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Princess Anne, often referred to as the hardest-working royal, is known for her candidness which is a trait that Sarah Ferguson has not been exempt from.
Whether it’s her frank views on her brother King Charles’s plan to “slim down” the monarchy, or her remarkably relaxed reaction to an abduction attempt, the Princess Royal has won over Royal enthusiasts with her grounded approach.
It’s reported that Fergie felt the brunt of her former sister-in-law’s wrath after becoming embroiled in a disastrous public scandal that shook the monarchy.
In a revealing biography of Sarah and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, published earlier this year, author Andrew Lownie alleged that Anne was so incensed with Fergie that she wanted to “throttle” her at the dinner table.
Sarah has had her fair share of controversy during the four decades she has spent in the public eye.
However, it was during the collapse of her marriage to Andrew in the early 1990s that Fergie experienced her first major scandal, according to The Mirror.
Chaos ensued in August 1992 when Sarah was photographed having her toes sucked by her American ‘financial advisor’ John Bryan while they were holidaying in the South of France.
The response within the House of Windsor was far from positive.
According to Lownie’s book, ‘Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York’, Anne was so incensed by the photographs appearing in the media, and Fergie’s handling of the situation, that she came close to “throttling” her sister-in-law.
Following the holiday with her boyfriend, Sarah reportedly made her way to Balmoral to join Andrew and other members of the Royal Family, arriving before news of the scandal emerged.
Sarah is said to have entered the breakfast room to discover her in-laws reading coverage of the affair with Bryan alongside the revealing photographs.
“She entered the breakfast room to find everyone reading the story and fled,” Lownie wrote.
“One person, who was present, told the duchess’s biographer Chris Hutchins that the Princess Royal ‘came close to throttling’ Sarah, and at dinner told her what she thought of her: ‘There was not one voice raised against Anne.
“‘Prince Andrew’s anger melted into sadness and he buried himself in the special reports compiled for the Queen, which she did not hesitate to let him read.'”.
A member of staff present at Balmoral throughout the dramatic episode suggested that Sarah “acted in the strangest way…You would have thought she was the person wronged, as if she had every right to go on holiday with another man, kiss and cuddle him, and the only person who had behaved wrongly were the photographer and the editors of the newspapers who had published the pictures.”
In 1992, Fergie and Andrew officially separated, but it would be a few more years before their divorce was finalised.
The pair have remained close, with Sarah continuing to reside with her ex-husband at the Royal Lodge, their long-standing residence near Windsor Castle.
However, Andrew has now been persuaded to relinquish his lease on the property and is believed to be relocating to Norfolk.
He has been offered a home on King Charles’s privately owned Sandringham Estate.
Fergie, however, has not been invited to join him on the expansive 20,000-acre estate. Instead, there are rumours that she may move to Portugal, into a property owned by her daughter, Princess Eugenie.
