Sarah Ferguson, the mother of Princess Eugenie and Prince Andrew’s ex, has long been regarded as the most embarrassing member of the royal family.

And, showing she has lost none of her talent in this regard, Ferguson, who still insists on being referred to as “the Duchess,” published a string of mortifyingly syrupy messages on social media Monday after her daughter’s engagement to former barman Jack Brooksbank was announced.

A planned interview with the BBC was hastily canned after the messages started appearing, with Fergie’s ex-husband, Prince Andrew, stepping into the breach to answer questions from reporters instead, according to a report in The Daily Mail, which claimed the duchess had been “silenced due to her effusive online postings.”

One source told the Mail: “The feeling was that it [the official reaction] was all better, and more appropriate, coming from the Duke and Buckingham Palace.”

Whilst a clear contender for an embarrassing mom award, there has also been some amused speculation in the British press of how the wedding of Eugenie will inevitably force the coming together in one space of Prince Philip and Sarah Ferguson.

Philip loathes Fergie so intently that he cannot bear to even have her in his eyeline on a racecourse, let alone be in the same room.

Fergie was famously not invited to Prince William’s wedding for this reason, and an invite to Harry’s nuptials seems unlikely.

Philip has been unable to forgive Fergie for the damage he perceives she did to the family via her series of extramarital affairs and subsequent commercial work.