Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Queen Elizabeth II at the Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace on June 26, 2018 in London. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
Balmoral, the Queen's 20,000-hectare Scottish "bolthole" might be her favourite place to get away from the stresses and strains of ruling over a recalcitrant Commonwealth, but the 18th century castle has also the questionable honour of having provided the backdrop for a number of the royal family's biggest crises.
Her Majesty and her titled brood were there in residence in 1992 when the infamously humiliating photos of Sarah, Duchess of York having her toes sucked by her "financial adviser", Johnny Bryant, were published. The toe-suck recipient later wrote in her autobiography of that morning at Balmoral: "It would be accurate to report that the porridge was getting cold. Eyes wide and mouths ajar, the adults were flipping through the Daily Mirror."
It was there on August 31, 1997, the Queen and Prince Charles learned that Diana, Princess of Wales had been in a car accident in Paris. In the early hours of the morning, Princes William and Harry were woken from their beds at Balmoral to be told the heartbreaking news which would irrevocably change their lives.
Now, Balmoral is again where the Queen and her family are facing down what might be the most explosive and horrifying scandal to ever hit the monarchy. Last week, Virginia Giuffre (formerly Roberts), one of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex trafficking victims, accused the Duke of York of sexually abusing her on three occasions when she was under the age of 18.
(One of the alleged assaults took place in London when she was 17. In that jurisdiction, she was considered over the age of consent. The other two alleged attacks happened in New York and the US Virgin Islands where she would have legally been a child.)
Andrew has previously, and strenuously, denied Giuffre's claims.
While the Duke of York's friendship with Epstein, even after he officially became a convicted sex offender, has long proven to be a recurring PR nightmare for the palace, do not for a moment mistake current events for simply another flare-up on this front. In the long and winding story of royal scandals, this is far, far from another tawdry entry. Giuffre's court filing marks the first time in history – yes, ever – that a member of the British royal family has been accused of sexual assault.
So would it surprise you to learn that despite the fact that Andrew spent five days staying in the home of a convicted sex offender, despite that he did not once show one jot of compassion for Epstein's victims during his cataclysmic BBC interview and despite the fact that so vehement was the public reaction he was forced to quit as a working member of the royal family, he still – STILL – holds all of his shiny military roles?
Turns out, in the royal family you can pal around with a paedophile and still be deemed worthy of holding titles including being the Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a Vice Admiral in the Navy, Commodore in Chief of the Navy's Fleet Air Arm and Admiral of the Sea Cadet Corps. (Ah yes, what makes more sense than leaving a man accused of having sex with a teenager as the honorary head of a corps that works with 15,000 young people across the UK between the ages of 10 and 18?)
To my mind, it is a stain on the Queen's legacy that she has allowed her son to retain this swath of commands for so long.
Today it was revealed inside the royal family there have been "tentative discussions about a wider reshuffle of the royals' military roles", the Telegraph reported. ("Tentative"? What the dickens are they waiting for?)
This comes after it was reported over the weekend that the scandal-plagued royal would probably not be allowed to take part in next year's Trooping the Colour.
"It is difficult to envisage how the Duke will be able to retain his military titles. At some point, if and when it is accepted that he will not return to public life, there will be some difficult discussions to be had," a royal source has said.
What makes this situation even more maddening is not just the Queen's inaction on this front but the fact that Andrew has managed to, thus far, hang on to his appointments while Prince Harry was swiftly stripped of his beloved military roles earlier this year.
In February it was revealed that Harry's quest to hold on to his own honorary military posts, including as Captain General of the Royal Marines, Honorary Air Commandant of RAF Honington and Commodore-in-Chief Small Ships and Diving, had ultimately proven to be futile. In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: "Following conversations with the Duke, the Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of the royal family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service."
So, Her Majesty could find time in her schedule to have these sorts of "conversations" with Harry but not with Andrew? The hypocrisy of the Queen here is so aggravating it makes me want to throw one of my treasured commemorative royal tour mugs at the wall.
In quitting royal life last January, Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, were forced to pay a steep price for having the temerity to bail on the palace. The Duke has had to relinquish not only his military roles but also being patron of the Rugby Football Union and the Rugby Football League while the Duchess was made to step down as the patron of The Royal National Theatre and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. They both were also stripped of their roles as, respectively, the president and vice-president of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
And fine, that makes sense, on paper. Working members of the royal family get illustrious, grand roles; titled escapees who live down the road from Oprah and who are perennially on the lookout for a nice payday, don't.
However, that same standard has not been applied to Andrew.
It is now more than 20 months since Andrew's bilious Newsnight performance, and yet the Queen has not seen fit to revoke or even to reconsider his military roles in that time.
In late 2019, the Times reported: "Buckingham Palace has made clear that Prince Andrew is keeping his military commands despite the growing disquiet in the ranks."
It has only been in the wake of Giuffre's New York court filing this month that the prospect of Andrew losing his honorary military roles has been seriously raised.
I simply cannot get over this.
How could the Queen have been so totally hypocritical as to strip Harry of his military roles when he stepped down as a working member of the royal family but not Andrew?
Likewise, the HRH situation. Less than a week after Harry and Meghan informed the world they wanted out in January 2020, it was announced that they would retain but no longer use their styling as His/Her Royal Highness. Harsh, much of the thinking went, but fair.
To this day, there has never been a skerrick of a hint that Andrew, also having quit working royal life, might have to relinquish using his HRH.
The hypocrisy of it all just takes my breath away.
Andrew and Harry are united in so many ways: Second sons; both doomed to wear the millstone "spare" label and left to try to find a role for themselves, and both having, thanks to their own actions, found themselves engulfed in scandal.
But no matter the facts, and no matter that the worst thing Harry has been accused of is huffily quitting and trotting off so he could try and make a motza in Hollywood, he has paid a much, much steeper price for his sins than his uncle.
That the Queen has applied such a galling double standard when it comes to Harry as opposed to Andrew is simply infuriating.
Even behind the scenes, it has been the 95-year-old monarchy taking the lead on things.
According to reports, in November 2019 Prince Charles phoned the Queen from New Zealand, where he was on tour at the time, "to press her to strip his brother of his public duties", according to The New York Times.
More recently, over the weekend, a source close to the Prince of Wales told the Times that the future king sees "no way back to public life for Andrew". Hear that? That's the sound of Charles furiously distancing himself from his toxic brother.
This week, the Queen, Andrew, Fergie and Charles are all on the Balmoral estate where one would guess that a crisis meeting or 27 have been going on. I wish I was on a 20,000-hectare estate: There, no one can hear you scream with rage.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
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