Beatrice and Eugenie: Pampered Princesses? - British Royal Documentary

hats holidays and the high life meet princesses beatrice and eugenie they seem more like twins than sisters nobody says beatrice or eugenie separately is beatrice and eugenie they sort of come together in a pair thank you they're the princesses we love to mock it looked to the public you know that they were never doing anything that involved any serious thought their parents fergie and andrew have brought shame and scandal on their daughters they've done so many things which are almost unbelievably stupid but inevitably the daughters are dragged in i let the side down simple as that the ninth and tenth and line to the throne have been subject to ridicule in the media we've had almost as many hats as we've had holidays and just like our holidays most of them have been free beatrice was widely mocked for her philip tracy hat which was compared from everything from a pretzel to a lucy they've been accused of extravagance and privilege beatrice famously had about 15 holidays in a year which she was supposed to be working and usually definitely got herself a bit of a reputation as a party princess we've had to learn some lessons the hard way but how much do we really know about them a lot of people don't realize that they don't get any money formally from the state tonight using rarely seen footage and in their own words we reveal the truth about these much-maligned princesses growing up in the public eye means that every embarrassing slightly awkward growth spurt or hilarious fashion moment are published around the world now happily married and with motherhood imminent for eugenie we ask whether they finally manage to free themselves from their parents controversial shadows i think there is a lot about the york sisters to be celebrated are they pampered princesses i don't think they are at all i think they're the reverse [Music] [Applause] august 1988 the birth of a princess a first child for prince andrew and sarah ferguson there was huge euphoria everyone was just delighted that there was another royal baby and they came out of the hospital and [Music] it was national jubilation because here was the first royal princess since princess anne princess beatrice elizabeth mary blissfully unaware of tradition or ceremonial took over the proceedings she was startlingly well behaved but she did seem to have a sense of occasion [Music] the name beatrice was really it was queen victoria's daughter beatrice that she was named after she's beatrice elizabeth mary so beatrice has the names of all english queens since 1910. [Music] within two years there was a sister for the young princess princess usually arrived 19 months after her sister beatrice in the march of 1919. the duchess he emerged from the portland hospital ready to give the world a first glimpse of a new royal baby princess eugenie was fast asleep blissfully unaware of her celebrity status i think everyone was still wishing the yorks well and this was an exciting new addition for the family even if people weren't quite sure how to pronounce eugenie's name prince andrew's children would be royal highnesses and princesses i mean unless he said i look i don't want them to have titles princess anne had turned down titles for her children peter and zara but the duke and duchess of york thought it only right that their children should have all the privileges of senior royals they very much wanted them to be princesses and and thought that maybe they would um certainly end up as working working royals prince andrew's insistence that his daughters be treated as senior royals would lead to criticism of the princesses as they grew older but to really understand the attacks on beatrice and eugenie you have to go back to the marriage of their parents it was very much the fairy tale and i think the british public bought into it here was um the queen's favorite son getting married to the vivacious pretty bubbly and you know very likable sarah ferguson [Music] and at first the newlyweds could do no wrong i think sarah was a breath of fresh air the royal family really took to her and she just was really suited to andrew and made more importantly andrew very happy why do you want me to kiss him [Laughter] dare you you're a monster [Music] but the duke and duchess of york's honeymoon period with the tabloids didn't last long this is in an era the mid-80s when the monarchy had become tabloid fodder the era of deference was over and fergie and andre were great for the tabloids and that's fine if the tabloids like you and it's fine if you don't in any way misbehave fergie came in for a huge amount of criticism for her lifestyle for her fashion and what the tabloids called her work shy attitude nicknaming her her royal idolness all attacks her daughters would one day have to endure there was a time where she could do no right with the press sarah would come in gung ho maybe not in the right outfit maybe say sometimes the wrong things and the press sort of then started to really pick up her while their mother faced an increasingly hostile press beatrice and eugenie spent a privileged childhood at sunny hill the estate given to prince andrew by the queen as a wedding gift they had built this rather extravagant very modern palace which was famously likened uh to south fork in the uh in the dallas tv series and it obviously became known as south york so their early days were spent there they were probably far more indulged than uh ordinary children i remember going once to uh the the house where they were staying and being absolutely astounded there was a there was a little sort of building in the garden and it was absolutely full of barbie dolls so they had a lot of stuff but they were very very well brought up beatrice and eugenie were also doted on by their grandparents the yorks lived a short drive from windsor castle and visited often the queen adored eugenie and beatrice she saw in them something of her own relationship as a child with with margaret well caught but the next one is butterfingers they would often go and have tea with the queen and prince philip and i think again fergie said that they had you know three sets of manners one was for whom one was for when they were out and the third lot was when they were with the queen and they had to be very careful and mine their p's and q's sarah ferguson's own parents had divorced and her mother had left to live in argentina when sarah was 12. i remember sarah once telling me that she wrote a letter to her mum actually blaming herself for mum leaving she thought it was something to do with her and she wanted to be there for her children all the time and have that special bond and that special closeness within the first few years of the princess's lives andrew and sarah's marriage was showing signs of strain as a serving officer in the navy andrew was spending just 40 days a year at home leaving fergie to