Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have embarked on an international trip as their parents face a potential relocation from the Royal Lodge.

Earlier this month, both Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson relinquished their Duke and Duchess of York titles amidst renewed attention concerning their connections to the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

The former couple has been cohabitating in the Royal Lodge, leading largely independent lives despite sharing the expansive 30-room, Grade II listed mansion since 2008, well after their 1996 divorce. This arrangement has allowed them to maintain a certain lifestyle amidst various controversies.

Recent reports suggest that Prince Andrew has finally consented to vacate the Royal Lodge. However, he has reportedly insisted that he and Ferguson be provided with separate royal residences as part of the arrangement.

It appears they are prepared to part ways if they must leave their home on the Windsor Estate.

Additionally, there were claims that Prince William issued a warning to strip Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie of their titles unless they urged their father to vacate the Royal Lodge.

Emily Maitlis, the broadcaster who grilled Andrew in his infamous Newsnight interview in 2019, made the disputed claim that the Prince of Wales may have met with the princesses to give them the ultimatum last week. 

The princesses have since both been pictured out of the country as their parents continue to face mounting pressure to leave the Royal Lodge.

Eugenie was in Paris alongside two girlfriends as they posed for a picture on the River Seine with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Her sister Beatrice travelled to Saudi Arabia to attend the Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh.

She posed alongside Sunil Sharma, who hosts a podcast called Rational Voices with Sunil, as he posted a picture of himself with the princess, writing: ‘A Royal Moment. Nice to meet and chat with HRH Princess Beatrice.’

While the princess isn’t a working royal, she most likely attended on behalf of Afiniti, where she is Vice President of Partnerships & Strategy.

It comes as it emerged last night how Andrew hosted Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein at Royal Lodge in 2006. 

The Daily Mail has also revealed how Fergie has been dumped from ITV’s Loose Women and This Morning – weeks after being dropped by a slew of charities.

Pressure has also mounted on King Charles to take action after Andrew’s leasehold agreement revealed he paid £1million to secure a 75-year lease in 2003 – and has since paid only ‘one peppercorn’ in rent per year, ‘if demanded’.

Andrew is said to have requested Harry and Meghan’s former home, Frogmore Cottage, while Fergie is eyeing up nearby Adelaide Cottage ahead of William and Kate’s departure next month.

It marks a bitter end for Andrew and Sarah – the former duchess who once told the Daily Mail: ‘We’re the happiest divorced couple in the world. We’re divorced to each other, not from each other.’ 

Royal experts today said their desire to separate proves their living arrangement at Royal Lodge has simply been ‘lucrative’ for one another, declaring: ‘The cover is blown.’

Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail: ‘The relationship between them, as I’ve always seen, it’s symbiotic in a sense. Remember the fake Sheikh scandal when Sarah Ferguson was trying to sell access to Andrew for £500,000?

‘It’s lucrative for both of them to be together. The point is that this has been an arrangement of convenience to enable them to live at a certain level.

‘They’ve kept that facade up very well. My feeling is that it was because they are extremely greedy. I think the problem was they desired a certain lifestyle – and this was the main way to get it.

‘This arrangement has gone on since 2008 because it was mutually advantageous, but the point is… she always has particularly traded on being the world’s happiest divorced couple.’

The royal expert added: ‘This was the couple who, Sarah Ferguson boasted, were the “happiest divorced couple in the world”. It seems they now want to separate. The reason is clearly that what made them perfect for each other after divorce and subsequent scandals and debts, was that they were both greedy and entitled. 

‘Now this cover is blown, they want to live apart in two homes. The world can clearly see that the previous arrangement was designed to maximise the benefit of Andrew’s public life for them privately.’

Last night, it emerged Prince Andrew hosted Epstein, Maxwell and Weinstein at Royal Lodge as part of his daughter Beatrice’s masked ball 18th birthday celebrations in 2006.

It came two months after a US arrest warrant was issued for Epstein for the sexual assault of a minor. It had previously been reported that Epstein, Maxwell and Weinstein visited Windsor Castle for the event, but not that they had been hosted at Andrew’s private home. 

The revelation heaps fresh pressure on Andrew who was forced to give up his titles earlier this month.

It was claimed yesterday that William threatened to take away the titles of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie unless they persrued their father to move out of the Royal Lodge.

Speaking to The News Agents podcast, Maitlis said: ‘There was a question over whether there had been, earlier in the day, a meeting between Prince William and the princesses, Beatrice and Eugenie, saying you guys have to get your dad to move out of Royal Lodge otherwise we will start re-examining the state of your own titles. 

‘They are at the moment allowed to be princesses, but there was a bit of pressure, we understand, being put on the princesses to say this is going to happen. Obviously you can see why Andrew as a father would want to keep their daughters happy and keep their titles in place come what may.

‘What we learned what was going to happen on Thursday was that Charles, fresh from the Vatican and his audience with the Pope, was going to come via Royal Lodge to be seen in other words reading the riot act to his brother.’ 

But sources told the Daily Mail that Maitlis’s claims were ‘completely wrong’. 

