2 min readPrincess Beatrice has made a rare appearance this week, although for a private event. The granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth reportedly attended the private funeral of Paddy McNally, a former Formula One executive. The event was held at a local church in the village of Sevenhampton, approximately 90 miles west of London.
McNally was said to have been one of Sarah Ferguson’s closest friends, even after they ended a romantic relationship in 1985, a year before Ferguson married then-Prince Andrew. McNally died on July 21 at the age of 88 after a long illness. According to People, Beatrice attended both in her own right to pay her respects as well as on behalf of her mother, who was not present at Thursday’s funeral.
The funeral has refueled speculation about Ferguson’s latest whereabouts. The former Duchess of York, who stopped using her title last year, has not been seen publicly since April, when she was photographed emerging from a blacked-out Mercedes-Benz near a ski chalet in Austria. Before that, she had last been seen at the christening of her granddaughter Athena, Princess Beatrice’s youngest daughter, at St. James’s Palace in December. Ferguson’s last official public engagement was the funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral in September, a month before her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles.
The couple was also evicted from Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where they had lived since the 2000s. While the former Duke of York now lives at a private residence, Marsh Farm, on the Sandringham estate that is paid for by King Charles, Ferguson’s new residence has remained a constant question mark. Ferguson’s disappearance from public view followed the release of the Epstein files, which included emails between her and Jeffrey Epstein. She has not yet responded to calls from U.S. lawmakers to give evidence about her relationship with the convicted sex offender.
While Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have not been implicated in any of the controversies surrounding their parents, both have maintained a lower public profile this year, appearing at fewer royal events than in previous years. Both sisters were most recently seen at the wedding of their cousin Peter Phillips to Harriet Sperling in June.
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.