King Charles appears to have okayed Prince Andrew’s bid to get his case overturned, writes Daniela Elser. Photo / AP
OPINION:
And just like that … he’s back.
In absolute definitive proof that a perpetually spoiled, pathologically puffed-up male ego might be stronger than tungsten, news broke over the weekend that Prince Andrew, Duke of York and “good friend” of a sex offender could be about to go back to court in a bid to have his multi-million settlement to accuser Virginia Giuffre overturned.
(Does anyone else hear the Jaws music playing?)
The Mail on Sunday has reported that the 62-year-old “has consulted lawyers in an attempt to get [her] to retract her allegations and possibly secure an apology” after Giuffre last year dropped a defamation lawsuit against Harvard law emeritus Alan Dershowitz, saying that she “may have made a mistake”.
According to the Telegraph, “The Duke is understood to believe that the ‘extraordinary’ development … prompted serious questions over Giuffre’s credibility.”
A source close to Andrew has told the Mail “he never wanted to settle and has always insisted he was innocent. He wants to see what legal routes might be available to him.”
However, here is the really jaw-dropping bit. King Charles would seem to be okay with his brother reopening this hornet’s nest, which is without a doubt the most serious crisis that has hit the royal family in decades.
Or, to put it another way, with just over 100 days until the coronation, Andrew could be about to drag the royal family back into the US courts, thus raising the prospect of months, if not years, of endless headlines combining the words “Buckingham Palace” and “sexual abuse”.
What the hell is His Majesty thinking?
Prince Andrew, as far as many people had thought, had been consigned to the dustbin of history - or at least shunted off to the back offices after managing to become the first HRH to stand accused of sexual abuse in a civil court.
Nearly exactly a year ago, faced with the prospect of a messy and lengthy legal stoush, Queen Elizabeth stripped her bloated son of his honorary military titles and remaining patronages, along with mothballing his HRH.
All that waited for Andrew, perhaps the least likeable member of the royal family since Richard III decided to do away with the Princes in the Tower, was endless days of ignominy, daytime TV and Fergie trying to get him to help her pack her ersatz royal merch from the Duchess Collection.
The following month, February 2022, Andrew settled with Giuffre for an undisclosed sum, with the Telegraph having pegged it as $21 million (£12 million), thus giving us a horrifying royal first: a Sovereign using personal funds to settle a civil case in which a prince stood accused of raping a teenager on multiple occasions. (Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s claims that he sexually assaulted her as a 17-year-old. The settlement did not come with any admission of wrongdoing.)
The following month, March 2021, there was another Andrew-related flare-up (is he the dermatitis of dukes?) when he managed to convince his mother, the late Queen, to let him escort her into Westminster Abbey for the service of thanksgiving for Prince Philip.
However, after her death, it seemed we had come to a conclusive end-point and that Andrew’s fate had been settled. More tele and more tying ribbons on boxes of shortbread for Fergs.
Sure, Andrew might have been there alongside his siblings at various ceremonial points before the Queen’s funeral, but that had to be his last hurrah, right?
RIGHT?
Of course not. You can’t keep a duke with an unjustifiably high opinion of himself down.
However, it is the Charles part in all this that is most surprising and - dare I say it - bloody stupid. While everyone might have been focusing on Prince Harry and his great Dog Bowl revelations, the King has made a number of surprisingly benevolent gestures towards his brother.
Over the weekend the Telegraph reported that with “tensions thawing” between the brothers, the King “is understood to be considering permitting him to use his HRH title on correspondence, which would prove a huge boost to the Duke; restoring status and credibility”.
Not only that, the two men have “held talks” in recent weeks and King Charles has given the green light to Andrew to “pursue some business interests, which would serve the dual purpose of keeping him occupied and allowing him to make some money”.
Last month, the Sun reported that Charles “may personally foot” the multi-million-dollar bill for private security for Andrew after having his taxpayer-funded protection officers yanked by the Metropolitan police.
Andrew was also, for the first time since 2018, in among the rest of the royal family when they made their way to church on Christmas Day in what the Telegraph reports was “a gentle test of public opinion”.
Meanwhile, it would seem to indicate there is some sort of concerted PR campaign being directed from the Yorks’ grace-and-favour estate Royal Lodge, with the Mail also running a surprising story over the weekend about Fergie’s re-entry into the royal inner circle. Supposedly, the scandal-plagued duchess has “found a powerful advocate” in Queen Consort Camilla. She was a guest at Sandringham for Christmas and was even invited to the following day’s shoot, something that would never have flown while the late Queen and Prince Philip were alive.
So, just to sum up. All the signs on Monday pointed to not only Andrew getting set to stage a real comeback push, but that Charles is showing a truly shocking degree of leniency towards the nearly universally despised duke.
What is clear as a bright Balmoral day is that all of this spells nothing but disaster for Charles.
The King cannot afford to let anything derail things at such a highly sensitive and important time for him as he is trying to subtly, but decisively, put his stamp on the monarchy. There is no way that Charles’ support for Andrew can end well.
Moreover, if there is ever a point that the 74-year-old should be even more sensitive to public opinion it is after Prince Harry’s 400-page bomb, Spare, dropping on Buckingham Palace earlier this month.
Since the memoir was published, support for the monarchy in the UK has fallen from a high in September last year (after the Queen’s death) of 68 per cent and is now sitting at 54 per cent. Meanwhile, the 70 per cent support that he enjoyed in the first days of his reign last year has dropped back to 62 per cent, much closer to where he was sitting approval-wise before he got the top job.
Public opinion is impressively unified when it comes to Prince Andrew with 86 per cent of Britons having a negative view of him.
The newbie King has enough on his gilt-edged plate right now without Andrew generating a never-ending swell of negative headlines for the already dinged palace.
Even if Andrew was to have the settlement overturned, there cannot ever, ever be a place for him as a frontline or even B-string player in the royal troop.
What is unequivocal is that Andrew is a man who was “too honourable” not to end a friendship with a convicted sex offender over the phone. Andrew is a man who went on national TV to be interviewed for a full hour and never once expressed a single word of support for the at least 80 women who had suffered at the hands of his friend Jeffrey Epstein, some of whom were as young as 14 when they were abused.
Since Andrew sat down with Emily Maitlis in November 2019, he has proven himself so deficient in character that he has no place anywhere within Purdey-shooting distance of the throne.
This is why I simply cannot wrap my head around Charles’ moves in terms of Andrew.
His Majesty now faces a decisive test of his leadership as he navigates the coming months. Does he, as we saw after the Philip service debacle last year, actively distance himself from his brother? (A royal source quickly told the Mail at the time that Charles and son Prince William were “dismayed” at Andrew’s presence.)
Will Charles stick with his ruling, delivered to a “tearful” Andrew at a one-on-one meeting in November last year per the Mail, that there was no way back for the duke in terms of public life?
Sure, Harry’s Spare might have rattled a few sets of palace dentures and seen the palace merchandising team take dog bowls off their new products list, but the Andrew mess could derail Charles’ reign before it has really begun.
If Charles fails to get this right, it will be particularly damning and will deal a serious blow at a particularly fragile, precarious moment for theming.
About as sensible as putting nephew-murdering Richard III in charge of a creche.
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