The sisters are “upset to have been ignored by the king,” but “ultimately not surprised.”

The royal family is low on working members at the moment due to Kate Middleton and King Charles taking time to rest and recover amid their respective cancer treatments. And apparently, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie—aka the daughters of King Charles’s disgraced brother Prince Andrew—are feeling offended that no one wants them to help out.

A friend of the sisters tells the Daily Beast that, “It seems mean that the girls aren’t being used at all, when they have made it clear they want to be of service, especially when Prince Andrew has been accepted back into the fold. They have done nothing wrong, and they shouldn’t be visited with the sins of their father. They are very upset to have been ignored by the king as they feel they have a lot to offer, but, ultimately not surprised. They are sanguine about it.”

Awkward, but apparently it’s nothing personal and King Charles is simply following the rules put in place by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II! “Charles is very fond of the York girls but everyone, including them, accepts there is no place for them to be full time working royals,” another friend notes before adding, “And as the late Queen Elizabeth made clear, being a part-time working royal isn’t an option.”

As for why Beatrice and Eugenie joining the working royal rotation doesn’t make sense, a courtier explains, “With hindsight you can make the argument that they should have been kept on, but a dramatic change of course now would not be helpful for anyone. The York girls have built successful lives as private individuals.”

Just FYI, “working royals” are, well, royals who spend their time going to engagements and getting paid by the Sovereign Grant (a taxpayer-funded pool of money that covers royal salaries). Eugenie and Beatrice’s bid to be working royals actually goes way back to 2016, when it was reported that Queen Elizabeth II decided not to welcome them into the fold—a move that “bitterly divided” Prince Andrew and King Charles (who btw was a prince back in those days).

The more you know!