bring up the still young beatrice and eugenie alone i think the cracks started to show when prince andrew was away so much with the navy you know he wasn't with her his posting follows three months of specialized training and the duke will now lead a flight team aboard the frigate for around 18 months he wasn't there with the girls bringing them up as she'd hoped and i think sarah really started to miss him and missed that family bond that family life beatrice was three and usually just a toddler when their parents marriage finally fell apart and in 1992 photos surfaced in the press of fergie with another man a cleaner found a set of holiday snaps showing the duchess and her two children with a texan steve wyatt beatrice and eugenie had a very odd childhood i mean where their parents were um on the face of it that remained friends but they were seeing other people from from quite early on and i think that was probably damaging in a subtle kind of long lasting way [Music] in march 1992 the duke and duchess of york announced that their marriage was over [Music] the announcement that the duchess of york had initiated discussions about a separation from her husband came as she arrived to pick up their daughter from school it's always very difficult for children to see their parents split up and i think perhaps the queen even felt more maternal towards them and that they they'd had a very hard time [Music] five months after the york separation sarah ferguson was photographed by the press with another man john bryant yet again beatrice and eugenie were with her fergie and the children were round the pool and she was topless and john brown was kissing her toes beatrice and usually are in the background i mean they're there they're sort of parties to the what was going on between brian and and their mother um they of course didn't know they were too little and too young but they were seen as sort of pawns in in this rather unfortunate and rather seedy affair the daily mirror's expose had serious consequences for beatrice and eugenie's family by the time the story broke the two girls were at balmoral with their mother and the rest of the royal family andrew was there and the queen was there and fergie then had to go and apologize to the queen and she said she'd never seen the queen that angry and eugenie's holiday was cut short as fergie fled belmoral taking the young girls with her they would have been distracted by the nanny but they would have known that their mother was very distressed and they would have taken on her distress the girls went back went back down south i mean and at this stage they were no longer living at sunny hill their mother had a rented home not far away she had a series of of rented houses in surrey and berkshire that she sort of moved to with alarming regularity which in itself must have been destabilizing for the girls fergie was reportedly banished by prince philip from family gatherings making life difficult for the princesses christmas at sandringham is a big family occasion and suddenly sarah ferguson wasn't there that must be very hard to understand when they were young girls know why isn't mummy allowed in the big house anymore she was banished uh to a a farmhouse on the sandringham estate the girls obviously spent time with her and slept there and then on christmas day andrew would collect them and take them to church and they'd go back up to sandriam house for lunch with their grandparents and the rest of the royal family meanwhile fergie was having her turkey twizzler or whatever she was doing all on her own despite the split prince andrew and sarah ferguson were determined to do the best they could for their children [Music] andrew and sarah obviously had separated but they were very much kind of co-parenting very much a united family unit it was more than just a united front for sports days i mean you would expect that for school events but it went far beyond that i mean they were going on holiday together it meant there was a lot of continuity and reassurance for beatrice and usually that their parents were still very much part of their lives despite their best efforts andrew and sarah's marital problems created major upheaval for beatrice and eugenie but the girls would also face their own personal issues beatrice at the young age of seven realised something wasn't right she was very very difficult to learn beatrice was seven years old and usually six when their parents divorce was finalized in 1996 needing to pay off debts of more than one million pounds their mother took work in the united states their mother was spending a lot of time in in the states really trying to clear off an enormous debt that she had accumulated um from tv projects to book projects you know sarah was literally trying to do anything she could to to get herself out of out of spiraling debts their lives were regulated by the school terms which was probably a very good thing so i think that you know they didn't suffer in any way from the fact that their mother had to go and earn money and had to spend a lot of time in new york [Music] but as her mother was increasingly away beatrice was facing up to her own difficulties she'd been diagnosed with dyslexia beatrice at the young age of seven realized something wasn't right she was very difficult to learn and she was worried she was going to get teased from others and i wouldn't fit in beatrice would later speak movingly of the condition in an interview for the charity made by dyslexia you know i remember we had different coloured books just describe how far where your reading levels had got to and i was always on the white books my best friends were always on the yellow books or the green books they were so far ahead and i think at that stage you those moments of doubt just pop into your head i'm not good enough i'm not smart enough i'm i'm not why am i not like the others up ending royal tradition it was decided to keep beatrice at a local school in nearby ascot [Music] i think sarah felt very important that beatrice was made to feel very secure and that her mum was just around the corner as needed but there were further issues for the family to deal with prince is usually as she started to grow and develop her parents noticed that there was something slightly different slightly wrong in the way that her spine was developing so she started a number of tests and went through a number of specialists it really worried her it worried her about growth it worried the whole family it was a very sort of scary time at 12 eugenie was diagnosed with scoliosis curvature of the spine she needed eight hours of surgery speaking out about it later to raise money for the hospital that treated her i had scoliosis of the spine which my mum found they put metal rods in my neck and eight inch screws up my back which have now fused together and keep me straight she makes private visits to see patients and i understand that she