Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
I’m not sure three words have ever given me so much joy to type out.
For the first time in 106 years, a British prince, duke and an HRH is about to be downgraded to the deliciously bog standard, all-right-guvnor, Poundland Mr Mountbatten-Windsor.
After days, weeks, and months of mounting pressure, on Thursday night London time, Buckingham Palace finally proved they can truly pull their finger out when required and got out the stern press release template and announced that His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew, The Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, KG (Knight of the Garter) and GCVO (Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order) is set to lose every single one of his grand titles.
Also, he’s being turfed out of his palatial home Royal Lodge.
The word ‘unprecedented’ has gotten a lot of play in recent years in the royal world (looks towards Montecito) but this – what has just happened in the UK in the last few hours – is truly extraordinary.
And also very possibly too late.
This week, for the first time in history, polling has shown support for the monarchy has fallen below 50 per cent.
Bombshell biography
Much credit for where we are today must go to historian and writer Andrew Lownie, who released the scrupulously, extensively researched Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York out August 26. (It’s a cracking, highly-recommended read.)
While in the United States, the question of the ‘Epstein Files’ has been hubbling and bubbling along, until Entitled, Andrew and his years-long paling about with the world’s most notorious child sex predator had somehow faded into the royal wallpaper.
Then out came Entitled and hey presto.
The vast trove of new and sordid details that Lownie unearthed about the King’s brother were beyond grubby, like having 40 women sent to his room while on official business in Bangkok. Lownie also revealed that Epstein had said of Andrew: “We are both serial sex addicts … He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!”
The fact that, since 2019, Andrew’s ‘punishment’ consisted of no longer being made to open toll roads in Hull on wet Tuesdays and getting to just clip clop around Windsor on the best horse flesh money can buy while also hosting lavish shooting weekends on the King’s estates and living in a 30-room grand home with silk walls didn’t seem like such a terrible sentence.
The gross grin
In September, the Duchess of Kent died and Andrew and ex-wife and roommate Sarah Ferguson’s gurning performance at her funeral was truly toe-curling.
While the rest of the royal family maintained the proper sort of dignity and poise at the event, the Yorks looked like they were having a right old jolly time of it being back in the very heart of the royal family.
Photos of Prince William all but blanking his mugging, happier-than-Larry uncle went around the world.
What got less attention was that the King has been practising being all munificent and the like and had provided the Yorks with an official police escort to arrive at the event.
His Majesty’s having included Andrew and Fergie in family events in recent years – Easters and Christmases – was about to look like the worst royal bet since the Queen Mother put a monkey each way on the last race at Ascot and George V was splitting a BFF pendant with his cousin the Kaiser in 1914.
‘Supreme friend’
In late September emails obtained by the Daily Mail revealed that Fergie had sent a grovelling apology to Epstein six weeks after going on the record to promise that she would “have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again”.
On April 26, 2011, the former duchess wrote to the child sex offender, addressing him as “my dear, dear friend Jeffrey” and saying “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me” and that “I must humbly apologise to you and your heart for that.”
She also called him “a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and family”.
‘Play some more soon’
Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday and The Sun were on the case, unearthing an email that revealed Andrew had quite simply lied when he had spoken to Newsnight in November 2019.
He claimed he had cut off contact with Epstein after staying with him in New York in December 2010. Porky alert and a half.
On February 28, 2011, the royal sickeningly wrote: “It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
It was signed “A, HRH The Duke of York, KG”, never one to let a chance pass to rub his titles in people’s faces.
In the UK, public bile towards the 65-year-old was rising, having been caught in an outright lie and about something so fundamental to his defence. (Next we’ll learn there never even was a Pizza Express in Woking.)
This also meant that the heat under Buckingham Palace was being turned up and up as the King practised plenty of hand-wringing and failed to adequately meet the moment as a leader.
As September ticked along, the Yorks were putting royal writers in a very tricky position, because how many times can you use ‘disgraced’ and ‘reviled’ in one story?
The Chinese spymaster
The other big story that’s been in the UK headlines is the aborted case against British two parliamentary staffers accused of spying for Beijing.
On October 16, it was revealed that Andrew had met with the senior Chinese official at the centre of the case on three occasions.
Still a prince
On October 17 Charles appeared to finally buckle and out came a statement saying that Andrew would renounce his Duke of York title and HRH, even though the late Queen had supposedly made him mothball it back in 2019.
The palace’s attempt at staunching the reputation bleeding and getting a handle on things was like slapping a homebrand band ad on a bullet wound.
It was immediately apparent what a limp-wristed, half hearted sop of a sort this was, given that Andrew would officially retain all of his titles and was still living on one of the grandest estates in England.
For the King, the fact he had allowed his brother to make the statement, and had not taken the opportunity to look like a man in charge and who was actually listening to his people was just ever more damage to the monarchy and his image.
Smearing Virginia
New day, new email bombshell.
On October 19, out came another one, this time revealing that Andrew had asked his taxpayer funded police bodyguard to dig up dirt on Ms Giuffre.
In 2011 he had written to Ed Perkins, the late Queen’s deputy press secretary: “It would also seem she has a criminal record in the [United] States … I have given her Dob [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with [redacted], the on duty ppo [personal protection officer].” (Ms Giuffre did not have a criminal record.)
