Princess Beatrice to spend Christmas at Sandringham due to pregnancy
Princess Beatrice will join the rest of the Royal family for Christmas at Sandringham after being advised not to travel while heavily pregnant.
The Princess, 36, who is due to give birth in early spring, had planned to spend Christmas abroad with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 41, and his family.
However, Buckingham Palace sources said she had been advised by her medical team that it would be inadvisable to travel long distances at this late stage of pregnancy.
She has therefore decided to remain in the UK and, alongside her husband and their children, Wolfie and Sienna, will spend Christmas with other members of the Royal family.
The decision was unconnected to the furore surrounding her father, the Duke of York, and his involvement in a Chinese spy scandal, it is understood.
Prince Andrew decided last week not to join the traditional family gathering in Norfolk after being urged by royal insiders to steer clear to avoid further embarrassing the King.
He also pulled out of the family’s pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace last Thursday, after some last minute “deft family diplomacy” on the part of his ex-wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York.
The King was said to be “very grateful” for her intervention.
Prince Andrew and the Duchess will probably spend Christmas at Royal Lodge, the home they still share in Windsor.
It had been decided several months ago that their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, would not go to Sandringham this year.
Family members had suggested they might instead like to enjoy the festivities with their respective in-laws, having not done so since they were married.
Eugenie will stick with plans to spend Christmas with her husband Jack Brooksbank’s family, alongside their sons August, three, and Ernest, one.
Buckingham Palace announced on Oct 1 that Beatrice was pregnant with her second child.
The royal baby will be a little brother or sister for three-year-old daughter Sienna, and Mr Mapelli Mozzi’s son – Beatrice’s stepson – eight-year-old Wolfie. The Yorks’ fourth grandchild will be born 11th in line to the throne.
Both families were said to be “delighted” with the news, which followed a difficult few months that saw the King, the Princess of Wales and the Duchess all diagnosed with cancer.
Sarah was treated for malignant melanoma skin cancer in January, just months after undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer. She was given the “all clear” in May.
Beatrice and Eugenie were pictured arriving for the family’s pre-Christmas lunch with their respective husbands and children last week.
The Duke stayed away after it emerged that he had been a “close confidant” of alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who was invited to Buckingham Palace twice and to Windsor Castle and St James’s Palace.
While it is accepted that the apparent infiltration of the Royal family may not have been of the Duke’s making, it put him at the centre of another PR crisis that heaped further humiliation on the royal brand.
