At his first meeting with Pope Leo in the Vatican last week, the King spoke of the “constant hazard” in his life. A sympathetic pontiff reassured him “you get used to it”, before Charles clarified that he was referring to the cameras.
After another week of lurid scandal surrounding Prince Andrew, the King could be forgiven for considering that his brother, still known as the “Duke of Hazard” in royal circles, has become a much greater concern than photographers.
Last week’s state visit by the King and Queen to the Holy See was well timed, as Charles was able to spend much of his visit in prayer and reflection. As a friend of the King said: “The boss will have a lot to pray about.” Despite his woes at home, Charles was upbeat. At times, he appeared genuinely moved during special services marking the visit.
Back home, however, the relationship between the two brothers, which has never been close, is now past breaking point — and is still being stress-tested by Andrew remaining in Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion on the Windsor estate he shares with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.
Charles shows Andrew around HMS Bronington in 1976. Charles served in the Royal Navy for five years from 1971
CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
Whichever way the saga of Andrew ends — and the end does not yet appear to be in sight — it has indelibly stained the Carolean era, a reign that has already been buffeted by the King’s cancer, for which he is still receiving weekly treatment. A friend of the monarch said: “He won’t be looking at it through the lens of ‘this is my brother’. He’ll be looking at it through the lens of ‘this is getting in the way of the royal family’s duty to serve the country and distracting from the public work’ — and that’s not where he wants the focus to be.”
Charles and his aides have been firefighting for weeks, attempting to digest each new, tawdry revelation about Andrew that emerges to do with his links to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, including reports last week that he asked his Metropolitan Police personal protection officer to dig up dirt on Virginia Giuffre in 2011. He has always denied allegations that he had sex three times with the young Virginia Roberts, as she was then — the first time when she was just 17.
But there is a growing feeling that too little is being done too late, and the Palace is playing catch-up because of mis-steps committed during the last reign. After his BBC Newsnight interview, Andrew was forced by Queen Elizabeth, with the support of Charles and Prince William, to step back from public life in the vain hope the scandal would fade. In February 2022, when Andrew agreed a multimillion-pound settlement with Giuffre, part-funded by his mother and Charles and admitting no liability, the late Queen enforced further punishment, removing his HRH styling, military titles and patronages.
But she could not bring herself to fully strip him of his titles, or suggest that alternative accommodation might be more appropriate in the circumstances. He remained her weak spot, and Charles is now paying the price.
A source who knows the royal family said: “It seems to me that Queen Elizabeth has quite a lot to answer for. It’s as if she left an unexploded bomb for Charles. The thing about the Queen was that everyone always said she was so dutiful, and she was — but this was a terrible dereliction of duty. She indulged Andrew all the time and always avoided confrontation.”
The Queen gives Andrew a rose on his return from the Falklands in 1982
ANWAR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES
Another royal source, who knew the late Queen well, said: “It wasn’t just Andrew — it was all the family troubles. She just didn’t want to engage. She was like an ostrich with her head in the sand. But I don’t think any of the family knew the full extent of what would come out.”
While the King, with support from the Prince of Wales, leant heavily on Andrew last week to voluntarily relinquish his titles and honours, the Duke of Hazard has still not fully bowed to pressure from the monarch. The King has made it clear for more than a year that he wants him out of Royal Lodge.
Talks between Andrew and courtiers, thought to be led by the King’s principal private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, on the issue of where else he might live — and who would fund a move — are said to be continuing. The prince has so far dug in his heels and shows no imminent signs of moving. This is despite mounting pressure prompted by revelations last week in The Times that he pays the Crown Estate a “peppercorn rent” for the sprawling mansion.
With Sir Keir Starmer backing a parliamentary inquiry into further scrutiny of the unconventional arrangement, and a YouGov poll last week showing that 80 per cent of the public would support legislation formally stripping Andrew of his titles, which he still technically retains, Charles will have more storms to weather if his brother does not decamp soon. On Saturday Palace aides would not comment on any reported talks, but said there would be no imminent announcement on the issue of Royal Lodge.
At a ceremony to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012
MAX MUMBY/GETTY IMAGES
A source who knows the King pointed to a line in Andrew’s statement issued earlier this month in which he explained his decision to relinquish his titles: “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first.”
The source said: “Charles has to say to his face, ‘There’s no choice here, you must now leave Royal Lodge. Whatever the lease says. You say you always put your family and country first. Prove it. This is doing real damage to the monarchy. You’ve got to move.’ I think that would do a lot to assuage public anger.”
Another royal source said: “The public are angry at Andrew, angry that he’s still in that house and angry at the disdain in that statement. Something else [beyond the dukedom] has to go.”
If Andrew can be persuaded to downsize from Royal Lodge he is unlikely to want to relocate far from his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and their children, who are based in London.
• The Crown Estate: how does it work and who owns Royal Lodge?
Windsor options could include Frogmore Cottage, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s former five-bedroom home, which the King has previously suggested as an alternative for Andrew; or Adelaide Cottage, the Waleses’ four-bedroom home (they are soon due to take up residence instead at Forest Lodge, a larger house on the Windsor estate).
Another alternative further afield is the five-bedroom Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, where Andrew and Ferguson have often stayed; Prince Philip and the late Queen also spent much time together there. However, Andrew is not thought to be keen to permanently relocate to the county.
Queen Camilla has so far kept a low profile on the matter, choosing to support her husband privately as he navigates the Andrew fallout. The Palace will not say whether Camilla — who, like the Duchess of Edinburgh, is a longstanding campaigner on raising awareness of sexual abuse — has read Giuffre’s book or expressed an interest in its contents, published posthumously.
A friend of Camilla’s said: “Knowing her, she probably will. Set against the Queen and the Duchess of Edinburgh’s personal agenda, it is a very difficult backdrop to try and promote the issues they care about when they’ve got someone so close to home caught up in it.”
The renewed scrutiny of Andrew’s past is unlikely to end with his links to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Giuffre. His ties to the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who denied being an agent of influence and with whom he forged a friendship and business relationship, may yet yield further headlines, and his decade of jetting around the world at taxpayers’ expense in his role as the UK’s “special representative” for trade and investment will continue to be pored over. All of which are grim prospects for the royal family.
TOBY MELVILLE/PA
A royal source said: “At the point he lost the trade envoy role, the Palace should have sat him down, taken control of the situation and said: ‘Right, what’s happened here?’”
Another former courtier says of the endless scandal: “If a story lasts more than nine days, you’re toast. It’s been 15 years now.”
A friend of the King said: “The King has one of the best antenna for judging public opinion and he is keeping a very close eye on the mood on this matter. There is a genuine sense that he feels he has taken every step available and they have pulled all the decisive levers they can. If it isn’t enough, because the public outrage is still high, they will look again. But it is not an institution that is prone to knee-jerk reactions.”
Last week Charles was bestowed with a new title in Rome, that of “Royal Confrater”, marking the “brotherhood” between the Anglican and Catholic churches. No such brotherly solidarity was extended to Andrew: the monarch is not thought to have spoken to him in recent days. On Charles’s authority, a banner bearing Andrew’s coat of arms, signifying his membership of the chivalric order of the garter, was removed from St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the late Queen is buried and where the royal family often pray. It was raised there in 2006 when the honour was bestowed on him by his mother, and until last week hung alongside the Prince of Wales’s banner.
The King meeting the Pope last week
SPLASH
The King and his family will wish the lowering of Andrew’s flag to be the beginning of the end of the scandal. They can but hope.
Follow