Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie still have homes in King Charles’ palaces despite not being working royals after Andrew struck ‘rental deal’

Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie continue to have second homes inside King Charles’ palaces despite not being working royals – all thanks to a ‘rental deal’ struck by their father Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, it was reported today.

The disgraced former Duke of York has been arrested, kicked out of Royal Lodge and has not had an office at Buckingham Palace for four years due to the Epstein scandal.

But he has also successfully pushed for his children to ‘retain a foothold’ in palaces belonging to his older brother, the King.

As a consequence, Princess Beatrice still has an apartment in St James’s Palace, despite her main home being in the Cotswolds, it was said.  

And Eugenie has Ivy Cottage, a three-bedroom property at Kensington Palace, which apparently serves as a ‘bolthole’ because she spends half the year living in Portugal.

It is highly unlikely that the siblings will be paying the market rates of between £15,000 and £19,000-a-month for homes in two of London’s most illustrious addresses.

A source said: ‘The [rental] deal was made with their father as he wanted them to have a foothold in the royal palaces.’ 

The sisters are not working royals – and are unlikely to ever be. Beatrice and Eugenie both have full-time jobs, with Eugenie working for art gallery Hauser & Wirth and Beatrice employed at software company Afiniti. 

Yet have cut-price second homes inside royal palaces that millions would dream of.

Estate agents estimate that a property like Ivy Cottage could fetch £15,000 per month depending on its condition and there is nothing to suggest that it is in poor repair.

Eugenie revealed in 2023 how she and Jack get takeaways delivered there.

She said that Deliveroo drivers have to give her a call, at which point she or Jack will get into their pyjamas, drive to the gates of the estate and pick the food up from there. 

Beatrice still has a second home in St James’ Palace, where a nearby two-bedroom apartment was recently on the market for £19,000 a month.  One home in the area  went for £20,000-a-month last year.

The sisters have been dragged into the Epstein scandal by their parents and have already been told they cannot join the Royal Family at Royal Ascot this summer.

Private rental agreements within royal palaces have never been published. Although there was scandal in 2002 when it was revealed that Prince and Princess Michael of Kent used to live in a grace-and-favour home given to them by the Queen, which cost them just £69 a week to rent. 

And when it comes to Andrew’s children, it previously emerged that he was paying just £1,600-a-month to rent a four-bedroom apartment in St James’s Palace for them when they were younger, which was way below the market rate.

‘These serve as London boltholes for the princesses’, an insider told The Times of their homes.

Eugenie has a home with her husband Jack Brooksbank in Portugal, which is said to have been offered to her mother Sarah Ferguson as a place to stay in the wake of the Epstein Files scandal.

Beatrice lives with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a £3million home in Oxfordshire with their two young daughters. It is said to have a granny annex for Fergie.

The sisters lived together in a luxurious apartment in St James’s Palace for more than a decade before both women married.

Journalist Tom Sykes wrote in his Royalist newsletter: ‘Why on earth are they still enjoying access to homes in some of the most desirable locations in London, while details of the terms remain opaque?

‘There are serious questions for King Charles here’.

The Mail on Sunday revealed last December how their father, the former Prince Andrew, saved up to £3.1million paying a ‘peppercorn rent’.

An investigation revealed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor rented the elegant four-bedroom flat for just £1,600 a month, while a similar property within the palace was let on the open market for £20,000 a month.

It means the disgraced royal paid less than £20,000 a year for a lavish central London apartment worth more than 12 times that amount – £240,000 a year – to the Crown’s coffers.

The revelation is the second rent scandal to engulf Andrew, 66, after it emerged he was allowed to live rent-free in the 30-room Royal Lodge on the Windsor Estate for two decades.

Last weekend Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were dragged further into the scandal engulfing their father after The Mail on Sunday discovered he pushed for them to receive £100,000 in secret payments from a controversial billionaire he was helping while trade envoy.

The newspaper has previously exposed how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor promoted the business interests of his financier friend David Rowland and his son Jonathan while on globetrotting taxpayer-funded trade missions.

Now, our investigations have uncovered an email revealing how Andrew discussed payments of £50,000 to each of his daughters, which could have been used to fund their lavish lifestyles. Andrew was apparently due to receive £300,000.

Last night, MPs demanded to know whether the payments were made in return for Andrew’s help in pushing the Rowlands’ commercial ventures.

The extraordinary revelation plunges Beatrice and Eugenie further into the controversy over their father’s alleged abuse of his trade envoy position and comes amid mounting questions over how the princesses afforded their jet-set lifestyle in their 20s.

