Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie Lead Very Different Royal Lives From One Another
Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie may be first cousins, but their roles in the royal family folds are vastly different.
When Prince Harry married Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in May this year, the expense of the affair was largely ignored by the public, who lined the streets of Windsor in droves to watch the guests arrive and to watch the royal couple leave after the ceremony. With Eugenie marrying her longtime boyfriend Jack Brooksbank next week, she is experiencing a very different attitude towards the cost of her nuptials.
According to Town & Country, anti-monarchist group Republic has started a petition demanding the royal family cover the cost of the wedding themselves, rather than with public money. While the group doesn’t particularly favor the monarchy in any situation, their argument here revolves around the fact that Princess Eugenie is not even a working royal.
“Eugenie carries out no royal duties,” the petition reads. “A royal wedding is a private, personal event, dressed up as a national occasion… Taxpayers should not be funding a private wedding, no matter who is getting married.”
To clarify, there is a major difference between the life that Harry and his brother, Prince William, and their wives, Meghan and Catherine, lead as opposed to that of Eugenie and her older sister Beatrice. Harry, Meghan, William, and Catherine all carry out official engagements in the name of the Queen. While they have to dress up and smile for the cameras day-in and day-out, Eugenie and Beatrice both have careers of their own, completely separate from the royal family.
While Beatrice and Eugenie are in attendance at some events, these are more often than not family events, such as the Queen’s birthday celebration of Trooping the Colour and at Christmas church services. They also have a number of patronages, but these are all carried out for private reasons and in a private capacity, not in the name of Her Majesty.
Royal historian Marlene Koenig believes that part of the reason that Beatrice and Eugenie have not been allowed to become working royals stems from the divorce of their parents Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York.
“The sins of the parents have rested on the children,” Koenig explains. “I do believe that if their parents had never gotten divorced and were in a happily married state to this day, Beatrice and Eugenie would be working.”
However, even though their own parents also divorced in the 1990’s, Princes William and Harry – who can likely attribute their inclusion to the fact they are directly in the line of succession – will always be working royals.
Another royal historian, Carolyn Harris, details the vast differences in their lives from Beatrice and Eugenie’s.
“Prince Harry’s life will be filled with official engagements, as demonstrated by his role as a Commonwealth Youth Ambassador and his forthcoming tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. In contrast, Eugenie will continue to be a guest at royal weddings and other family occasions but will be expected to continue to pursue her own independent career rather than represent the monarch at official engagements.”
Even so, Eugenie herself has explained that she sometimes struggles with balancing her life as a result.
“There is no precedent, there is no protocol,” she said. “We are the first: we are young women trying to build careers and have personal lives, and we’re also princesses and doing all of this in the public eye.”
