A royal win, counting lighthouses, and a Liechtenstein surprise
Catching Up With the Royals (August 17, 2026)
The Windsors are on vacation. Their holidays revolve around their Bamoral estate in Scotland. Right now, King Charles III and Queen Camilla are there – they were spotted on their way to church, which is how we often find out who is at the Highland retreat. The couple will stay at Balmoral until late September as other members of the family come and go.
Within the next few weeks, William and Catherine will bring their kids to Balmoral for their own stay. For the rest of their summer holidays, the Waleses spend much of their time at their country home of Anmer Hall on the Sandringham estate. They also usually join the Middleton clan in the Caribbean for a week in the sun and sand.
Meanwhile, Princess Anne and her husband, Tim Laurence, spend time each summer on their sailboat, travelling around northern Scotland, where she indulges in her passion of counting lighthouses (yes, sailors try to visit all 208 beacons).
This year, the coterie of cousins, siblings, and other relations bunking at Balmoral Castle will not include Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. Also unlikely to make an appearance is Princess Eugenie, who just gave birth to her third child – the newly named Adelaide Elizabeth Annina Brooksbank.
By my count, Adelaide is the sixth great-granddaughter to have been given “Elizabeth” as a second name in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. They are:
Isla Elizabeth Phillips (2012)
Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana (2015)
Lena Elizabeth Tindall (2018)
Sienna Elizabeth Mapelli Mozzi (2021)
Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi (2025)
Adelaide Elizabeth Annina Brooksbank (2026)
(Princess Lilibet Diana was born in 2021 and was given the nickname of the late Queen by her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.)
OTHER YORK NEWS
Last week, Princess Beatrice attended the funeral of her mother’s pre-Andrew boyfriend, the multi-millionaire Paddy McNally. It has been reported that Sarah was spending time at McNally’s chalet in France. What’s really unknown is whether McNally left Sarah something in his will.
Meanwhile, there are also reports that Sarah went to see her newborn granddaughter, Adelaide, in Portugal.
There’s also an odd Jeffrey Epstein-related report out of the United States, where Jason Leopold, a Freedom of Information journalist at Bloomberg, got his hands on internal FBI emails showing that Sarah Ferguson reached out to the FBI in London to pass on contact information for an aristocratic socialite, Victoria Hervey, who used to date Andrew and who thought she’d been filmed by Epstein. Sarah’s interaction with the FBI came in March 2025 — well before the Epstein files were released — because she’d heard that FBI Director Kash Patel had wanted Hervey’s contact information. (FYI: Hervey is not in the Epstein files.)
UNSURPRISING DEVELOPMENT
Prince Harry is telling friends that he wants to return to Britain “every few months,” especially in the lead-up to the Invictus Games next summer.
His next time back in the United Kingdom will be for the annual Wellchild awards in September.
Expect two questions to be top of mind for each visit:
Where he will stay. Next month, he may pass on the King’s standing offer of a royal residence as Buckingham Palace will still be open to tourists until the end of September.
Whether he will see the King. Charles is usually firmly planted at Balmoral until late September, though he does pop down to London for his regular cancer treatment.
As for what those visits mean to his long-term relationship with the King and the rest of the Windsors, here’s my take on the topic:
MEGHAN’S LATEST BOX OFFICE BOMB
The Girl Scout documentary, Cookie Queens, has been out for two weekends and it’s official: it’s a box office bomb. The reviews were equally dismal.
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