Beatrice is said to have enjoyed 17 holidays in 2015 while earning a salary of £19,500 as an ‘international production analyst’ at Sony Pictures. Sources close to the princesses said they had no recollection of the alleged payments. They are said to have requested their historic banking records.

David Rowland, whose nickname is ‘Spotty’, amassed a £730million property and investment fortune and became a close friend and business associate of the then Duke of York, who was trade envoy from 2001 to 2011.

A tax exile for more than 30 years, Mr Rowland returned to the UK before the 2010 General Election so he could pump £2.7million into the Tories’ campaign.

He attended Princess Eugenie’s wedding to Jack Brooksbank at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in 2018 and was pictured in the front row of the congregation alongside supermodel Kate Moss. The following year the MoS revealed how his son Jonathan, now 50, had accompanied Andrew on official trade missions, during which he plugged Banque Havilland, his family’s bank.

We also showed how Andrew and David Rowland jointly owned a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, a secretive Caribbean tax haven, that appears to have been used to lure the then prince’s wealthy contacts to invest in a tax-free offshore fund.

Now new messages detail how Andrew discussed with Jonathan Rowland, then chief executive of Banque Havilland, the apparent transfer of money to him and his two daughters in June 2011.

They suggest that Andrew was expecting to receive a payment of £300,000 from David Rowland, of which Beatrice and Eugenie would each receive £50,000.

They would then apparently each invest half of their sum in Jellybook, an investment firm Jonathan Rowland had just launched, which was focused on bankrolling social media companies.

The leaked messages suggest Andrew was first due to receive £50,000, which he would apparently invest in Jellybook.

He was then expecting to be paid the remaining £150,000, plus an additional £100,000, to an account with the private bank Drummonds, the messages suggest.

‘I have explained to Amanda [Thirsk, Andrew’s aide] what was intended. That is 50 [thousand] each to the girls. 25 for Jellybook each. 50 for me. The remainder of the £300, £150 plus an additional £100k to be transferred to Drummonds. All this to be done once receipt of the £300 happens.’

The messages show Jonathan Rowland clarifying the proposed arrangement with Andrew.

He wrote: ‘Just so I am clear. You have Euro 650k (£575k) in the Bank. 50k each to the girls. Jelly I am clear on although the girls accounts might not be in place so you can do £100k and we work it out later.’

Detailing the split of funds again, Andrew suggested the source of the money was due to be David.

‘…if DJR [David Rowland] puts £300k in then £150 is used [for] the girls and Jelly. The £150 remaining and an additional £100k to D [Drummonds] thereafter.’

It is unclear whether the payments were ever made.

Last night, Labour MP Karl Turner said: ‘This latest revelation is worrying. It is known that Mountbatten-Windsor had an association with the Rowlands and this friendship existed at the time when he was a trade envoy for the UK.

‘Questions are bound to be asked if that association helped to further enrich his kids. We must surely see an inquiry into whether the payments for the princesses were made in return for the disgraced former prince’s help in pushing the Rowlands’ commercial interests.’

Shadow business minister Harriet Baldwin added: ‘We must get to the bottom of these allegations at once. If true, this would be a clear example of him being unable to distinguish between private affairs and his public role.’

Royal author Andrew Lownie said: ‘This raises serious questions for the two princesses. Did they receive this money and was the source David Rowland?

‘If so, was it because their father had pushed Rowland’s business interests and therefore abused his position as trade envoy?

‘It is time for the princesses and their father to come clean.’

Documents seen by the MoS suggest Andrew was known as ‘Client X’ at Banque Havilland and gave Jonathan Rowland ‘authority to give instructions on his account’.

In one message, Andrew reprimanded Jonathan for involving Amanda Thirsk in his ‘private financial arrangements’.

‘More than slightly annoyed this morning to find an email from Amanda asking me to confirm my private financial arrangements. I don’t want or need my office to know what I’m doing with my family or necessarily my investments.

‘Where is the issue that we need to resolve to prevent this happening again?’

Chastened, Rowland responded: ‘Apologies for this and I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

The revelations will throw a spotlight on the degree to which the two princesses have also been tarnished by their father’s alleged improprieties.

The Daily Mail reported in November that Prince William had urged his cousins to allow an ‘ethics’ check on their finances and investments while King Charles had offered the services of one of his senior advisers. The offers of help – and scrutiny – were said to have been politely turned down.

The futures of Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, have been cast into doubt after their parents’ dramatic downfall. They feature more than 300 times in Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice and have recently been keeping a low profile.