The defenestration of the scandal-draped Prince Andrew was inevitable.
The eighth in line to the throne has been falling from grace for decades but the soon-to-be Andrew Mountbatten Windsor endured, thanks to the unswerving support of his doting mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
The former Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Windsor.Credit: AP
With her gone, however, Prince Andrew could not survive the ever-mounting odour of his involvement with the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and a young woman the billionaire financier trafficked. The prince has steadfastly denied that he raped the woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, but publication of her posthumous memoir made his position in the royal family stable increasingly untenable.
Despite the traditional separation of powers between the Crown and the British parliament, some British MPs pushed for a parliamentary motion to strip Prince Andrew of his titles and questioned his living in the sprawling Royal Lodge for peppercorn rent. The politicisation of the issue forced King Charles’ hand: he has started the formal process to remove his younger brother’s titles and honours and, for good measure, evicted him and his ex-wife.
The British monarchy and members of the royal family live in a rarefied world straddling church, state and class, and for some they embody national cultural identity and historical legacy; others see them as a symbol of privilege, inequality and a cost to the state.
But in the age of modern media, the royals often behave like moths to celebrity. Shakespeare may have written of the fatal flaws of English kings but back in the day the tabloid press’ nickname “Randy Andy” was surely a glimpse of princely things to come. Let us not forget that Princess Diana walked into the same interview minefield that later blew up Prince Andrew’s credibility. And then there is the ongoing saga of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s flight to the US.
Even before soap operas the royals have long starred in credibility-sapping scandals.
In 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated to marry an American divorcee and was banished. In the 1950s Princess Margaret fell in love with Peter Townsend, a divorced man with a living ex-wife, but the Queen, as head of the Church of England, could not approve of the marriage, creating a constitutional conflict between her official duties and her personal relationship with her sister.
Times have changed. Nobody batted an eye last month when the divorced head of the Church of England became the first British monarch to hold a joint prayer service with the Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke with Rome. Andrew’s imbroglio sucked much oxygen from his older brother King’s ecumenical achievement.
Four days before Giuffre’s memoir was published, Prince Andrew announced he would no longer use his titles. Three days later, leaked emails from 2011 suggested he gave Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to one of his protection officers, hours before their infamous photograph went viral.
To protect his royal house, King Charles had to kiss his brother and turn him into a frog.
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