{"id":132640,"date":"2025-10-19T20:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T20:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/132640\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T20:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T20:58:12","slug":"fall-of-the-house-of-york-its-the-end-of-royal-road-for-fergie-as-she-goes-back-to-plain-old-sarah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/132640\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall of the House of York: it\u2019s the end of royal road for Fergie as she goes back to plain old Sarah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nIt was the late queen\u2019s biggest gift to them but King Charles tells his brother to surrender his title\n<\/p>\n

Her father and mother were Duke and Duchess of York before becoming George VI and Queen Elizabeth. She herself was born Princess Elizabeth of York and her grandfather George V had also held the title.<\/p>\n

So it was the greatest of gifts \u2014 and a compliment that Prince Andrew and his wife Sarah Ferguson returned by degrading the dukedom for nearly 40 years.<\/p>\n

Following the exposure of their lies over their friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, King Charles has decided that the titles of Duke and Duchess of York must be taken out of use before they can be sullied any further.<\/p>\n

The fall of the House of York has been a long time coming, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, as they will henceforth be officially known in Britain, made equal contributions to its sorry end.<\/p>\n

At first Fergie \u2014 as the tabloids called her \u2014 appeared to energise the royal family with her informality and humour.<\/p>\n

When she was filmed giving her husband a playful smack on the bottom in an engagement interview, it seemed that Randy Andy, the womanising Falklands War veteran, had met his match.<\/p>\n

\n

The pair tried to outdo each other in their efforts to humiliate the monarchy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By 1990 they had two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, making them a perfect family unit. But beneath the surface, cracks were growing.<\/p>\n

Sarah privately complained that she was only spending 40 days a year with her husband because of his naval service, and rumours of an affair with Texan millionaire Steve Wyatt surfaced in early 1992 (she would later claim she and Andrew had an \u201copen\u201d relationship).<\/p>\n

In March 1992, after just six years of marriage, the couple separated. In a hint of what was to come, the queen also announced that she would not be taking responsibility for Sarah\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n

The separation itself was not a disaster: after all, the Princess Royal had announced her own separation from her first husband Mark Phillips three years earlier, and Princess Margaret had divorced in 1978.<\/p>\n

But the pair seemed determined to outdo each other in their efforts to humiliate the monarchy.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/p>\n

Sarah and Andrew at Buckingham Palace on their wedding day in July 1986. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n

News in 90 Seconds – October 19<\/p>\n

In August 1992, just five months after the separation news, a topless Sarah was photographed on holiday with her financial adviser John Bryan, now her lover.<\/p>\n

Photographs of him sucking the toes of the queen\u2019s daughter-in-law appeared on front pages around the world.<\/p>\n

It so infuriated Prince Philip that he effectively banned her there and then from taking part in future family occasions.<\/p>\n

Princess Margaret reportedly wrote to her saying: \u201cYou have done more to bring shame on the family than could ever have been imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s divorce was finalised in May 1996. Sarah retained the title Duchess of York but ceased using Her Royal Highness.<\/p>\n

By then it had become obvious that Sarah\u2019s spending habits were a problem \u2014 by the time of the divorce she was \u00a34.2m in debt.<\/p>\n

She pleaded poverty, saying her alimony was just \u00a315,000 a year, which left her with no option but to seek other sources of income, such as a role as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, an autobiography called Sarah: My Story and her series of children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

Buckingham Palace was so enraged by her claims that it leaked that she had received \u00a3350,000 in cash, \u00a3500,000 from the Queen to buy a house, and a monthly allowance that paid out \u00a3500,000 in the first 14 years after the divorce.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Sarah seemed unable to live within her means. In 2010 she was filmed offering an undercover tabloid reporter access to Prince Andrew for \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

Then in 2011, it emerged that Epstein had helped her avoid bankruptcy by paying \u00a315,000 to clear a debt to an aide. Several charities immediately dropped her as a patron.<\/p>\n

Andrew\u2019s relationship with Epstein became a wound on the royal family\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

In 2010, two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, Andrew was photographed walking in New York deep in conversation with him.<\/p>\n

His friendship with the paedophile cost him his role as the UK\u2019s trade envoy.<\/p>\n

\n

Andrew\u2019s controversial friendships with billionaires did not end with Epstein<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In 2014 he was accused in court papers of having sex with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts (later Giuffre) who said she had been trafficked by Epstein. The allegations rumbled on for years.<\/p>\n

Andrew\u2019s controversial friendships with foreign billionaires did not end with Epstein.<\/p>\n

The sale of his marital home for \u00a33m more than the asking price to the billionaire son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan \u2013 who then left it to fall derelict \u2013 defied logical explanation.<\/p>\n

By 2023, King Charles felt that Sarah Ferguson deserved to be given a second chance, and she joined the royal family for Christmas at Sandringham for the first time since 1992.<\/p>\n

Yet the Epstein scandal simply refused to die, and last weekend it emerged that Andrew, who claimed to have cut off all contact with Epstein in 2010, had emailed him in 2011 after a photograph of him with Virginia Giuffre had appeared.<\/p>\n

He told Epstein: \u201cIt would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it\u2026we\u2019ll play some more soon!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

His ex-wife had also been caught lying over Epstein.<\/p>\n

In September 2025 it emerged that in April 2011, a month after claiming to have severed all ties with him, Sarah wrote to him and said that \u201cfrom the truth of my heart\u201d she wanted to \u201chumbly apologise\u201d for denouncing him.<\/p>\n

Separately, the duke had developed an unfortunate habit of forming friendships with alleged Chinese spies.<\/p>\n

Chris Yang, who was barred from entry to the UK in 2023 on suspicion of spying, had been invited to royal residences by Andrew.<\/p>\n

Last week it emerged that the alleged spymaster at the heart of the collapsed Chinese spy trial had met Andrew at least three times.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Charles decided enough was enough, and did what his late mother had never been able to bring herself to do, by making his brother give up the dukedom their mother had held so close to her heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the late queen\u2019s biggest gift to them but King Charles tells his brother to surrender his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,381,13,14,78691,6,15098,5094,11,12,15,16,5,15156,79454,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-132640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-ghislaine-maxwell","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","16":"tag-king-charles-iii","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-prince-andrew","23":"tag-queen-elizabeth","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}