Princess Beatrice is bringing her royal family duties to the next level, Us Weekly can confirm.
“Beatrice will be stepping up the number of engagements she does,” a source close to her mother, Sarah Ferguson, tells Us days after the Daily Mail reported that Beatrice, 35, will have a bigger role within the monarchy as the royal family’s health crises continues.
The insider made it clear that Beatrice “will not stand in” for Princess Kate Middleton, but her newfound role will be “to help the royals out and be available to do more.”
Beatrice’s cousin-in-law Kate, 42, stepped back from her public duties earlier this year after undergoing a planned abdominal surgery in January. The following month, Beatrice stepped out at a public event taking place during Student Mental Health Week as the Princess of Wales was recovering.
By March, Kate revealed that she was undergoing treatment for an undisclosed type of cancer, which would keep her out of the public eye. At the same time Kate announced her cancer diagnosis, it was widely reported that Beatrice had impressed King Charles III and Prince William and there were plans in place to make her a working royal.
“Both the King and William have seen how well Beatrice has stepped up in recent weeks and that’s why they are happy to push her to the front and represent the family in public,” U.K.’s Ok! Magazine reported at the time. “Although the move is currently being seen as a temporary unofficial role to help plug the gaps while Charles and Kate recover, it could become more permanent in the future.”
While Beatrice — the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Ferguson and ninth in line to the throne — is not considered a full-time working royal, but things are subject to change.
Charles, 75, famously planned to implement a slimmed-down monarchy once he ascended the throne, but with him and Kate largely out of the public eye as of late “it’s not what was intended,” royal historian Gareth Russell told Us Weekly exclusively last month. (Charles ascended the throne after Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022.)
“If you are to use the metaphor, the monarchy is underweight at this stage, it was never intended to reach the levels that it did,” Russell further explained. “It was always anticipated that you would have [King] Charles III with three working siblings and two working children and their wives, and that that would be a sustainable footing for the monarchy going forward.”
With Charles and Kate undergoing treatment for their respective cancers, that leaves his siblings Princess Anne and Prince Edward and his son William. (Prince Andrew’s titles were removed in 2022 after a sexual assault scandal, which he has denied. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from their roles within the royal family in 2020.)
“At the minute we’re looking at a monarchy that really was just holding it together in terms of the number of functions they had to attend and events, overseas visits and particularly their charitable and military obligations,” Russell stated, noting that things could become “unsustainable.”