Asked about the claims, Kensington Palace said a meeting – or indeed a conversation – between William and his cousins simply never happened. ‘This is not even a decision for him,’ a source added.

Maitlis said journalists had earlier in the day been tipped off by the Palace that there ‘may be passing traffic’ outside Royal Lodge, but further details were unclear. 

She added: ‘Nobody was going to film the conversation or see him stepping out the car but there was going to be the moment caught on camera of King Charles’s car heading to Royal Lodge. 

‘What happened, I understand, was that the Palace then got very nervous and when they saw the choppers and helicopters, they thought this has all got too big, this has got out of control, they cancelled the whole thing. The King just went straight home and never came by.’

Andrew and Fergie are said to be willing to finally leave Royal Lodge after nearly two decades, but claims both of them want a separate home has sparked outrage from some in royal circles. 

Sources close to the couple, who have been divorced for almost 30 years, have reacted angrily, however, to suggestions they have demanded two homes, insisting the offer is ‘misrepresentative of the truth’ and has, in fact, ‘been on the table for months’.

‘It was an option put forward by the ‘other side’ and at an early stage [in negotiations]’, they claimed.

‘Whether it is still on the table, I don’t know. But the suggestion that they have been demanding a new home each is misrepresentative of the truth.

‘No demands have been made. People have been trying to come up with solutions.’

While Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the claims, insiders say they simply ‘do not recognise’ this version of events, however.

Sources have pointed out that the King may consider it prudent to keep Sarah ‘in the fold’, rather than her consider another tell-all book. 

She has already brought out a memoir in 1996, the year she divorced Andrew, and then an autobiography in 2011.

The King has also treated his former sister-in-law kindly in recent years given her personal battles after being diagnosed with both breast and skin cancers. 

Sources with knowledge of Sarah’s situation have described her as ‘absolutely bereft’ and ‘completely on the edge’.

She is said to be hugely ’embarrassed’ by the scandal which has also come home to roost for her personally after the publication of a ‘cringeworthy’ email she wrote to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, apologising profusely for disassociating herself from him publicly following his child sex conviction in 2008.

It has also been claimed that she repeatedly pestered the billionaire paedophile for money to bail her out of personal and business debts. 

‘She is contrite and embarrassed but also fears the scandal has fatally damaged her own business interests, including a number of new fictional books that are due to come out,’ a source said.

‘People don’t want to be associated with her any more.’

The friend added: ‘The honest truth is that she has nowhere to go and no one to go with [if Andrew loses Royal Lodge]. Her future is hanging in the balance.’

Another source added: ‘The King is a kind man but his patience has been pushed to the limit. However, the last thing he also wants is another ‘Spare’ [the vitriolic memoir brought out by his own son, Prince Harry, in 2023].’

On Monday, Charles was heckled during a cathedral visit by a protester who boldly asked him about Prince Andrew and Epstein’s relationship.

The anti-monarchy protester – from the campaign group Republic – shouted questions about the Prince and convicted sex trafficker Epstein as the King visited Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire.

As the King walked past, the demonstrator yelled: ‘How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?

‘Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew?

‘Should MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?’

The King chose to ignore the heckler, showing no reaction while other people outside Lichfield Cathedral told the heckler to ‘shut up’ as the King made his way through the crowd, greeting fans and tuning out the chaos.

The prince’s links to Epstein have dominated headlines recently with fresh focus on his sex accuser Virginia Giuffre’s claims after her posthumous book was published.

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Andrew tried to involve the Metropolitan Police and one of Queen Elizabeth’s most senior aides in a campaign to smear Virginia Giuffre, who had accused him of assaulting her as a teenager.

A bombshell email obtained exposed how Andrew asked his taxpayer-funded police bodyguard to investigate the ‘lying’ young woman.

Shockingly, the prince passed on details of her date of birth and social security number, presumably given to him by Epstein.

He also claimed Virginia, who took her own life earlier this year, had criminal convictions, a claim which has not been backed up by any evidence or confirmed by police and has been strongly denied by her family.

An earlier email exposé proved that Andrew lied to Buckingham Palace and the British public when he claimed he had cut off all contact with his close friend in December 2010, following Epstein’s release from prison on child-sex charges.

Twelve weeks later, he emailed the paedophile financier to say they were ‘in this together’ and sickeningly expressed his wish to ‘play some more soon’.

His ex wife Sarah Ferguson, who has also been living in Royal Lodge, came under fire in recent weeks as astonishing new emails claimed Epstein had secretly bankrolled her for 15 years.

The convicted paedophile complained to friends about the disgraced duchess’s scrounging ways in messages that suggest his financial support went far beyond the £15,000 she admitted taking from him.

In the previously unseen emails, Epstein reveals Fergie was so desperate to cosy up to him that ‘she was the first to celebrate’ his release from jail ‘with her two daughters in tow’. Princess Beatrice would have been 20 at the time and Eugenie 19, the same age as many of his victims.

The shocking claims are contained in a huge tranche of documents under review by the US Congress. They are set to be released once they have been redacted to protect the identity of hundreds of young girls Epstein raped and sexually abused.