The Metropolitan Police immediately announced it was investigating. There is also the question of whether allegedly accessing her social security number could have possible legal ramifications in the US.
Nobody’s Girl
Virginia Giuffre lost her battle with her demons in April this year but on October 16, extracts from her posthumously released memoir Nobody’s Girl began to be published, with the title published the following week.
It offers a searing, deeply disturbing account of her years and years of unthinkable abuse. Finally, the world was hearing in her own words her allegations of being raped by Andrew on three occasions. (He has always vehemently denied the claims.)
She writes of the first time he allegedly sexually abused her in 2001 that he had licked her feet and that “He was friendly enough, but still entitled — as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.”
Of the third alleged sexual assault, on Epstein’s private island, Ms Giuffre wrote that it was an “orgy” that involved herself, “Epstein, Andy, approximately eight other young girls … The other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really speak English. Epstein laughed about the fact they couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get along with.”
Fergie’s Epstein millions holiday
Also on October 19 emails sent revealed that Fergie had been “the first to celebrate” Epstein’s release from prison.
He wrote to his lawyer: “[Ms Ferguson] took apartments in New York. She was the first to celebrate my release with her two daughters in tow.”
“She visited me with [a] policeman sitting at my front desk. She has asked for help with her charities.”
Other emails showed that July 10, 2010, while Epstein was still under house arrest, she wrote to him asking to stay on his private Caribbean island: “My friend, am I allowed to visit Little St Jeffs? Or is it unavailable to bankrupts?”
(She was not bankrupt at the time.)
He responded with: “I’ll meet you there. Call me” and sent her his mobile number.
Andrew Lownie had also claimed that the former duchess had in fact accepted millions of dollars from Epstein too, far more than the $30,000 she had publicly copped to.
The siege of Royal Lodge
As every day brought worse news for the palace, they needed to take action and attention soon moved to Andrew’s grand digs. For Crown Inc, the symbolism of a man who indisputably saw fit to holiday with a convicted child sex offender, at the very least, being allowed to putter around a plum royal property could not be swallowed any more.
Making the situation even worse was when The Times revealed he was paying no rent to live there.
Last week the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer indicated he would back an inquiry into Andrew’s living arrangements. On Wednesday this week MPs officially demanded an explanation with the The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) having contacted the Crown Estate over the seeming freebie.
Charles heckled
The degree of public disquiet over the palace’s handling of Andrew-gate erupted into deeply embarrassing view on Monday when Chalres was heckled outside Lichfield Cathedral, as a protester yelled out at the King: “How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Should MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?”
The video of the movement went around the world.
By this point Queen Camilla could have announced she was going to appear on the next season of Celebrity Traitors and no one would have really bothered to care, such was the crescendo of seething public anger and opprobrium about Andrew and the palace’s namby pamby, pathetic approach.
Meet plain old Andrew
Charles finally swung the axe on Thursday (early morning Friday Sydney time) and His Majesty is set to do the actual paperwork to officially strip Andrew of all of his titles and Fergie is on Facebook marketplace trying to source freebie packing boxes.
He’s being packed off to Wood Farm, on the Sandringham Estate, the five bedroom cottage where Philip spent his final years, while she’s off to god knows where with the palace finally having washed their hands of the woman who also holidayed with a man on the sex offender’s register.
The “world’s happiest divorced couple”, as she put it several years ago, are no longer quite so chummy it would seem.
Rural Norfolk might not be Andrew’s final address with speculation that he could end up moving overseas.
Switzerland has been touted as one option, he and Fergie having owned a $34 million chalet in Verbier for a spell, while another is Abu Dhabi. Biographer Lownie revealed this month Andrew has been given a fully staffed palace for his use by the ruling royal family there, the house of Nahyan.
She 50 per cent mark
The toll of this Andrew crisis on the royal family cannot be underestimated with new polling out this week, conducted for Republic UK, showing support for the monarchy has fallen below 50 per cent for the first time. As far as tolling bells of doom go, it’s ringing bloody ominously for the throne business.
‘Behind bars’?
That same polling also found that 77 per cent of Brits think Andrew should face criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse and 70 per cent say the police have not taken enough action against him.
Asked while appearing on Good Morning Britain last week if Andrew could end up “behind bars” biographer Lownie said, “Yes, I think that is eventually what is going to happen”. Similarly when Lownie was on the Telegraph’s podcast last week, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew is actually put on trial. There are going to be more damaging revelations.”
There is also the question of Andrew’s decade as the UK’s official trade ambassador, government documents about which are being kept secret, per Lownie.
His repeated Freedom of Information requests were blocked and while normal ministerial documents are sent to the National Archives at Kew, the paperwork regarding Andrew has not.
Overlooked in all the stories about real estate and titles are the untold number of young women whose lives were destroyed by Jeffrey Epstein.
In December 2019, after Andrew’s Newsnight appearance, Ms Giuffre gave a TV interview and said: “I implore the people in the U.K. to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being OK.
“This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked, this is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guys’ royalty.”
Andrew’s being packed off to Norfolk; Ms Giuffre passed away in April.
