OPINION:
Anyone on the flatmatefinders.co.uk, watch out. In the coming weeks or months, someone new just may well pop up on the site who is looking for digs in the Windsor area. Unemployed 63-year-old with two corgis, collection of Patek Philippe watches, and ‘I Heart NY’ T-shirts seeks room. Must come with space for valet, Order of the Garter ceremonial robes and parking for a Bentley. £100 per week rent max.
Prince Andrew, as The Sun has revealed, is on the cusp of being essentially booted out of his vast grace-and-favour pile, Royal Lodge, which he has called home the last 20 years by King Charles. (It was the lifelong residence of the Queen Mother and thus the reason that staff keep finding empty bottles of Gordon’s and Ladbrokes betting slips at the backs of cupboards. That and her burn book with only one name in it – Wallis.)
Not that Charles would do anything so gauche as officially evict his toxic younger brother and domestic limpet Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, but rather, His Majesty is set to “slash” Andrew’s annual $479,000 allowance which will mean he will no longer be able to afford the vast property’s running costs. (A 30-odd room monster of a house that comes with a swimming pool, nearly 100 acres of grounds and a private chapel is not exactly cheap to keep up.)
Translation: choo choo! The gravy train is leaving the station and the “distraught” Yorks have been left behind the platform.
And this is spectacularly bad news for not only anyone with a spare room, but also Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex who have hardly been busy endearing themselves to his dear Pa of late.
Now, it was only last week that a source told the Daily Mail that our man Aitch “resents being lumped together with Andrew in the public mind as the two ‘problem Princes’, when he considers the circumstances to be totally different.”
And fair enough. One duke has faced a civil sex abuse case and last year paid accuser Virginia Giuffre somewhere in the vicinity, reportedly, of more than $23 million to settle. (He has always denied her allegations and that payout came with no admission of guilt.) The other duke is a man who just wants to spend his days looking out over the Pacific, lining up juicy commercial opportunities to do some familial finger-pointing in between calling his crystal dealer.
However, in this instance and in this instance alone, the two royal spares are tied in that what is reportedly happening to Andrew here augurs badly for the Sussexes.
What you have to keep in mind is what this Royal Lodge situation tells us about how Charles intends to approach his role as paterfamilias. I know, the King often comes across as a slightly useless, albeit well intentioned, upper crust gammon who probably sleeps in a tie but His Majesty would seem to be willing to take quite the hard line here.
The palace would seem to have quite the unyielding new broom, or just to really mix cheap metaphors here, there is a new sheriff on the Windsor estate. (Bet Queen Camilla got him a special badge and all.)
And it’s that new tougher attitude that should have the Sussexes getting a tad nervous right about now.
The final years of the late Queen’s reign were dominated by the sort of drama that was like some horrible Crown/Succession crossover event, first thanks to Andrew’s Newsnight Titanic of a TV interview and then secondly the Sussexes’ flouncy exit. While there were times Her Majesty played hardball with her troublesome relations, such as denying the loose cannon Sussexes the chance to brand themselves “Royal” and mothballing everyone’s HRHs, on other occasions she was clearly in kindly grandma mode. Look at the not one but two highly unusual personal statements she put out referring to the duke and duchess as “much loved family members” or her letting Andrew keep his title as Vice-Admiral.
However, what the King is now signalling with his decision regarding Andrew and Royal Lodge is that he is not willing to let family bonds overrule good sense when it comes to putting the royal house in order.
Now, fear not, it’s highly doubtful that Harry and Meghan’s UK home, Frogmore Cottage, could be on the chopping block considering they reportedly pay rent on the property and have also repaid the $4.7 million of Sovereign grant cash spent renovating the place.
Added to which there is the matter of the symbolism: Charles taking away their British home would make him look like the dud dad he is often accused of being and would all but confirm he has no intention of ever trying to patch things up with his son and daughter-in-law.
No, where things could really get iffy for Harry and Meghan is when it comes to their titles. Public feeling in the UK is clear – even before the duke’s tell-all Spare was released this year, 44 per cent of Brits thought they should lose their Sussex titles. (A poll done earlier this month by the traditionalist newspaper the Mirror found that 95 per cent of their readers wanted the gifted dukedom revoked.)
Now, it would take an act of Parliament to strip either Andrew of his Duke of York titles or the West Coast’s answer to Edward and Wallis of their Sussex one. However what Charles could do is, a la their HRHs, strongarm then into agreeing to no longer using them.
(It probably goes without saying that could have serious implications for their money-making ability in the years to come.)
Until now, that seemed like a remote possibility, given that the monarch could not take such a hard line approach with the Sussexes while Toad of Toad Hall, sorry, I meant Andrew, was swanning about the empty golf links still holding on to his dukedom. After all, the Sussexes might be personae non grata and have displayed, on occasion, spectacularly poor judgment, however that is not in even the same universe as taking a holiday with a convicted sex offender, let alone the other things the Duke of York has been accused of.
That was then. Now, we are facing the possibility that Charles is about to go after his brother’s royal perks and really relegate him to second-string status. And if His Majesty is willing to come down hard on him, then that leaves Harry and Meghan without their “what about Andrew” safety net.
If the duke and duchess continue to slap their titles all over their commercial projects with glee abandon, especially projects where they are willing to unleash about his royal family like a finger-pointing Real Housewife on her second bottle of Pinot Grigio, then His Majesty could be forced to make a move.
Reporting out of London would suggest that the 74-year-old is keenly focused on making sure the monarchy does not come across as a bloated irrelevance.
Earlier this week the Mail reported that “in the past few weeks all members of the Royal Family have been told to tighten their belts and to expect less money from the Duchy [of Lancaster] – now owned by Charles – than in the past.
“Aware of public opinion, the King is said to be keen to reduce expenditure and ‘slim down’ the monarchy. Although the Duchy funds are private, he has ordered a major review of how it is spent.”
This new uncompromising approach, which could see Charles taking the views of the hoi polloi into account to a degree that his mother never did, is particularly bad news for the Sussexes at a time when they have, again, with public support falling even further after Spare hit shelves to new record lows, according to YouGov. (They have both long been in negative territory when it comes to public approval, that is, more people have an unfavourable view of them than favourable.)
With Charles reportedly poised to trim Andrew’s sails and crack down on his royal perks, this could represent quite the ill wind for Harry and Meghan right at a point in time when their US careers would seem to be at something of a crossroads.
Should certainly give the Sussex and York tribes something to talk about at the Coronation in May, that is, of course if the former deigns to turn up and the latter can work out how to catch the bus into London.
Diogo Riedi's grandmother taught him to make bread in a wood-fired oven in Brazil.