writes to many child patients who have to undergo the same thing as her to say look i had it done best decision in my life yes it was tricky yes i had to wear a back brace but the upshot of that is that i'm able to ride i'm able to walk i'm able to ski i'm able to lead a completely active life [Music] in their young lives the princesses had coped with the public scandals surrounding their parents and their private battles there would be further struggles ahead as they carved out new roles for themselves but uniquely they always face these challenges together they're very close friends and and very close sisters but they're very different personalities beatrice is perhaps a more formal and more reserved eugenie is is i suppose what might be described as bubbly and chatty the more confident eugenie chose to go away to marlborough college the co-ed public school also attended by kate middleton marlborough is quite progressive boarding school it's very sporty it does a lot of art there's a lot of drama it's not just about the academic achievement of its pupils and that really suited eugenie i think and she made a core group of friends there with whom she'll be friends for life beatrice who is i think the quieter and and perhaps shyer of the two girls went to an all girls school in ascot and she delayed her gcses for a year because of her dyslexia and and she didn't get the best grades but she did go on to become head girl both girls had wide circles of friends including of course their cousins william and harry there was a stage when kind of harry was falling out of nightclubs and it would normally be usually as his right hand wing woman and they certainly enjoyed themselves and usually definitely got herself a bit of a reputation as a party princess away from the limelight the public began to see a different side to the princesses and one that wouldn't go down well they were mixing with a fast crowd and it looked to to the general public you know that they were always having a good time and never doing anything that you know involved any serious thought the press was beginning to draw comparisons between eugenie and beatrice and their parents i see myself as a mini mummy so i kind of i kind of have this i kind of have this sort of image anything you could do i want to do better so i have to tell you that's easy the comparisons were not always favorable when usually went globetrotting on a gap year to mark the end of her a-levels the tabloids weren't far behind the suggestion really was that here was a couple who were living beyond their means cashing in on their royal connections and weren't beatrice and usually going to be just the same it was almost as if they were tarred with their parents brush from the outset usually went to south africa and on to the far east she was sort of flitting from country to country as as most middle class young people do who take gap years but of course she was accompanied by police bodyguards and that meant we the taxpayers were paying for policemen to accompany her to the fleshpots of the world the taxpayers share of the bill added to the reported half a million pounds already spent on the princess's protection each year prince gels decided as they would not likely to be very senior royals that this was too much for the public to pay so he stopped that prince andrew was so angry that he wrote a note to the queen saying that he wanted them to be considered as proper royals and he did not want the protection officers to leave them usually the queen gave in to him she had this huge soft spot for him and he could persuade her to his way but this time she refused written off as pampered princesses eugenie and beatrice tried to keep a low profile and in 2010 the sisters now just 20 and 21 found themselves embroiled in another of their mother's scandals she was caught on camera essentially selling access to her husband and to someone who she believed was a shape but was in fact an undercover reporter for the news of the world 000 pounds when you can to me open doors yeah is that a deal yeah it was a nightmare for sarah ferguson it was a nightmare for her children it was just a sort of a nightmare for everyone [Music] beatrice was with her mother when the phone call came warning them that the news of the world was publishing the expose beatrice he was a party uh held by naomi campbell the model um just kept asking her mother how did this happen you know how and they left the party immediately effectively went into hiding knowing that once again her mother's reputation was about to be completely trashed beatrix admitted that she spent several days crying and one of her friends went and stayed with her overnight for two days because she was so traumatized and so unhappy her anger was directed at the press and just as they have done throughout their lives beatrice and eugenie led to the defense of their mother they called themselves the tripod and that's exactly what they were they leaned on each other they depended on one another they were absolutely a unit and nothing was going to come between them [Music] over the coming years it would be the turn of sarah ferguson to defend her daughters against their critics people have been [Music] like [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so brutal to them particularly in the press about how they look and sarah spoke to the editor to the daily mail at the time just said look he just back off it's not fair [Music] prince andrew's insistence that his daughters receive royal titles at birth immediately put them under the glare of the world's media as young girls growing up beatrice and eugenie had less of a place in the spotlight and than william and harry but there was still a lot of press interest in and usually this along with the scandals and embarrassments that have engulfed their parents has meant that beatrice and eugenie have also been in the firing line the whole family is seen as a soft target because the parents particularly have made so many i mean mistakes is being generous that inevitably the daughters are dragged in i think there are times when it it looks as though the girls are just being knocked because it's turned into something of a national sport particularly when it comes to their fashion sense the two princesses have become renowned for their bold designer outfits people have been so brutal to them particularly in the press about how they look which is just so old-fashioned and sort of sexist in this day and age the two of them are quite similar they quite like vibrant eclectic colorful clothing and fair play to them fergie was often criticized in the press for getting it wrong in the in the fashion states you know her fashion choices were bold some might say garish always over the top and i i suppose when we started seeing beatrice and eugenie taking a leaf out of fergie's fashion book um history repeated itself but it was when beatrice and eugenie was seen