Why the ‘Prince Andrew downside’ is one King Charles ‘has to confront’

In every week the place King Charles hoped to venture unity as a “bulwark against those promoting conflict, division and tyranny”, his scandal-ridden brother reigned supreme.

The monarch flew to Rome on Wednesday for a historic state go to to the Vatican with Pope Leo — an elaborate occasion that had been within the royal calendar for months.

A photograph of the 2 males praying collectively was speculated to ship a message of accord between the 2 church buildings after a 500-year rift.

But the history-making second inevitably took a again seat to the fraught political drama of the “Prince Andrew problem“.

Buckingham Palace could be very clear that it doesn’t act for the prince in any means. Instead, it was Andrew who mentioned he would resign his titles final week, on the urging of Charles and Prince William.

But if the announcement was speculated to be a extra formal public cleaving of Andrew the individual from Andrew the royal — years after he stepped again as a working member of “The Firm” — it seems to have fallen wanting expectations.

“Andrew must cease styling himself prince and disappear,” a scathing editorial in The Times declared simply two days after the prince’s announcement.

Pressure has continued to construct on the Windsors, particularly because it got here to mild that Andrew had solely paid a nominal lease of “one peppercorn” over the course of his two-decade tenancy in a 30-room royal mansion only a stone’s throw away from the royal household.

This week additionally noticed the discharge of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, a harrowing account of a lady who had lengthy fought for justice towards her abusers.

In witness statements and numerous accounts offered over time, she claimed she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Andrew and had intercourse with him on three separate events. Prince Andrew has denied all of the accusations towards him.

The memoir’s launch got here shortly after it emerged that the Metropolitan Police is investigating claims that Andrew requested an officer to dig up dust for a smear marketing campaign towards Giuffre.

As extra revelations got here to mild, it meant that Andrew, not Charles, was making front-page information on the exact second the king hoped to be setting the agenda.

But what extra could possibly be performed to vanish a person who, by all accounts, would not go quietly?

An even bigger royal demotion

Along with calls from The Times, two-thirds of the general public surveyed in a YouGov ballot have called for Andrew to be stripped of his title as “prince”, which can’t be performed simply on account of him being a son of Queen Elizabeth.

There has additionally been motion in parliament, the place MPs sought to lodge a movement to take away his dukedom, making official what has primarily grow to be a defunct title.

The uncommon foray into royal points by the supposedly separate UK authorities could be removed from easy, requiring public backing, political will, and, on the very least, the tacit help of the king.

The writers at The Times introduced an alternative choice: Andrew ought to “call himself plain Mr Windsor and [take] himself off to some sunny spot where he can live a life of golf and quiet self-reflection”.

The royal’s iron-clad lease on the Royal Lodge in Berkshire, which runs till 2078, has additionally been the topic of a lot debate this week, with calls to finish his sweetheart deal early.

Baroness Margaret Hodge, who chaired the Public Accounts Committee between 2010 and 2015, has mentioned the Royal Lodge association “looks like a rotten deal” and requested for better transparency relating to royal funds typically.

“There’s no transparency — so inevitably we’re sceptical and we ask questions,” she advised BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“All we’ve got here is another specific issue, which is an example of a much, much wider problem, which is that the royal finances are mired in secrecy and that lack of transparency associated with those finances ends up with us asking all sorts of questions.”

Attempts by the king final 12 months to kick Andrew out of the stately residence spilled over into the press in what turned often known as the siege of Royal Lodge.

It ended with the previous duke remaining the place he was as long as he may pay for the maintenance of the big home himself, the BBC reported.

With a lot hypothesis happening within the UK press this week, it was maybe serendipitous that Charles was because of fly overseas and make historical past.

Yet it wasn’t sufficient to distract from the dangerous information swirling round Andrew.

As royal biographer Andrew Lownie noticed, it’s extra than simply “a distraction from the good work the royal family does”.

“I think, also, it’s actually part of the destruction of the royal family because this, of course, is what everyone remembers …,” he advised the ABC.

“And this is now causing a lot of collateral damage, it’s raising questions about royal accountability and transparency, and I think it’s actually been very damaging to the monarchy.”

The totally different approaches of Charles and William

Over the previous week, because the royal household sought to maintain consideration firmly skilled on its working members, the king was in a troublesome place.

