At a time when the King needs stability, the latest Epstein papers have placed the Duke firmly back at the centre of scandal. Photo / AP
At a time when the King needs stability, the latest Epstein papers have placed the Duke firmly back at the centre of scandal. Photo / AP
OPINION:
When the Duke of York strolled in front of the world’s media at Sandringham on Christmas Day, he had the distinct air of a man reaching the end of his exile. A thawing of the royal frost that had rendered him a pariah, some thought, it was a gentle return to showing his face in public after years of disgrace.
He had a chat with a Royal Navy veteran, having recognised his medal ribbon. “We can’t all stop,” he told wellwishers jauntily, walking ahead of those making small talk. “If we all stop we are never going to get anywhere.”
Eleven days on, with all the wisdom hindsight brings, it looks more like a last hurrah.
Prince Andrew has been mentioned 69 times in more than 900 pages of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Getty Images
The allegations are not new, but they have taken on new life. In a post-Me Too era, without the protection of his late mother Queen Elizabeth II, and with social media circulating royal criticism to a wider audience than ever before, there will be no moving on for Prince Andrew.
That he denies all claims and settled his case with Ms Giuffre out of court with no admission of wrongdoing in early 2022 seems to matter not a jot in the court of public opinion.
“Time to Give Andrew the Chop”, screamed The Sun’s front page on Friday. “No Way Back”, screeched the Daily Mail. At a time when King Charles III could do with some stability, he is yet again faced with the problem: what to do with Prince Andrew?
Officially, the problem has already been solved – or at least settled. The Duke is not a member of the working Royal family. He cannot use the title HRH. His patronages and honorary military positions are gone. He is not represented by Buckingham Palace.
And yet he was at the Coronation to see his brother crowned King. The ground appeared safe enough to have him make the Sandringham walk, so much a part of the royal calendar that it moved former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt to tweet pointedly about the “King’s judgement”.
“Walking past cameras and royal fans isn’t a private, family event,” he argued.
For the palace, there is seemingly no contradiction. They have drawn a line between public and private that has not budged for several years now. The Duke is not part of the working Firm, but he is still a brother, father, uncle.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York at Westminster Abbey during the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on May 6, 2023 in London, England. Photo / Getty Images
“Nothing has changed since he stepped back from public life a few years ago,” one source said. “He’s always remained a part of the family, but he has no working role and there is no suggestion that there is a path to public redemption.”
It was a model set by the late Queen, at the urging of her heirs who were unified in their belief he should have no more official part to play in the monarchy. Now Elizabeth II has gone, the problem has been inherited by the King.
Those who have seen Andrew recently do not paint a reassuring picture. Without purpose, it is said the Duke is unhappily confined to a life of domesticity, riding horses on the Windsor estate and, bluntly, struggling.
There is no clear path ahead of him. For now, he remains at Royal Lodge on a long lease, but is newly responsible for raising the millions of pounds in security and maintenance needed to stay there without being bankrolled by the King whose generosity appears to have found its limit.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew, center right, arrive for a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London, March 29, 2022. (Richard Pohle/Pool via AP)
At the palace, calm heads are mindful that finding a way for Andrew to fill his days would be a useful exercise. Being left to his own devices with no steady income carries risks and, after the departure and subsequent barbs of Prince Harry, nobody wants another Duke gone rogue.
“He is safer in the fold than out,” says one old hand.
A suggestion that he might one day be given a role on the Balmoral estate has obvious benefits: it would give purpose, he would be out of the limelight, and it would come with a home requiring far less upkeep and security than his current Windsor white elephant.
But floated several years ago, the idea seems to have largely fallen by the wayside.
Prince Andrew appears on BBC Newsnight with Emily Maitlis with regard to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Photo / BBC
Notions that he could run the estate at Windsor, where he has spent his adult life, were quashed the second the King was announced in the role of Ranger of The Great Park in November 2022.
Back in 2020, following the death of Epstein, the arrest of Maxwell, and that disastrous Newsnight interview, the Duke of York’s advisers were urging him to keep his head down.
The road to redemption lay in modest public service, the argument went. If he could knuckle down to some charity work without fanfare, he would quietly build support and respect.
The best-case scenario could see him follow in the footsteps of John Profumo, who resigned from the Macmillan government in scandal in 1963 but devoted the last 40 years of his life to charity in the East End of London. In 1975, he was appointed CBE in a gesture widely seen as a sign of forgiveness from the establishment and, on his death in 2006, was hailed for his dignified atonement.
Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. Photo / Getty Images
In the case of Prince Andrew, a similar comeback does not seem to be on the table. Advisers who have argued that case have long since left, their calls unheeded. “It requires a level of personal understanding that has perhaps not been reached yet,” one familiar with the suggestion of low-key charity work puts it, mildly.
The band of allies which tends to surround all members of the Royal family is dwindling. His ex-wife and daughters are devoted, but there seems little clamouring from anyone else to be associated.
Few who have worked with him in a previous life have spoken up with warm words to describe the experience. If “being kind to people on the way up because you’ll meet the same people on the way down” is a well-worn truth, this is a cautionary tale.
“A fatal mix of arrogance and stupidity,” summarised one who has met him on official engagements. With Queen Elizabeth, always his chief sympathetic ear, gone, he faces tougher love from the new monarch.
Prince William remains “firm” in his view that Uncle Andrew is not a working Royal, but it is the King who calls the shots. The indefinite financial support of a 63-year-old man is not, it appears, on his list of priorities.
