The Duchess of York seems to have persuaded her former husband to skip the traditional gathering at Sandringham. Photo / Getty Images
The Duchess of York seems to have persuaded her former husband to skip the traditional gathering at Sandringham. Photo / Getty Images
Instead of joining the royal family at Sandringham this year, the Yorks will be at their Windsor home – but it’s unlikely they’ll be alone.
When King Charles leads the royal family on their annual walk to St Mary Magdalene church on Christmas Day, there will be one figure conspicuous by his absence: the monarch’s beleaguered younger brother, the Duke of York.
The Duchess of York, it seems, has persuaded her former husband, who is facing renewed controversy over his links to the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, to “do the decent thing” and skip the traditional gathering at Sandringham.
It is not known whether the eighth-in-line to the throne, who is said to spend his days watching box sets and practising his golf swing, will still attend the separate pre-Christmas lunch for the extended family at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, but royal watchers believe it is unlikely.
The sidelining of Prince Andrew at Christmas – whether self-imposed or not – marks a spectacular fall from grace for the disgraced Duke, 64, who has been criticised for a string of lapses of judgment over five decades.
Prince Andrew is facing renewed controversy over his links to the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo. Photo / Getty Images
He quit his role as an international trade ambassador in 2011 amid a public outcry over his overseas trips and links to dubious characters, and “stood back” from his 230 patronages in 2022 over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile financier.
But, until now, the Duke remained a stalwart of the royal festive celebrations and was even joined by his ex-wife Sarah at Sandringham after the 2021 death of the Duke of Edinburgh, who reputedly described her as “beyond the pale”.
Now the couple will miss the traditional gift swapping in Sandringham’s White Room, on Christmas Eve, and black-tie dinner, as well as the Christmas church service, lunch and parlour games, and Boxing Day shoot.
It will be a disappointment for Fergie, 65, who was thrilled to be welcomed back into the fold last year for her first Christmas walkabout for more than 30 years, greeting members of the public as if she had never been away.
But while reports suggest that both their daughters, Princess Beatrice, 36, and Princess Eugenie, 34, will spend Christmas with their in-laws, it is unlikely the Yorks will spend the day alone at their Grade II listed home, Royal Lodge, in Windsor.
Sitting in 98 acres of parkland and with 30 rooms, Royal Lodge was once the cherished home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The Duke moved into the property in 2003 having sold Sunninghill, the home near Ascot that he and the Duchess of York had been given by the Queen as a wedding present. Under a deal with the Crown Estate for a 75-year lease on the property, he has the legal right to live at Royal Lodge until 2078.
A royal biographer believes that the Yorks will spend Christmas with Beatrice. Photo / Getty Images
The Yorks’ daughters are bound to step in to support their parents in some form. The Duke and Duchess have been close friends of Beatrice’s in-laws for decades: her father-in-law Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, who skied for Britain at the 1972 Winter Olympics, met Fergie in Verbier when she was dating racing driver Paddy McNally.
Beatrice’s mother-in-law, Nikki, meanwhile, who is divorced from Alessandro, made the Duchess godmother to her son, Alby, from her second marriage to the late Conservative politician Christopher Shale.
Nikki now lives with her third husband, the celebrated sculptor David Williams-Ellis, in a house, designed by her, in the heart of the Chipping Norton set, in the Cotswolds, 70 miles along the M40 from Royal Lodge, and not far from Beatrice and her son, Edoardo.
Meanwhile, Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank, 38, stay in Ivy Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace with their sons August, 3, and Ernest, 18 months, when they are not in Portugal, where Jack works for property tycoon Mike Meldman.
Although they had planned to spend Christmas with Jack’s widowed mother Nicola – his father George, died in 2021, at the age of 72 – she is only 50 miles away down the M3 in Stockbridge, Hampshire.
Royal biographer Ingrid Seward believes that the Yorks will spend Christmas with Beatrice, who is expecting her second child in the spring.
She and Edoardo, 41, a property developer, already have a 3-year-old daughter, Sienna, as well as 8-year-old Wolfie, his son with his ex-partner Dara Huang.
“Somehow or other, I think that Fergie and Andrew will be with Beatrice, Edo and the kids, either at Royal Lodge or the in-laws,” she says. “[Beatrice] is very close to her father and will want to support him and be with him at this time. I cannot possibly see Fergie sitting alone at Royal Lodge. She has lots of friends and family and would want to be with them. Andrew possibly wouldn’t mind. He would sit there in front of the TV, but Sarah would organise something with Beatrice.”
Certainly, Fergie has endured many tough Christmases since her separation from the Duke in 1992, after she had an affair with financier John Bryan, who was memorably photographed sucking her toes.
Although she and Prince Andrew remain close – they now live together at Royal Lodge – for a while she spent Christmas on her own at Wood Farm, a five-bedroom house on the Sandringham Estate.
Beatrice and Eugenie would have lunch with the late Queen Elizabeth and then walk down to Wood Farm to see their mother before returning to the Big House to play a traditional game of charades with the monarch.
This year both the Duke and Duchess are seemingly out in the cold. They might at least take comfort in the fact that they are together.