arriving at their cousin williams wedding in 2011 that the ridicule reached new heights i don't think they will ever live down the outfits that they wore to the royal wedding sarah had had paid a fortune to have them styled for the wedding days so that they they looked the part beatrice's choice of headwear instantly created the national debate beatrice was widely mocked for her philip tracy hat which was compared from everything from a pretzel to a loose seat she became a meme instantly there were lots of jokes going around that it was like a television aerial this hat was like another guest it was like the most talked about guest at kate and william's wedding within hours of the wedding the silk fascinator costing around two thousand pounds had earned its own facebook page and hundreds of photoshopped images of the headpiece were shared online it did get the headlines maybe for the wrong reasons but they're very confident and i think they have this wonderful knack of just you know laughing it off the princesses used a charity speech to showcase their positive attitudes growing up in the public eye means that every embarrassing slightly awkward growth spurt or hilarious fashion moment are published are published around the world together we have laughed together we have cried ultimately though together we field each other's sense of humor beatrice actually did something very clever she turned the thing around brilliantly by auctioning the offending fascinator it raised 81 000 pounds for charity which she got a lot of good publicity for that and it showed that unlike her parents there are times when beatrice is quick on her feet the princess's love of headwear became infamous and was mocked by the critically acclaimed channel 4 show the windsors if there's one thing we're famous for it's our holidays hats so basically this is just like a small selection of some of the incredible fascinators that i've got see and these cost like in and around about a thousand two thousand pounds each which is a lot like if you're poor they were called the frankie sisters the two ugly sisters and you know the press were very cruel um and that must have been incredibly upsetting for them in 2018 the princesses opened up about how the scrutiny has at times taken its toll particularly after one royal engagement they spent an hour or two in buckingham palace meeting dozens and dozens of people doing the royal job and suddenly a story drops criticizing their appearance and their clothes they admitted that they were both in tears and trying to comfort each other because they felt they'd been they've been so badly treated even beatrice's weight was criticized when she was just 19 proving once again that life in the spotlight came with serious downsides beatrice was pictured on a beach in a bikini and those pictures were published in all of the newspapers sarah was really upset and she is very protective of her daughters and i think she spoke to the editor of the daily mail at the time and she said look just back off it's not fair sarah also used an interview about her tv program the duchess on the estate to plead with the media everybody is talking about these zero models walking up and down the catwalk and then they say they're all too thin victoria beckham's too thin and this person's too thin then someone who's a good size 10 oh she's too fat she doesn't take drugs she doesn't smoke you know she's going to university in september reading history give the girl a break it was probably reminding her of the fact that she had a very hard time in the press when she was younger as well it's partly guilt by association they're an easy target because their mother's always been a target even as they reached adulthood the princesses struggled to escape their parents shadow i think that a lot of the things which have been said about beatrice new jelly were kind of as though they were their parents appendages and as though they weren't independent people there is one area of beatrice and eugenie's lives that gets very little press coverage i think people don't realize that both beatrice and eugenie do actually have full-time jobs and they have built up their own independent careers and of course a lot of people don't realize that they don't get any money formally from the state when it comes to their careers beatrice and usually are often tarnished in the media by their parents reputations eugenie we're gonna have to get jobs is that like when daddy has a party but arabs and british businessman no i think of jobs where you have to go into a building or something as titled princesses it was expected that beatrice and eugenie would become full-time working royals when charles made his vision for a streamlined monarchy really very clear around the time of the diamond gpu celebrations and that was a big issue for andrew his view was that they had the hrh titles therefore they are blood princesses therefore they should be full-time working members of the royal family it didn't pan out that way and that definitely caused tensions between the royal brothers charles and andrew for beatrice and eugenie the dilemma of being non-working royals who have princess titles lies at the heart of many of the issues they have to grapple with for two members of the royal family who are as close as eugenian beatrice to being corps members it is unusual to to be working they never wanted to be accused of cashing in on their royal status and being idle they wanted to go out and get jobs but it did take a while for them to get to that position when they left university came back from their gap year you know they were still living very much within the protective bubble of the palace in 2011 beatrice graduated university with a 2-1 after a year working in new york she embarked on her current career in the tech industry splitting her time between the uk and america they've both actually done incredibly well beatrice is vice president of strategies and partnerships at a at an artificial intelligence agency so she's really quite senior in the tech world usually followed in the footsteps of beatrice after also graduating with the 2-1 in 2012 she too moved to new york but embarked on a very different career path to her sister eugenie has seemingly always been interested in the arts and she went to new york and worked for an online art business eugene had also begun a relationship with her future husband jack brooksbank who she had met on a ski trip after dating long distance for two years usually returned to london in 2015. and then she came back and got an amazing job uh with a huge uh international art dealers called hyzer and worth in mayfair with careers outside the monarchy beatrice and usually have gained experience that's out of reach for many of their royal relatives they have one foot in the royal family because they still go to events with core members of the family and they have one foot in the real world