“There is certainly considerable public and political pressure on the Palace to do more than merely ask the duke to not use his titles, but the problem is one that King Charles III has to confront,” royal commentator for Flinders University Giselle Bastin mentioned.

“He is, naturally, torn between dealing with Prince Andrew as a royal, and dealing with him as his younger brother. It’s a very difficult position for him to be in.”

The similar issue doesn’t appear to increase to William, who has lengthy been believed to have a frostier relationship along with his uncle.

“[William] certainly understands the problems in a way that I suspect Charles doesn’t,” Mr Lownie mentioned.

Dr Bastin agrees that there’s a rising sense that “William’s up for the fight”.

“Andrew might have to disappear into the shadows and simply remove his face from all public events and ceremonies for a bit,” Dr Bastin mentioned.

However, even after Andrew stopped working as a royal, he continued to get pleasure from a distinguished function at royal occasions.

Some of his appearances have been unavoidable, like within the case of his mom’s funeral.

At different instances, the prince’s continued presence at highly-publicised events has thrown into sharp reduction the remedy of Prince Harry and his spouse, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who haven’t been accused of any critical wrongdoing.

After “stepping back” as senior working royals in 2020, Harry and Meghan moved out of Frogmore Cottage and agreed to pay again 2.4 million kilos ($4.3 million) in public funds that had been used for renovations on their UK residence.

They had been additionally stripped of their state-funded safety.

Royal commentators beforehand advised the ABC that if Harry and Meghan not have royal properties or safety after stepping again from their positions, “then the same things should not be afforded to Prince Andrew”.

Why this scandal refuses to go away

The royal household is not any stranger to controversy and scandal.

History is affected by dukes and duchesses whose actions have introduced the monarchy into disrepute.

One clear instance is when a dukedom was final taken away from a senior royal.

Prince Charles Edward — certainly one of Queen Victoria’s grandsons — misplaced the title of Duke of Albany for combating on the German facet throughout World War I.

Associating with Germans was additionally an issue for the Duke of Windsor, who’s greatest remembered for abdicating the throne.

Dr Bastin says he was identified to then British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and King George VI for his “ill-judged contact with many members of the Nazi command, and people associated with the German military in the years leading up to, and in the first year of, World War II”.

“After Winston Churchill learned of the duke’s indiscretions, he [with encouragement of the king] organised for the Duke of Windsor to be posted as governor of the Bahamas in 1940, a move designed to keep him as far away from mischief as possible,” Dr Bastin mentioned.

“Much to his displeasure, the duke served as governor of the Bahamas from 1940 to 1945.

“One suspects that if the Moon had been one of many outlier areas of the British Empire, that Churchill would have thought of sending the Duke of Windsor there.”

Andrew’s case is different because his alleged crimes are not just in the court of public opinion, but in the memoir of a woman who accused him of sexual abuse.

His behaviour connects the monarchy to a convicted intercourse offender and to a conspiracy concept that retains public curiosity alight.

Other perceived missteps by royals, such as divorce or infidelity, might threaten the moral authority the monarchy holds so dear, but Andrew’s sins go further.

“These particular allegations [against Andrew] are, after all, terribly damaging within the first place, however in addition they run counter to a few of the causes that members of the royal household take up,” Craig Prescott, who teaches regulation at Royal Holloway, University of London and specialises within the constitutional and political function of the monarchy, told the NBC.

According to the royal family’s own website, one of Queen Camilla’s projects has been to “spotlight organisations supporting victims of Rape and Sexual Assault”.

A ‘important step’

What the renunciation of Andrew’s titles has done, perhaps, is to more forcefully project the royal’s status as a family outsider.

Contemporary historian Anthony Seldon told the BBC that the former duke’s renunciation of his titles “traditionally” is a “very, very important step”.

As for how damaging this latest scandal will be for the monarchy, Dr Bastin said there is a question mark.

“They’ve actually outlasted many a scandal for lots of of years, and I think about they will outlast this episode as properly,” she said.

In the meantime, Andrew will presumably be left to his own devices at Royal Lodge, exiled from his family, cut off from the royal pocketbook, and uninvited from lavish gatherings.

But there’s nonetheless an open query over whether or not he’ll ever really retreat to the shadows.