Fergie boasted she was a ‘very good mother’ – but a royal expert claims she ‘handed daughters’ to nannies and took Beatrice on an illicit holiday with her lover weeks after Eugenie’s birth – before introducing them to Epstein

Despite weathering numerous damning public scandals, Sarah Ferguson has always prided herself on being a ‘very good mother’ to her ‘soulmate’ daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Yet despite taking home a Mother of the Year award in 2007, some sources have suggested that Sarah Ferguson, 66, was perhaps not quite the exemplary parent she’s publicly claimed to be.

According to royal author Andrew Lownie, the former Duchess of York often had ‘trouble controlling her daughters when they were young’ and would typically ‘hand them over to a nanny unless photographers were present’. 

And when the young princesses were involved in six-figure Hello! magazine photoshoots with their mother, childminders were said to have ‘hovered to take the children after each shot’. 

It was ‘completely staged from beginning to end,’ one source told the royal author in his tell-all book, Entitled.

Mr Lownie added: ‘On arrival at public functions, the duchess would grab the children’s hands while smiling for the cameras, then pass them back to their nanny once safely out of view.’

The royal author explained that parents at Marlborough College, where Eugenie studied from 2003 to 2008, also thought it was ‘rather odd’ that Fergie was being publicly perceived as a devoted mother, given her noted absence at the school gates.

Detailing the seeming discrepancy between Fergie’s public claims of maternal devotion and her private absence, one parent told Mr Lownie: ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw either the Duke or the Duchess there.’ 

It comes as speculation has continued to mount surrounding the nature of Sarah’s relationship with her daughters Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, amid growing outrage over her ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

In Beatrice and Eugenie’s childhood years, Fergie allegedly took her young daughters for lavish trips away with her rumoured lovers, according to clairvoyant Madame Vasso.

This ‘also meant that taxpayers had to pick up a bill for several thousand pounds for their two Royal Protection Squad officers,’ Ms Vasso revealed in her book, Fergie: the very private life of the Duchess of York. 

In January 1992, a tranche of 120 images were discovered of Fergie soaking up the sun with American playboy Steve Wyatt taken in May 1990 during a getaway to Morocco.

One image that garnered significant public attention was then one-year-old Beatrice seen sat on the businessman’s knee – raising serious questions about the nature of Fergie and Steve’s relationship given she was still married to Andrew at that time.

Questions also mounted as to why Fergie had chosen to take her young daughters away on the trip with her rumoured American lover just weeks after the birth of Eugenie.

And, according to Madame Vasso, while the former Duchess was enjoying travelling the world with her ‘financial advisor’ John Bryan in 1992, it ‘angered parents and teachers’ that she had taken Beatrice out of school during term time.

When Fergie and Bryan flew by private jet to the French Riviera with the two young princesses, then aged four and two, that summer, it culminated in a scandal so vast that it would later draw comparisons to the notorious Abdication Crisis.

Lying on a sunbed in St Tropez, Mr Bryan was pictured kissing and sucking Fergie’s toes under the damning headline: ‘Fergie’s Stolen Kisses: Truth About the Duchess and the Texas Millionaire’.

Ms Vasso, who struck up a close bond with the former Duchess, revealed that Fergie had disclosed particular reservations about sending her daughters to school at a young age.

‘I’ve got two lovely girls and what’s the point of sending them to school for months on end?,’ the former Duchess reportedly shared with Ms Vasso.

‘Whenever possible, she took the girls on her travels believing it was good for them to experience new cultures and broaden her horizons,’ she added.

The former Duchess was also said to have been prone to extending her travels away from her young daughters.

In January 1996, Sarah crossed paths with Austrian tennis player Thomas Muster at the Mobil Tennis Open in Qatar – with the pair said to have ‘sipped champagne until three o’clock in the morning’. 

‘Sarah had been due to return home the following day, but at the last minute she cancelled her flight and instead boarded a plane to Sydney to visit her sister, Jane,’ revealed Ms Vasso.

‘I was surprised at the length of time Sarah had now been away, because it meant that Beatrice and Eugenie returned to school after the Christmas holidays without their mother there to ensure all went smoothly,’ she added.

‘I’m sure they must have been disappointed that she wasn’t there.’

Yet despite any suggestions of Fergie’s absence behind the scenes, the former Duchess routinely celebrated her own parenting skills, and in 2011 publicly declared that she was ‘the best mum I know’.

During an interview with Harper’s Bazaar she said that being a good mother was the one thing in her life she had done ‘100 per cent right’ and that when people apparently often ask her about her ‘brand identity’ she answers that she is a ‘global mother’.

In the same year, the proud mother released her biography Finding Sarah, and listed her best qualities as being smart, special, unique, very sensitive, loving, caring and ‘sooo funny’, adding that motherhood was the best job she’s ever done.

Meanwhile, during an interview with the Daily Mail, the former Duchess described her and her daughters as a ‘tripod’ – an interdependent and solid threesome.

In Mr Lownie’s view, Fergie’s intense fixation on motherhood stems from wounds in her own childhood, particularly the sense of abandonment she felt after her mother left her family to move to Argentina in the early seventies when Sarah was just 13. 

This, he argues, sits at the core of her personality and is behind her relentless need for approval, extravagance and emotional volatility.

The royal author added: ‘She would later claim, she suffered from insecurity, a feeling of worthlessness, a need to please others, and found it hard to establish stable relationships.’

In September 1998, Fergie’s mother Susan died in horrific circumstances when she was killed by a truck.

The Daily Mail reported at the time that the tragedy was the ‘darkest day for Fergie’.

While Fergie and her daughters have often stressed a public display of unity, their relationship has no doubt been rocked by the recent Epstein scandal which culminated in Andrew’s arrest on suspicion of public office on his 66th birthday.

A royal source previously told the Daily Mail that both Beatrice and Eugenie are standing by their mother despite the catastrophic damage her emails to Epstein have caused them. 

The former Duchess of York was said to have taken the young princesses to visit Epstein just five days after the disgraced financer was released from prison for child sex crimes. 

At the time of the visit, Beatrice and Eugenie would have been aged 20 and 19 respectively.

A royal insider previously told The Daily Mail that the release of the emails had ‘put new strains’ on Beatrice and Eugenie’s relationship with their mother. 

‘The last I heard the daughters were still supporting both parents behind the scenes,’ the insider added.

The sisters are said to be ‘aghast’ and ’embarrassed’ by what the Epstein Files have revealed about their parents’ relationship with such an ‘appalling’ man.

But the Daily Mail’s royal insider said they love their parents, leaving them in a terrible ‘bind’ because Andrew and Fergie have dragged them into Epstein’s world and ‘contaminated’ their own brands.

A source close to the sisters said: ‘They are aghast at what they have read. They are mortified by the emails their mother has sent to Epstein. It is so embarrassing for them.

‘We don’t believe the girls [Beatrice and Eugenie] were told much about what has just emerged [in the latest Epstein files release], and they will simply be aghast at just how close their parents were to this appalling man.’