they do it because they want to work and they're very grounded and they like being around normal people distancing themselves from their parents reputations for failed money-making ventures the girls forged more stable paths but as members of one of the most famous families in the world how normal can their lives really be they do come back for things like drooping the color and garden parties in buckingham palace and they do need someone who will understand that they can't be there nine to five five days a week part of the reason that they have been employed is because of their network it's because they're princess beatrice and princess usually and they are styled as such they kind of get the best of both worlds because they get to earn their own money but they also still enjoy the privileges of being princesses we know that in you know in the first year of working in their jobs they they had numerous holidays they're not you know they're not they're not clocking in and clocking out as it were beatrice and eugenie certainly benefit from their royal privilege and their hrh titles mean their every move is of public interest and open to scrutiny the princess's jet-setting lifestyles made headlines once again in 2015. beatrice famously had about 15 holidays in a year in which she was supposed to be working and then was horrified when you know this was criticized [Music] she clearly thinks this is her private life if her employer is happy then then that's absolutely fine and the same applies to eugenie the princesses had clearly inherited andrew and sarah's love of the high life and although not paid for by the state the many holidays fueled their reputations as pampered princesses clearly somebody had a word and and made it very clear that there needed to be some settling down otherwise this really was risky damaging the reputation of the monarchy the princesses showed they were able to respond to public perception in their speech for the charity we as young working women in the public eye we've had to learn some lessons the hard way in many ways we are grateful for that in hindsight naturally as royals they also carry out public duties too beatrice and eugenie are patrons of a wide range of charities in the same way that sarah has always used um her public profile to promote charitable causes beatrice and eugenie have both been very active um in the charity world and and have chosen charities that are meaningful and relevant to them so beatrice has aligned herself with children's charities with a focus on education and the dyslexia charity that she works closely with i really see the work that we're doing raising awareness around dyslexia as a true pillar to stand up the concept of reimagining education beatrice running the london marathon in aid of charity the first member of the royal family to do so in 2010 really excited i'm really i'm desperate to get to the start line i'm desperate to get going usually most recently focused on anti-slavery and empowering women she went on to become the patron of the national orthopaedic hospital where she had been treated for scoliosis when she was 12. today i'm so lucky to get to work with and support other young women who are going through the same thing to encourage them to not let their diagnosis win to live fearlessly too despite their dedication their charitable efforts are often overlooked in the press there's far too much focus on perhaps some of the um outfits that they've been wearing or what they're getting up to in their private lives and because there has been so much scandal associated with their parents that has slightly overshadowed um the the good work that they have done themselves as individuals i think in terms of their public conduct they see the mistakes that both of their parents have made so i think beatrice and eugenie have learned from this they've given very few rather short interviews normally about something very specific often a charity involvement they want to live quiet lives below the radar the antithesis of the lives that their parents have lived that desire to largely remain out of the public eye is all well and good but when it comes to royal romances it's often impossible and eugenie's wedding would invite yet more media scrutiny it was usually trying to compete in glamour with harry and megan's wedding but this is someone who's ostensibly an ordinary working person the world's media lover royal romance as the tabloids fixated on prince william's relationship with kate middleton and prince harry's rumored girlfriends love was blossoming under the radar for prince eugenie and jack brooksbank it was something they talked about in a rare tv interview watched by millions on the bbc's the one show we were skiing weren't we in a friend's place in mendez next to verbiage who was skiing which was amazing love at first sight was it for the pair of you we met when i was 20 and jack was 24 and um fell in love and and we have the same same passions and and drive for life they were introduced through mutual friends he was four years older than her gone to sew school came from a good background what a lovely couple great fun jack is just very relaxed very normal they both like to have a sort of late night uh have a few drinks and it was just an instant chemistry and attraction usually hadn't had a actually a very important long-term relationship up until then they dated for seven years before they got married although not from an aristocratic background jack mixed in the same circles as usually they've got similar mutual friends jack gets on well with prince harry and sarah absolutely adored jack as did beatrice and he just seemed to fit in with the family so well when they met jack was working at mahiki nightclub where he usually enjoyed nights out with beatrice and her cousin harry he works in hospitality and he is a brand ambassador for a tequila company casamigo and he didn't go to university actually went straight into the the trade of hospitality and even jack couldn't escape being mocked in the windsors hello beatrice hi jack i'm uh just off to work have a good day darling tequila shots eugenie and jack announced their engagement in 2018. to mark the occasion the couple also did an interview with itv's long-running daytime show this morning how would you describe each other in just three words she's this bright shining light i was quite surprised that they did an engagement interview because they do occupy this kind of hinterland between they're not senior working royals they are private individuals so ordinarily you wouldn't have a engagement interview for a private royal so the iconography was this is a royal wedding and the interview was in buckingham palace but eugenie's big day had to be put on hold because of the order of hierarchy she actually had to wait for prince harry to marry megan before she could marry jack even though they've been engaged um for for a long time there was a