On the finish, it was simply the 2 of them: Mom and son speaking quietly and agreeing a future neither of their worst nightmares would have dreamed potential.
If the extravagantly ornate ticking clock on the mantelpiece of the Queen’s non-public house in Windsor Fortress the place they met yesterday had wound itself again half a century to when the Queen was consoling the schoolboy Andrew over a grazed knee, say, there wouldn’t have been a extra intimate second.
Right here was Prince Andrew, the Queen’s favorite, who for the primary 22 years of his life had exalted within the pre-eminent standing of inheritor in line to the throne, successfully handing in his badge of workplace.
That lofty rank of second within the order of succession had, in fact, lengthy since disappeared with the delivery of his nephews William and Harry, then diminished additional with the arrival of the brothers’ personal households.
However now he was to relinquish using his birthright, HRH – His Royal Highness – the lofty title that has preceded his identify on letterheads and official communiques for nearly 62 years.
The deal had been completed earlier than Andrew arrived at his mom’s door, a brief drive from his personal Windsor house, Royal Lodge. Formally, it had been decided for him the second a decide in New York had thrown out his final actual hope of avoiding the disaster of a courtroom case over claims that he had sexually assaulted a woman of 17.
The deal had been completed earlier than Andrew arrived at his mom’s door, a brief drive from his personal Windsor house, Royal Lodge, writes RICHARD KAY
Unofficially, the writing had been on the wall ever because the calamity of his TV interview, by which he claimed he had no recollection of assembly his accuser Virginia Roberts and that her account of them having intercourse within the UK and US ‘didn’t occur’ – just for him to compound it by failing to supply a phrase of sympathy for Virginia or the opposite victims of his paedophile buddy Jeffrey Epstein.
For 2 years, the Andrew debacle has solid an extended and profoundly disturbing shadow over the Royal Household and its room for manoeuvre. On the identical time, household sympathy for a prince too usually given the good thing about the doubt has ebbed away. As one public relations catastrophe after one other piled up, Andrew was at a crossroads.
Affection between the royal siblings runs deep. When one has a home disaster, the others rush to their defence. It was the identical when Prince Edward wobbled over his membership of the Royal Marines and later when Charles was mired in a bitter warfare with Princess Diana.
For the royals, blood is all the time thicker than water. However with the Duke of York, sentiment has been changed by steely pragmatism. The limitless twists and turns of his unsavoury case threat reputational injury to the establishment of monarchy on a scale not seen because the Nineteen Thirties Abdication disaster.
The beginning of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 12 months pressured royal palms. Yesterday it was made clear there had been household conferences over the Andrew problem of the sort not seen because the darkish days of the Struggle of the Waleses, when it was Prince Philip who pressured the matter to a head.
With no Philip, the function of head of the household and home enforcer has fallen to Prince Charles. It has meant overcoming a pure aversion to confrontation.
All the identical, he has made no secret that when he involves the throne he foresees a slimmed-down monarchy with fewer members, one which he hopes is extra in contact with trendy life.
For the royals, blood is all the time thicker than water. However with the Duke of York, sentiment has been changed by steely pragmatism
Below his plan, the variety of front-rank royals we might see at formal ceremonial events can be significantly diminished, with Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie essentially the most senior relations surplus to necessities.
At occasions it led to tensions between the brothers with Andrew fairly naturally upset that his daughters, the one two blood princesses of their era and with the HRH model, being sidelined.
When the uproar over Andrew’s Newsnight gaffe emerged, it was Charles who pressed the case for his brother to surrender his public duties and step again from royal life. Even so, he didn’t desert Andrew, for whom he has all the time felt a robust bond of affection. Fairly than flip his again on him he supplied a shoulder for him to lean on.
It has all the time been like that. Within the fallout that noticed Andrew hand over his place as roving commerce ambassador, the prince thought of discovering a place for his brother on his personal workers.
However he thought higher of it, ruefully admitting to a buddy: ‘The difficulty with my brother is that he needs to be me.’
However, I perceive the 2 princes had a prolonged heart-to-heart by which Andrew admitted his folly over his friendship with Epstein however insisted he had completed nothing flawed – past displaying a critical lack of judgment.
Prince Andrew is seen along with his arm round Virginia Roberts whereas Ghislaine Maxwell stands within the background, in a now notorious picture from early 2001
He additionally strenuously protested his innocence of the allegations made by Virginia Roberts who has accused the prince of rape. However moderately than being reassured by Andrew’s technique over the previous two years, Prince Charles has been infuriated by it. He has been powerless to behave – till now.
Charles, nevertheless, didn’t act alone. The choice to drive Andrew to relinquish his navy titles and royal patronages additionally bears the imprint of Prince William. An more and more articulate and influential member of the family, William has recognised the danger to the royals’ good identify that his uncle poses.
He’s additionally, at 39, a person with out the sentiment of his father and whose relationship with Andrew isn’t so shut.
The Queen values William’s impression – as she did over the Prince Harry furore – not least as a result of she recognises that if the monarchy goes to have a long-term future, it rests in his palms, not his father’s. She has additionally come to understand his decisiveness, so reminiscent, she believes, of her beloved Philip.
Because of the grounding he has discovered by way of marriage to Kate, William can also be much more attuned to trendy attitudes in the direction of the royals and their lives of privilege.
On Monday, he was at Windsor finishing up an Investiture on his grandmother’s behalf, and it could be that these two smart heads mentioned the PR catastrophe the royals are dealing with over Andrew.
This unprecedented ‘sacking’ of Andrew additionally required the enter of senior courtiers who’ve lengthy been urging a injury -limitation programme to guard the monarchy.
For Andrew, the forfeiting of his navy positions would be the cruellest reduce of all. In spite of everything, he was born royal so he can not have HRH eliminated – he’ll merely not use it.
However due to his 20 years of service within the Navy, he loves the navy facet of royal life, and was particularly pleased with inheriting from his father the place of Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, for instance.
It was Andrew’s need to put on formal Service gown at his father’s funeral in April that lay behind the choice that each one the royal males can be in morning coats as an alternative.
Some will likely see the irony in Andrew now becoming a member of Prince Harry in not having the ability to put on navy uniform. For they’re the one two royal princes who’ve served within the Armed Forces in a time of warfare and seen motion – Harry in Afghanistan and Andrew within the Falklands.
It’s tempting to surprise what additional humiliations can presumably befall a person whose bravery as a helicopter pilot, luring Argentine missiles away from British warships, was by no means questioned.
Will he, say, proceed to reside within the cosseted luxurious of Royal Lodge with its workers of valets, butlers, maids and cooks? Recommendations that he would possibly transfer away from Windsor, nevertheless, are large of the mark. The Queen has grown to depend upon his near-daily visits.
And as a brand new grandfather, he wouldn’t need to be separated from his two daughters.
Which brings us to Fergie. So usually the supply of his troubles prior to now, she has been a resilient fixture bolstering him on the darkest of days.
Now, as he’s reduce adrift from the one life he has ever identified, her function is as essential as ever.
So may remarriage be on the playing cards? It would simply be essentially the most smart transfer he could make, step one in rebuilding his life.