BEA & EDO REPLACE MEGHAN & HARRY
THE PRINCESS IS GETTING A PROMOTION AND A NEW HOME
After once again being forced to push back their wedding, Princess Beatrice and her fiancé, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, have their sights set on a new ambition.
It’s thought that the couple are doing their very best to convince the Queen and other senior royals that they should be seriously considered for taking on Prince Harry and Meghan’s recently vacated positions – and old home.
Behind the scenes, Bea and Edo have reportedly expressed how keen they are to move into the newly refurbished Frogmore Cottage, which is currently unoccupied. Already co-parenting Edo’s 3-year-old son Christopher, the couple are planning on extending their family and are keen to put Archie’s former luxury nursery to good use.
Last week Edo prompted speculation he and Beatrice were ready to leave their current base in St James’s Palace when he posted to Instagram a series of photos of a luxury home, captioning the pics, “Hard to say goodbye to this”.
But while the couple are in fact still living in the apartment Beatrice once shared with sister Eugenie, they are discussing moving to a more familyfriendly home. Both are agreed that Frogmore would be the perfect solution.
It is also customary for royal couples to move to a new home after marriage. Eugenie and then-fiancé Jack Brooksbank swapped their apartments for the three-bedroom Ivy Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace before they married in October 2018. Kate and William were gifted Anmer Hall by the Queen after their wedding, while she also gifted Frogmore Cottage to Harry and Meghan.
It was initially thought that Harry and Meghan would retain Frogmore as their UK base, as per a statement from the palace in January which explained, “as they continue to support the monarchy and so that their family will always have a place to call home in the United Kingdom”.
The couple added that they wished to repay the cost to the UK taxpayer for the Windsor cottage’s refurbishment, thought to be around $4.6 million.
It was also reported that Meghan and Harry would have to pay up to $700,000 in private rent to retain access to the property but it’s not known if they have done either.
Since then, there’s been endless speculation about who will take over Harry and Meghan’s many patronages and duties. While no official statement has been made, royal experts say that Beatrice and Eugenie are the most obvious candidates to be promoted.
Royals expert and author Phil Dampier tells New Idea that the sisters would “gladly step up and do some royal jobs if they were allowed”.
Biographer and The Crown consultant Robert Lacey agrees,
telling Hello! magazine earlier this year that, “if two go out, two have got to come in”.
He clarified: “It’s quite clear that one of the consequences is that Beatrice and Eugenie will now be brought forward
– if they’re willing to be brought forward.”
It’s well known that Prince Andrew always pushed for his daughters to be fully-funded, working senior royals. However Prince Charles’ vision of a slimmed down monarchy meant this ambition was never realised. In 2011 Beatrice and Eugenie lost the use of their paid-for protection officers as part of cost-cutting measures. Despite both sisters having full-time jobs, Andrew has always supplemented their finances with his own fortune. But with him stepping down as a senior royal due to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, it is believed he no longer receives the taxpayerfunded Sovereign Grant. While this $480,000 per year stipend is not much in comparison to his rumoured $110 million fortune, the princesses could be forced to pay for some of their own expenses, so a royal promotion would no doubt be welcomed.