certain amount of upset about that and and i'm upset about being told you've got to wait the british public won't be able to be even remotely enthusiastic about this wedding as a senior royal harry's wedding came first but prince andrew was apparently determined to make sure that his daughters was no less important i think particularly prince andrew he's always been a bit miffed that they were never made full working members of the royal family so i think this was his opportunity to really show them off to not just the country but to the world and say yeah my daughters are absolutely up there with you know william and harry eugene's big day was looking to be an extravagant affair prince andrew very much wanted to have a big fun fair for his daughter it was very difficult because i feel that a lot of the public didn't want this they thought it was a waste of taxpayers money from the security um they aren't senior royals so why should they have the same as prince william and prince harry a lot of it of course uh revolved around prince andrew whose reputation was sinking fast by this stage and um it was seen as sort of him being too excessive the reception wasn't footed by the taxpayer but it was thought that all in all that the whole wedding would have cost between about two million two and a half million pounds and it was felt that quite a big chunk of that would have been for security eugenie already seemed to be an easy target in the press because of her parents reputations but the excessive nature of the wedding opened her up to serious scrutiny she was once again branded the pampered princess it was usually trying to compete in glamour with harry and megan's wedding but this is someone who's ostensibly an ordinary working person and it kind of highlights this slightly problematic tightrope that that both princesses have to walk in that they are royal princesses but yet they're not working members of the family the wedding went ahead as planned on the 12th of october 2018 princess eugenie and jack brooksbank were married at some george's chapel where harry and megan had wed earlier that year i don't think any of us quite knew what to expect of this wedding were the crowds going to turn out for this big day um it actually was a great success the crowds were out usually wanted the big fairy tale wedding at windsor castle and that was what she got when it came to numbers eugenie and jack did certainly outdo harry and meghan with 200 more guests at their nuptials the wedding was huge i mean i think there were 800 guests but fergie has a lot of friends and she loves parties and she loves organizing parties and it was never going to be small among the 800 guests were many well-known faces eugenie and jack's wedding was a royal wedding um like no other quite simply because eugenie has a contact book just like her mother's packed with um vips famous people who who aren't just famous people they are her friends there was naomi campbell cara and poppy delevine demi moore um you know robbie williams was there in fact robbie williams wee girl was was one of the the flower girls there was another night of partying at the royal lodge and this was a big affair with um dodgems and sort of fairground rides it certainly was star-studded but of course eugenie and jack's families were central to the celebrations her father walked her down the aisle and her her sister was her head bridesmaid she had her nieces and nephews princess charlotte and prince george as part of the wedding party so for all the famous faces in the pews and at the heart of the wedding it was family and that's very important to eugenie despite years of having her fashion sense mocked eugenie's outfit choice on the day was widely admired and held great personal significance for the royal bride there was a lot of speculation in the press about who'd been chosen to design eugenie's wedding dress and peter pilotto was an unexpected choice but the dress was beautiful it was very different to anything we'd seen a royal bride wear in that the back was deliberately low cut and usually later explained that she'd deliberately chosen that style to show off the scar from when she'd had her operation as a 12 year old girl to correct the curvature of her spine [Music] and the other thing is that she was wearing this beautiful tiara with emeralds in it which was lent to her by the the queen the tiara from the queen was to show the strength and the closeness of their relationship whilst the weddings of harry and william were broadcast to the world on the bbc as well as other channels eugene's was not which reportedly caused more angst for andrew his people asked the bbc if they were televised and the bbc said no in the end the ceremony was broadcast on itv in an extended episode of this morning watched by three million people there'll be a few more people that most people have there are a few more than harry had but that's just the nature of eugenie and jack they've got so many friends that they need a church of that size to fit them all in i remember watching the interview they did with prince andrew and i kind of winced our wedding's bigger than your wedding despite all andrew and sarah's efforts to ensure all eyes were on their daughter attention once again turned back to harry and megan that day was somewhat overshadowed when just a day later harry and megan publicly announced that they were expecting their first child it's understood that they shared that news with close family friends at the wedding itself and understandably that was upsetting for princess usually although megan and eugenie get on perfectly well they are not good friends i just don't believe it was a coincidence [Applause] but after eugenie had her fairy tale wedding in the spotlight beatrice had no choice but to keep hers out of sight suddenly the entire world is looking at prince andrew and their family and it is one of the biggest scandals [Music] thank you before eugenie's marriage in october 2018 many had expected that older sister beatrice would have been the first to walk down the aisle with long-term boyfriend dave clark they were introduced through prince william and dave is a very charismatic guy very popular sarah and andrew adored him from the minute beatrice brought him home [Music] she's a very conventional young woman so she wanted to get married and it became clear despite pressure from beatrice that dave clark didn't want to marry her with no marriage in sight the relationship came to an end in 2016. i think that for princess beatrice she'd invested 10 years of her life with a man that wasn't going to marry her so that is a difficult situation for any young girl to be in but a little over two years later beatrice found love again after spending time with friend of the family eduardo motzi they've known each other for a long long time however they were reacquainted at princess eugenie's wedding this was a courtship that moved very