A leading British historian and royal biographer says if the royal family doesn’t take decisive action to cut ties with the disgraced Prince Andrew, he will bring the whole royal institution down.
There is increased public pressure for the King’s brother to be stripped of the right to live in the 30-room Windsor mansion he shares with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson as the controversy over his ties to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continues to grow.
Speaking to Herald NOW, royal expert Andrew Lownie said the optics of non-working royals living in a 30-room, taxpayer subsidised mansion “isn’t good”.
“People are pretty appalled that his ex-wife, who he hasn’t been married to for 30 years, is being included in this deal, that we’ve got to kind of pay for her because these are properties owned by the Crown Estates, which are in effect owned by the taxpayer.”
Buckingham Palace is trying to pressure the prince to voluntarily give up the residence, but he cannot be evicted thanks to a lease agreement with the Crown Estate.
“The problem is that he has an ironclad lease. He can only go voluntarily and he’s holding out for a pretty good deal.”
In September, Lownie released his latest book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of The House of York, which paints a damning picture of Andrew and Ferguson. He says these latest developments raise questions about royal privilege and accountability as a whole.
“Andrew, by being so stubborn and refusing to give up his position at Royal Lodge is opening up the press and the public to ask bigger questions about royal finances and the secretiveness in which they conduct their business.”
While most of Lownie’s criticism was levelled at the former duke, he also condemned the way the royal family had handled the crisis, particularly the way Andrew was allowed to control messaging through a “false narrative of the fact that he’d stood down voluntarily”.
“I think people were so appalled by this sort of cover-up, that they have now been calling for much wider changes in terms of transparency about the royals. And so I think this is the biggest crisis they’ve had since the abdication in 1936.”
Asked by Ryan Bridge whether the situation the royals find themselves in currently is a more serious crisis than the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death in 1997, Lownie agreed it was.
“This is about corruption by a senior royal which was protected by the monarchy itself. And that’s a much, much more important story.
“Unless they can cut themselves loose from Andrew, I think he’s going to bring them down.”
Lownie believes public opinion of the Yorks has passed the point of no return and considers one of the turning points in the prince’s viability as a working royal came with the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, “in which he pretty shamelessly, he and his wife, turned up with a police escort and tried to hijack the event”.
Compounding the prince’s further fall from grace was the release of material from the Epstein files, “particularly showing how close their relationship was with Epstein, and it went on a lot longer than people realised”.
Lownie says the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, who accused Andrew of sexual assault, “really brings home in a very personal way the sleaziness of Andrew and the way he’s behaved, and the way he’s been protected”.
Lownie, who classifies himself as a monarchist, believes Andrew has threatened the future of the royal family as a whole.
“Andrew, in terms of his sexual and financial misdemeanours, has brought a lot of shame on the royal family, and has undermined their credibility and the good works that many of them do.”