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THE LIFE OF A DISHONOURED PRINCE

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As I mentioned in an early article in my blog, Prince Andrew was linked to the Late Jeffery Epstein who was a notorious pedophile.  The prince spent much of his time in the home of Epstein in which Epstein had a great many under aged girls in the home as Epstein’s sexual playmates.

I am not going to say that the 59-year-old prince had sex with the underage girls but a 17-year-old girl said that the prince had sex with her in Epstein’s mansion.

The final straw came after the prince—a British royal’s journey which began from being referred to as “Randy Andy” to being referred to as a “pariah prince” that was decades in the making.  

Companies, universities and charities rushed to distance themselves from the prince and his charitable activities. Prince Andrew was summoned to meet his mother, the Queen, at Buckingham Palace, and was told in no uncertain terms that his role as an active, publicly funded royal was over “for the foreseeable future”. He was also told by the queen that he can no longer have an office in Buckingham Palace.

Everything is up in the air at the moment. Right now, the prince  is trying to come to terms with what has happened. He genuinely thought he would be able to clear his name, and move on. He never expected that this problem would lead to him resigning from royal life. He was shocked that the meeting with the Queen did not go his way. Essentially he was told to step down from all his royal duties.

Photographed riding a horse alongside his mother the Queen, Prince Andrew has been described by close friends as “shell-shocked” following his announcement  that he would be forced to retreat from official royal duties.

Following the ongoing scandal around his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the Duke of York arrived at Buckingham Palace, looking grim-faced, for further crisis talks with his team and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who has “swooped in to pick up the family and take care of the girls,” according to one source, who also told Vanity Fair, “Andrew cannot believe what has happened and that this didn’t go his way. Sarah is very much being the linchpin and the one who will help the family get through this.”

While Buckingham Palace has said that it was the duke’s decision to stand down from public duties in the wake of the Epstein scandal, it is now widely assumed that the duke was told he had to quit by the Queen, who recognized the damage the scandal was doing to the monarchy. The Queen  had discussed an exit strategy with the Prince of Wales—Prince Andrew’s brother, Prince Philip.

As a mother, the Queen was doubtless willing to give her second son the benefit of the doubt,” said biographer Sally Bedell Smith. “But when the magnitude of Andrew’s shocking behavior became clear, the queen had no other choice but to call him to account. What she did was essential, however difficult it may have been for her.”

In a statement , the duke said he was standing down from royal duties for “the foreseeable future,” but the move feels more like an permanent early retirement. The duke turns 60 next year, and it is unlikely that he will ever return to a public role.

Aides have told Vanity Fair that he will not be stripped of his title and will continue to join the royal family for annual events such as Trooping the Colour and remembrance commemorations. He is also expected to be with the royal family at Sandringham for Christmas.

The announcement has come as a devastating blow to the wider royal family.  Vanity Fair understands that the Wessexes and Princess Anne were only told about the announcement shortly before it was made public.

Now that the prince is no longer a working royal, the duke will have to give up his private office, which is paid for by the Queen at her discretion, which means he will rely on his naval pension, believed to be roughly £20,000 a year. He currently receives an unknown amount of money from the Queen and family trusts as well.) He will, however, retain his official apartment at Buckingham Palace, aides have said, and it is not yet known whether he will retain his personal protection, which is paid for by taxpayers.

In addition to relinquishing royal duties, Prince Andrew is also “mothballing” the 200-odd charities he is associated with, however, as Vanity Fair revealed, the duke is trying to cling on to his pet project, Pitch@Palace, a successful business initiative he spearheaded. While it has lost its sponsorship from KPMG, that was reportedly worth £100,000 per year, Prince Andrew hopes the initiative can be saved and he plans to run it privately but not out of Buckingham Palace anymore.

“There’s the risk that without an official role, the prince  could be an ever looser cannon,” said  the royal biographer and commentator, Sarah Gristwood. “I think that his brother, Prince Charles, for one, will be keeping a pretty close eye on him. I suspect the public won’t notice he’s gone, other than with a certain sense of satisfaction—and that is the problem with the prince, .since he’d already made a lot of enemies among the public.”

And there could be more negative headlines to come. The Palace is bracing itself for Andrew to be subpoenaed, and the duke is reportedly preparing to give evidence to a U.S. criminal investigation.

Whatever happens next, by sidelining Prince Andrew, the Queen has done everything she can to protect the image and integrity of the monarchy.

Any time the dynasty has been threatened by a rogue element within, they have moved to eliminate the problem, When Diana’s Panorama interview severely threatened Prince Charles, and the monarchy itself, the Queen stepped in to ask them both to seek a divorce.”

Above all, the Queen represents the institution of the monarchy. She has adhered to its principles for nearly seven decades. Andrew paid lip service to those values of service and duty in his disastrous interview—even as he was violating them through his activities and his apparent dissembling. Andrew had gone off on his bat, as Diana had done with Panorama in 1995, informing the Queen when it was too late for her to stop it. The same thing evidently happened with Newsnight.”

To quote an old adage, Prince Andrew has made his bed and now he has to sleep in it. There isn’t much else he can do with his life since being in public will be embarrassing to him since  he is the subject of contempt. Perhaps he can write and publish his memoirs. It will be a big seller.