quickly certainly compared to her previous relationship just a year after they started seeing each other eduardo proposed beatrice's engagement to eduardo motzi was really really happy for fergie and andrew because fergie has known the family for a long time so it couldn't have been happier for her 36 year old multi-millionaire motzi made his fortune as a property developer after studying politics at edinburgh university he is of italian heritage with an english mother was brought up in england and is a successful talented young professional man after the engagement was announced the date of the wedding was set for late may beatrice knew she wanted a smaller wedding she didn't want the big wedding at edson george's you know she'd watched usually have this fabulous celebrity star-studded wedding and um and had loved that wedding but it wasn't the wedding that she wanted it was a step change in the position of prince andrew who'd previously insisted that his daughter should have the biggest and best of everything he made no bones about it his children are the granddaughters of the queen that gives him a certain status and a certain position he felt they were entitled to the kind of wedding that harry had enjoyed and that other members of the royal family had had over the years [Applause] [Music] [Applause] beatrice's wedding to edo motz it was always planned to be a smaller affair than eugenie's wedding you just couldn't do the same thing again there had been too many criticisms and more than that of course we were in a year where um well to put it delicately andrew was once again in the most awful trouble a scandal which had engulfed prince andrew for more than a decade hit the front pages once again and threatened to overshadow beatrice's wedding day the yorks have gone through so many scandals but by far the most damaging has been andrew's relationship his friendship with the late pedophile jeffrey epstein it was kind of viewed that when a punitive date in may was set for wedding the firm the palace machinery were quite concerned with how it would look because they didn't want a massive kind of celebration a la matt harry and megan or william and kate because they thought it'd be inappropriate prince andrew has strongly denied the accusations made against him in an attempt to draw a line under the affair and clear his name he agreed to do a rare interview with the bbc inside buckingham palace the news night interview which apparently beatrice got slightly involved with because she was she thought they could sort it out but of course it just got worse do you regret that trip yes do you regret the whole friendship with epstein now still not the whole thing was just such an unmitigated disaster so i'm sure she felt um upset for herself watching it really really protective of her father she probably felt angry at the the bbc it would have been heartbreaking for her really because her parents had relied on her advice for many other things and this time she was in a very difficult situation and she went against her instinct i wonder what effect all this has had on your close family you've got daughters of your own it has been what i would describe as a constant sore in the family she wanted the right thing she wanted her dad's name to be cleared she believed in her dad anything she could do to try and save her father and also to save her wedding day their father was taken out of frontline royal duty making a public wedding difficult it was still going to be a royal wedding no decisions have been taken over whether to film it there would have been some photographers and then the reception at buckingham palace would have been private but of course the kobe 19 pandemic threw everything up in the air as the country went into lockdown the wedding was postponed everyone felt so sorry for beatrice because she was the one that you know kept having to change her plans and of course this is a virus that doesn't discriminate in terms of class or privilege and it doesn't matter if you are ninth in line to the throne you still have to be the same rules as the rest of us [Music] but just two months later in a move that shocked everyone princess beatrice married in secret these beautiful photos of the happy couple are the only official record of the day covered in a way lessened the embarrassment of a wedding at which andrew had to virtually be brought in in a sack because he was in such disgrace princess beatrice managed to pull off something no modern member of the royal family has done she managed to get married in secret away from the crying eyes of the press and the long lenses of the pesky paparazzi it ended up being in actually one of the most beautiful places in england which is the chapel in the grounds of royal lodge where the queen worships every sunday the queen was heavily involved in the wedding even lending beatrice a modified version of a vintage dress by norman hartnell that she herself had worn to a film premiere in 1962. it was just stunning she looked absolutely beautiful i think you can see that the queen really does hold very fondly the queen also offered her the tiara she'd worn on her own wedding day in another clear sign of support for her granddaughter for all the people who criticized her about all her outfits she really had the last laugh because she looked absolutely box office the restrained nature of the wedding was well received by the press and the public it was rather heartening to see the pictures and i thought this is a very good way of dealing with andrew's fall from grace dealing with the pandemic in a video announcing the winners of a drawing competition for the forget me not hospice beatrice talked for the first time in public about the wedding do you think this might be my wedding because i had a chance to get married this summer and it was so much fun but i'm not sure i looked as smart as russell bear does in his outfit i think and edo were actually very happy that it happened that way it was very private it was all very low-key which is exactly what knew they wanted [Music] with both princesses embarking on the next phase of their lives what could their future hold in a slim down monarchy it's quite possible that thou harry and megan are out of the picture that there there will be things that beatrice and eugenie could do which is what their father wanted them to do all along [Music] since their marriage in october 2018 princess eugenie and jack brooksbank have been living together in london she continues to try to balance her professional career with royal duties she has sort of settled into married life she lives at kensington palace in a small cottage ivy cottage um provided for her by the queen um but in all other respects she's leading uh an independent life a life independent of the royal family her sister beatrice and new husband eduardo live in an apartment in st james's palace but the global pandemic meant both sisters made