RICHARD EDEN: Epstein email that sealed Beatrice and Eugenie’s fate

I have always been one of the biggest cheerleaders for Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

As a social diarist for more than 20 years, I have met them numerous times at London parties and always found them impressive: friendly but business-like – and far too sensible ever to give me any juicy titbits for my columns.

While their cousins such as Princes William and, particularly, Harry were involved in all sorts of high jinks as youngsters, ‘Bea’ and ‘Eug’, as they were known to chums, never strayed from the straight and narrow.

They always seemed eminently level-headed and I never received any reports of their collapsing drunk at parties or making fools of themselves in public. So, it was no surprise that they both settled down with discreet, loving husbands: Jack Brooksbank in Eugenie’s case, and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in Beatrice’s.

Just as Queen Elizabeth was helped in her duties as monarch by loyal and devoted cousins such as the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra, I hoped that Beatrice and Eugenie could assist William when he eventually ascends the throne.

After all, King Charles’s plans for a ‘slimmed-down’ monarchy were based on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex playing key roles. With Harry and Meghan having quit royal duties, that slimmed-down monarchy looks worryingly skinny.

Even though they both have full-time jobs, Beatrice and Eugenie already serve as patrons of a handful of good causes and have dutifully indicated that they would be happy to take on more if required.

Sadly, after the revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein files made public over the past week, I have come to the conclusion that my hopes for the princesses lie in tatters. Beatrice and Eugenie can never be part of ‘The Firm’ because of their lying, greedy, sex offender-loving parents.

However unfair it might seem to make children suffer for the sins of their parents, the sisters have been so tainted by the former Duke and Duchess of York that they can no longer be considered for formal roles with the Royal Family.

They are tainted because their parents actively dragged them into the orbit of a sex offender.

In one exchange, the American asks Sarah to use the girls as tour guides at Buckingham Palace for one of his associates, whose name was redacted by the US authorities before the document’s release.

In a message sent to ‘Ferg’ in 2010, Epstein writes: ‘Thank you Sarah, could you are [sic] one of your daughters show [redacted name] buckingham thanks.’

Take a moment to consider that email: after a sex offender had been released from prison, having served a sentence for procuring a child for prostitution, he was confident enough in his relationship with Queen Elizabeth’s former daughter-in-law that he could ask her to send one of the monarch’s grandchildren to show his friend around the sovereign’s taxpayer-funded home.

The casual tone of the email suggests this was not a unique demand. Indeed, a message sent to him by the then duchess later that year apologised that the princesses could not serve as tour guides for a different pal of his. It’s not known if the friends were also sex offenders.

Not that it would necessarily have deterred Sarah from introducing her daughters to the friends in question. After all, she took them to stay at a New York apartment owned by Epstein just five days after his release from prison. Beatrice was 20 by that point and Eugenie was 19, so you might have hoped that they would have been old enough to question the wisdom of their parents’ friendships.

The princesses can go on to show by their actions that they have not taken after their parents, but, unfortunately, Andrew and Fergie have left such a stain on the Monarchy that they are tainted, too.

Prince William and Catherine know this, which is why Sarah was not invited to their wedding at Westminster Abbey in 2011. And why her daughters will have no royal roles when William is King.