A key question around Britain's royal succession was resolved today when it emerged scandal-hit Prince Andrew and his ex-wife will look after Queen Elizabeth's corgi dogs after her death.
The prince and his former spouse Sarah Ferguson will take on Muick and Sandy following the queen's death at Balmoral last Thursday aged 96, a spokesman said.
Andrew - the queen's third son and often reported to be her favourite - and Ms Ferguson had given Muick and Sandy to the queen as a gift.
The pets were a comfort to the queen while she was at Windsor Castle during the coronavirus pandemic, her dresser Angela Kelly said.
The fate of the two corgis - the latest in a long line of more than 30 of the sandy, short-legged dogs throughout Elizabeth's reign - had been a mystery.
Muick joined the royal family at the start of 2021 along with a so-called "dorgi", a cross between a corgi and a dachshund, called Fergus.
Fergus died after just five months and was later replaced with Sandy, a new corgi puppy from Andrew and his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, for the queen's official 95th birthday.
The corgi gifts came in the same year that Prince Andrew stepped back from his public duties due to the scandal over his relationship with convicted US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In February, Andrew settled a sexual abuse lawsuit in the United States with an Epstein victim, having previously been stripped of his honorary military titles.
He and Sarah Ferguson married in a highly publicised wedding in 1986 and divorced ten years later, but have remained on good terms and share a home near Windsor Castle.
The little, mainly sandy-coloured corgi dogs with pointy ears were a busy presence in the queen's court, following her from room to room in Buckingham Palace and featuring in official photos.
They were even given a starring role in the spoof James Bond clip filmed with the queen for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.
She stopped raising corgis in her 90s so as not to leave them orphaned after her death, and the 2018 demise of Willow, the last corgi she reared herself, served as a reminder of the monarch's own mortality.
The queen was so fond of her corgis that she personally supervised their daily meal, according to "Pets by Royal Appointment", by author Brian Hoey, a book on British royal pets since the 16th century.
The dogs' dinners of fillet steak and chicken breast were prepared by a footman and served at 5pm sharp every day, with the queen playing servant, pouring the gravy on the feast.
Mr Hoey suggested the monarch preferred the company of animals to that of humans.
The British royals "are suspicious of practically everyone outside their own family, so the only creatures they really trust are not of the human variety", he said.
Not everyone in the household was a fan, however. Prince Philip reputedly loathed the waddling, short-legged animals because they yapped too much, according to Mr Hoey.
The queen raised dozens of Pembroke Welsh Corgis during her lifetime, most of which have been descended from her first Corgi, Susan, which was given to Elizabeth when she turned18 in 1944.
They have been a source of heartache on some occasions.
One of her favourites, Pharos, had to be put down after being savaged by Florence, the English bull terrier owned by the queen's daughter Princess Anne in 2003.
