When Sarah Ferguson left Balmoral for the last time as royal after her biggest scandal

Andrew Mountbatten recently faced humiliation after he was stripped of his remaining royal titles and asked by King Charles III to vacate the Royal Lodge residence over his brother’s links to former sex offender Jeffery Epstein.

Before the king moved against his brother, both Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson were under scrutiny over their leaked emails to Epstein.

The king deprived Andrew of his titles over his links to Jeffery Epstein, a move which also left Sarah without her Duchess of York.

As the former couple faced fresh humiliation, some people were reminded of a scandal involving Sarah Ferguson when they were both married but their marriage was on the brink of collapse.

The then Duchess of York’s multiple explicit photos with her “financial adviser” were published in a widely circulated English newspaper.

The pictures were taken in South of France in 1992 when they were holidaying with Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

“Pictures of them holidaying in South of France. Some of them, it turned out, were of Sarah topless,“ wrote veteran journalist James Whitaker in his 1993 book Diana Vs Charles.

“The couple were kissing and cuddling by the poolside and, with the Queen’s grandchildren, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, playing near by, John Bryan was lying on top of the Duchess.”

The book read: "The reaction in Britain was one of amazement and disbelief. Jon Bryan had succeeded in convincing everyone that his relationship with the duchess was proper. The royal family followed the story as closely as everyone else. The morning of publications, every member of the family at Balmoral was to be found poring over half a dozen copies of the Daily Record, the Scottish version of the Mirror, at breakfast.”

“They were clearly taking some delight in the duchess’s impending discomfiture. Suddenly Fergie herself entered the dinning room. I was told. “There was a mad scramble to turn the pages over, everybody pretended to be reading some other story. But the duchess knew. She was very close to tears, poor thing. She just hadn’t known the photographs would be as explicit as they were. Five days later, Fergie left Balmoral for the last time as a member of the royal family.”

According to the author, people objected to the pictures published by his newspaper due to the fact that they were pictured in front of Sarah and Andrew’s children.

He wrote that the pictures also served to alert the Queen and Prince Andrew to the behavior of the Duchess of York and her financial adviser.

“Until that point, I was informed, Andrew believed that there was nothing improper in their relationship and he had every hope that their broken marriage might be repaired.”

“According to her father-in-law, Major Ronald Ferguson, he was so devoted to this idea that he had even argued Sarah’s case to the Queen.”

Andrew, the second son of late Queen Elizabeth II, married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, separated in 1992 and finalized their divorce in 1996.

The couple continues to live together but some media reports suggest that they might choose different paths after being evicted from Royal Lodge.