plans to be closer to family during lockdown beatrix stayed with her in-laws she gets on very well with her mother-in-law and they've known her since she was a child meanwhile eugenie and her husband jack went to stay with sarah and andrew at royal they experienced the dangers of covert first hand when jack's father george brooksbank was left battling coronavirus in intensive care in a touching video eugenie posted their thanks on her instagram account where she has 1.2 million followers a huge thank you to everyone at the brompton hospital for what you've done in saving my father-in-law's life george came back home to us the other day so happy i wish everyone all the best and thank you so much again for everything you do both york sisters have continued their work with the charities of which they're patrons even under lockdown hosting an awards evening over the internet for the teenage cancer trust we wanted to let you all know that you're not all nominees you're all winners i think we could see the great work these girls do that even with this pandemic that we're all in it was so amazing and so special for those that were winning these awards so thank you so much for sharing today and for doing as all that you can to support young people and teenage cancer trust they've tried to tell people their own ways of managing very difficult things and also to i think inspire them beatrice has been an ambassador for the forget me not children's hospice for more than eight years and during isolation sent a heartfelt message of encouragement to the young people and families who were supported by the charity i know that this is an incredibly challenging time especially for those living in isolation not receiving that face-to-face support which is delivered by the incredible nurses and staff at the hospice between them the sisters are patrons and ambassadors to over 17 charities which they support in their spare time alongside their full-time jobs this dedication appears in stark contrast to their portrayal as spoiled and brash princesses in the media so they may have had criticism because people didn't like their hats which is fairly absurd they see themselves as having a duty to the queen to be good princesses for the rest of their lives and to do great charitable work and support the country and the queen i don't ever hear anything unpleasant about them everybody that meets them says how charming they are which is really nice and nice for fergie too because it means at least she's done something right [Applause] throughout the scandals and deep embarrassments the york princesses have remained loyal to their disgraced parents prince andrew and sarah have the most amazing relationship it was one of the happiest divorces i've ever known and they get on so well and they even live together their parents are always in the papers usually on the receiving end of pretty negative headlines i think to a degree the girls have been tired by the same brush i think they've been in a very difficult position they have had the burden of the hrh title whilst trying to create independent lives for themselves i think sometimes it might be nice to see them celebrated for some of the good things that they we're do on it thank you for talking to me thank you so it's as if everyone's waiting for them to make a bigger blunder you know the parents have been a godsend to the newspapers for for 30 years you just have to wait and they'll do something even worse than the last thing that they did but i don't think the daughters will do that the york family have created their own sort of fortress against all these sort of slings and arrows that have been thrown at them and i suspect that beatrice and eugenie just get on with their lives and i think now that they're married they've got so many other things going on that they're able to do this in september 2020 the palace announced that princess eugenie was pregnant she posted a picture on instagram and said that she and jack were excited for early 2021 when the baby is due they're both happily married they're about to start a new chapter of their lives both women want to have children usually is already expecting both women want to have a happy marriage that frankly their parents didn't have they don't want to go through what their parents went through in the spotlight they want to live quiet lives below the radar the antithesis of the lives that their parents have lived beatrice and eugenie have worked hard to balance two very different lifestyles and carve out a modern role for themselves in the royal family something that other members have been unable to achieve i think actually that beatrice and eugenie have been very successful in combining their their royal persona with with their ordinary working persona and they seem to have kind of struck the right note with that i think that both of them are able to be in the modern world and are both able to bridge the world and the occasional formality of the royal family with the modern world of work with prince andrew and prince harry both taking a step back from frontline royal duties could a more prominent role for the royal princesses beckon we've lost harry and megan from the royal firmament prince phillips retired andrew he's never going to come back to full-time royal duty so effectively you've lost four senior members of the family philip andrew megan and harry that does leave a void so it may be that one or both of these daughters start to play a bigger part the duke and duchess of cambridge have done a brilliant job but they can't do everything nobody can be everywhere if beatrice and eugenie do step up to fill the royal gap will they be able to change the way we all see them [Music] are they pampered princesses i don't think they are at all i think they're the reverse they've had to deal with a lot of criticism you can certainly detect a softening in the attitude of the newspapers to beatrice and eugenie even the most hard-bitten hack doesn't feel any longer that two daughters who haven't really done anything wrong should be pillory the girls have definitely won over the public i think that the public are definitely looking at them with different eyes the road has sometimes been a bumpy one but they are married they are really free i think from their parents now in a way that they haven't really been up until now they are financially independent and they are living their own lives and i think there is a lot about the york sisters to be celebrated you

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 1,355,203

Rating: 4.7226815 out of 5

Keywords: Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, british royal, princess, royal family, sarah ferguson, prince andrew, prince charles, queen elizabeth ii, prince harry, prince william, princess diana, british royal family, documentary

Id: kGCOchzfPkA

Length: 69min 1sec (4141 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021