There has been much speculation over whether Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie may take up official royal duties after stepping out to support the Prince of Wales with Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall at the Buckingham Palace garden party last week.
HELLO! understands the younger royals were drafted in to help out because of the "unique circumstances" Prince William is facing as his wife the Princess continues to focus on her recovery from cancer.
It wasn't a first for the cousins, who have been regulars at garden parties over the years. Beatrice, 35, and 34-year-old Eugenie also occasionally accompanied Elizabeth II to royal engagements such as the annual Maundy Service. However, they have been a lot more prominent in the public eye over the past few weeks.
A royal insider tells HELLO!: "They are closer than lots of cousins might be – they have that unique shared experience and unusual life they all lead.
"This is an institution that they all belong to, perhaps in slightly different ways in terms of how they serve it, but they all believe in it and its future and want to do what they can to support it."
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When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced in 2020 that they wanted to start a new life outside the monarchy, Elizabeth II made it clear they could not be half in, half out.
Consequently, it is unlikely Beatrice and Eugenie could take on official duties without a review of that stance.
Family ties
They don't receive public funding for their activities or security, in line with other non-senior working royals. But intriguingly, the sisters appear to have been given the green light to make more public appearances this year, with Beatrice even giving her first live TV interview on 7 May.
She appeared on ITV's from the top of the Empire State Building in New York to talk about the work of the charity Outward Bound, which her grandfather, the then Duke of Edinburgh, supported for more than six decades.
The interview, which will have required approval from Buckingham Palace, suggests the royal family are happy for the Princesses to have a more prominent role in public life.
"They've always had a sense of service and duty, probably inherited from their grandmother. And they've shown that they can be trusted in the spotlight and I think that's appreciated," says HELLO!'s source.
"The royal family recognises that they're very charming, quite dutiful young women who are very at ease and good in situations where they're meeting the public and when they're doing their charity work. Whenever they've done that before, they haven't really put a foot wrong."
A delicate balancing act
Both the sisters are working mums. Beatrice, who has daughter, Sienna, two, and eight-year-old stepson Christopher, who is known as Wolfie, with husband Edoardo Mapelli-Mozzi, is vice president of strategic partnerships at US tech company Afiniti.
Eugenie, meanwhile, is a director at London art gallery Hauser & Wirth and has August, three, and Ernest, who will be one on 30 May, with husband Jack Brooksbank. As well as this, they each support a range of charities and good causes and hold around a dozen patronages each, including being patrons of Teenage Cancer Trust along with their mother, Sarah, Duchess of York.
Our royal insider continues: "The Princesses have been quietly getting on with supporting all these charities for some time. But they also have lives outside of the family. They've got families, they've got jobs. I'm not sure whether they would want to come fully into the fold and be full working royals. In a sense, they have a bit of the best of both worlds at the moment."
So while they may appear at royal events, there is no plan for them to take on official roles – but they will always be ready to support the King and Prince William when they are needed.
To read the full report, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK now. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
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