Prince Andrew: is the royal family doing enough?

Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir is published today, and Buckingham Palace is braced for further allegations about Prince Andrew and his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

Extracts from “Nobody’s Girl” by Giuffre, who claims she was coerced into sex with Andrew when she was 17, have already rocked the royal family. “I vigorously deny the accusations against me,” Andrew said on Friday. But he also announced that his Duke of York title and Order of the Garter knighthood would be “put into abeyance”, much like his HRH title was in 2019.

Only an act of Parliament can remove Andrew’s dukedom completely but, such is the heat around the scandal, there are already moves afoot in the House of Commons to try to do just that.

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What did the commentators say?

There was “a sense of relief” at the Palace when Andrew agreed to stop using his titles, said Sky News’ royal correspondent Laura Bundock. But now, there is “a sense of dread over what else could emerge”. Andrew’s “disgrace and downfall” is far from over, and it could be that we are “reaching the endgame”.

The Palace has “failed to grasp the magnitude” of the scandal, Andrew Lownie, the Yorks’ biographer, told The Telegraph. They are putting “a little bit of a plaster on a huge problem”. Charles should have had Andrew’s titles removed, rather than simply ordering him not to use them, and he should have forced Andrew to cooperate with US authorities about the extent of his dealings with Epstein. “I think this is just window dressing,” Lownie said. The fact that Andrew will still “get to live as he always has done” will make people “feel he hasn’t really paid any penalty for what he’s done”.

Charles apparently believed that putting Andrew’s titles in abeyance was “sufficient”, said Caroline Davies in The Guardian. But Prince William is “prepared to take a more ruthless approach if required” when he takes the throne. He reportedly considers his uncle a “threat” and “a reputational risk to the monarchy”.

When William becomes king, Andrew’s “limited role in public life will disappear entirely – starting with the coronation”, said Alexander Larman in The Spectator. A recent “surprisingly revealing” interview with actor Eugene Levy suggested that “banishing Andrew to Siberia” would not cause William “too many sleepless nights”.

It seems that the “nuclear royal option – to strip Andrew of his princely title grows more inevitable by the day”. This “will not be an easy or fast process, and is likely to damage the very institution of the monarchy”. But “the embarrassment and headlines” may be “worth it in the longer term”.

The Palace is “walking a fine line between cutting loose a reprobate member” and infuriating Andrew to the point that he “vents criticism of the main figures in the monarchy”, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper. The “aloof tone and huffiness” of his statement on Friday signals that he still perceives his treatment as unfair, and “as the royals discovered in the Diana era” that can turn a person into “a powder keg”. The point is not whether or not Andrew “has a leg to stand on”; it’s that “he feels he does”. The more aggressively the palace seeks to exclude him, “the greater the risk of him seeking his own retribution”.

What next?

MPs have now lodged a parliamentary motion to strip Andrew of his dukedom. The government has previously said that it would be “guided” by the royal family on any decision to remove Andrew’s titles.

Whatever happens, Andrew’s “stubbornness” is “not going to change”, said McElvoy. The monarchy now has an “involuntary hermit” on its Windsor estate – still a part of the institution he was born into, however “inconvenient that may be”. How “sustainable this stand-off will prove is questionable”.

And the latest allegations are “just the tip of the iceberg”, Lownie told The Telegraph. The palace is “worried about new allegations that will emerge Stateside. They know there is more damaging stuff to come.”