, independent’ and ‘dedicated’ daughters.

‘They miss their grandmother but learned so much from the late Queen – humility and goodness with compassion and strength,’ she gushed.

‘They are brave and bold and stand like giant oaks in the wind and don’t break.’

While the King is said to be ‘determined’ that his nieces’ royal status isn’t impacted by the fallout of his younger brother’s scandals, if they are to learn from the toxic mistakes of their parents, the siblings will clearly need to tread a careful path as they navigate their private and public roles.

It seems clear, certainly, that the princesses are not suffering financially. Beatrice and her 41-year-old property developer husband Edoardo own a £3.5million farmhouse in the Cotswolds and have the use of apartments in St James’s Palace in London.

The couple have two daughters, four-year-old Sienna and nine-month-old Athena, as well as Beatrice’s stepson, nine-year-old Wolfie.

Eugenie and her husband, 39-year-old marketing executive Jack Brooksbank, who was once brand ambassador for George Clooney’s tequila Casamigos, divide their time between a villa in Portugal and Ivy Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace. Their sons August and Ernest are now four and two.

‘They are both finding comfort in their husbands who come from families which are stable and loving,’ says the royal insider.

Neither princess has made any public comment about the latest shameful episode in their parents’ lives, although last Saturday, in the immediate wake of their father’s shock announcement, they hastily dropped out of a joint appearance at the British Museum’s inaugural Pink Ball.

Both continue to use the York name in their professional lives. Whether that will change, as the toxic fallout from their parents continues to rain down, remains to be seen.