Few royal stories have unraveled as quickly — or as dramatically — as the fall of Prince Andrew. When Buckingham Palace announced that the King had initiated a formal process to strip his brother of his Style, Titles and Honours, declaring that "Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor," the public's attention instantly pivoted to the next generation: his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, and, curiously, their children.
Because here is the puzzle that has puzzled royal watchers for years: Beatrice's daughters have titles. Eugenie's sons do not. Same mother, same grandfather, same grandmother — different outcomes entirely. The explanation is one of the most charming loopholes in European aristocracy.
The Father of the Storm
First, the context. The Palace's move followed years of relentless controversy over Andrew's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and the 2019 allegations by Virginia Giuffre, which Andrew has always denied. He withdrew from royal duties in 2019, but the steady drumbeat — culminating in the release of millions of Epstein-related documents — made his position untenable. He has also reportedly vacated Royal Lodge, his residence of many years, while Sarah Ferguson, who shared the home, has lost her Duchess of York title in the same wave of housecleaning.
Amid all this, one thing was made clear: Beatrice and Eugenie keep their princess titles. Those flow directly from being grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth II through the male line and cannot be revoked by their father's disgrace. The sisters, both of whom hold ordinary jobs and do quiet charitable work, have carried themselves with visible dignity through the ordeal.
The Children: A Tale of Two Families
Beatrice has two daughters, Sienna and Athena, with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, and is stepmother to his son Christopher Woolf. Eugenie has two sons, August and Ernest, with her husband Jack Brooksbank.
None of the four children holds a British royal title. That surprises people who assume royal blood automatically confers royal styles, but the rules are strict: titles generally pass down the male line, and grandchildren of a monarch through a daughter's marriage don't qualify. Unlike William's children — or Harry's, who became a prince and princess upon their grandfather's accession — Beatrice and Eugenie received no peerages when they married, so their children got nothing from the British side.
The Italian Loophole
So why do Sienna and Athena carry titles? The answer lies in their father's family tree. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi is descended from Italian nobility and holds the title of Count — and under his family's tradition, that title passes to his children. Beatrice's daughters are, in the eyes of Italian heraldry, Countesses, inheriting nobility through their father's line rather than their mother's crown.
August and Ernest Brooksbank, meanwhile, are the sons of a man whose family made its name in brewing and hospitality rather than heraldry. No count, no title. Their claim to fame is simply being the Queen's great-grandchildren — which, in the modern royal family, comes with no formal decoration at all.
Titles in the Modern Monarchy
Royal commentators point out that this divide reflects a broader trend. The monarchy has been quietly slimming down for years, with each generation holding fewer styles and doing more ordinary work. Beatrice works in financial services consulting; Eugenie has built a career in the art world. Their children are being raised largely outside the royal machine, and many observers believe that's precisely the point — a softer landing for a branch of the family that has absorbed more scandal than any other.
There is also an irony that has not escaped historians: the children now carrying inherited nobility do so not through the beleaguered York line, but through a marriage into continental aristocracy that predates any of the current troubles. The title survived the scandal because it was never royal to begin with.
Could the Rules Change?
Every discussion of royal titles eventually arrives at the same question: why not simply modernize the system? Reformers have floated proposals for absolute primogeniture in title succession, which would let eldest daughters pass peerages as sons do, and for granting life peerages to working royals without hereditary implications. Parliament, however, has shown little appetite for reopening legislation that touches the monarchy, and the King — mindful of the institution's recent turbulence — is reportedly in no hurry to expand the circle of titled relatives. Royal commentators note that scarcity is also strategy: fewer titles concentrate attention and duty on the core working royals, the so-called slimmed-down monarchy Charles has championed for decades. Until the rules change, families like the York sisters' children will keep navigating a strange hybrid world — half palace, half suburb — with only their parents' choices determining which traditions follow them.
The Bottom Line
The title divide between the cousins is not favoritism, not punishment, and not a palace snub. It is simply genealogy: one sister married an Italian count, the other married a commoner, and centuries-old rules did the rest. As the royal family continues its painful housecleaning, the quiet lesson of Beatrice's and Eugenie's children is that in the modern monarchy, the most valuable inheritance isn't printed in Debrett's. It's a stable, loving upbringing — far away from the headlines their grandfather wrote.
