Everything about the National Audit Office’s findings about royal real estate was scandalous. Some of those scandals: the fact that Prince Andrew maintained multiple leases on prime real estate for only a small fraction of what they would be worth; the fact that Prince Edward and Sophie live in an enormous mansion and pay peppercorn rent, plus they maintain a rent-free London home; Prince William and Kate’s half-assed lies about who paid for Forest Lodge’s $500K renovations; and finally, the fact that Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice have maintained rent-free London homes for many years. So why is B&E’s rent-free scandal being treated like it’s the biggest one of this storyline? You can guess why. But in case you needed Richard Eden to explain it to you, he barfed out a long-winded column about it.
Revelations that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor charged his staff to live at his Windsor estate despite paying only a peppercorn rent himself have dominated most newspaper headlines this morning. There is, however, another scandal brewing inside the new report by the National Audit Office (NAO). It reveals that Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who undertake no royal duties, have been living in palace homes without personally having to pay even a single penny.
Instead, the bill was settled by their grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, using money from the Privy Purse, which comes largely from the Duchy of Lancaster. This is the £650million property estate handed to our monarchs free of inheritance tax. That’s an arrangement that has continued under the princesses’ uncle, King Charles, since the Queen’s death. And it’s a disgrace.
Our sovereign has been allowed to keep benefiting from the income provided by the Duchy of Lancaster (about £25million per year) so that he can fund official duties not covered by taxpayers; maintain private royal estates, such as Balmoral and Sandringham; and support members of the extended Royal Family who undertake public engagements. What have Beatrice and Eugenie done to justify their receiving luxurious accommodation from the King? They are not working royals.
Hard-pressed taxpayers could, perhaps, understand the King using his generous income from the Duchy of Lancaster to pay for accommodation for elderly or infirm members of the Royal Family who have carried out public duties throughout their lives. But ‘Bea’ and ‘Euge’, as the sisters are known to friends, are certainly not in need… For the long-term good of the monarchy, this can’t continue.
While Queen Elizabeth and King Charles were happy to use the Privy Purse to pay for Beatrice and Eugenie’s London homes, their cousin Prince William will not do so. I can disclose that the heir to the throne believes that the current situation is unacceptable. I have been told for years that William believes the monarchy should be ‘slimmed down’ and such arrangements will end.
‘William loves his cousins but firmly believes that only “working royals” should receive the benefits of being members of the Royal Family,’ one of his friends told me.
For evidence of how William and Catherine want things to be done differently, look at the way they recently made public how much they paid to live at their new home in Windsor. As part of the couple’s ‘short-term 20-year lease’, which began in July 2025, they pay £307,200 a year for Forest Lodge, and they will reportedly face a rent review every five years in line with the Consumer Price Index.
William “firmly believes that only ‘working royals’ should receive the benefits of being members of the Royal Family.” These people are highly selective when using QEII as an example, right? Because QEII never agreed – she believed in providing housing for all of her relations, regardless of whether they were full-time working royals or whatever. Speaking of, QEII was totally fine with Beatrice and Eugenie being “half-in” as well – she would do events with them, and they were allowed to maintain their own “royal patronages.” William and Charles’ argument is that “Beatrice and Eugenie need to be banned from royal work, so we can ban them from living on royal property!” It’s asinine, but the whole thing is asinine from start to finish. Charles currently tries to spend a few weeks a time at more than a dozen different homes, mansions, castles and palaces, all because he’s too greedy and self-centered to allow anyone else to live in those places.
All of which to say, the generosity Charles and QEII extended to the Yorks for decades is a stark contrast to how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were treated. The tantrums and melodrama over Frogmore Cottage is even more shocking in retrospect, given everything we know now about the royal leases held by other royals.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
