OPINION
The late Queen was a woman who rarely made mistakes.
Contemplative, considered and never rash, her reign was one defined by stolid, calm leadership and her unwavering devotion to the power of the broach.
Except …
Except when it came to her son Prince Andrew, Duke of York and bane of Buckingham Palace chambermaids.
When historians get around to writing the definitive account of her time on the throne, Elizabeth II’s handling of the 2019 conflagration that claimed the duke’s reputation and royal career will have to go down as perhaps her greatest blunder and grossest miscalculation.
Sadly, today, I’m here to tell you a new report has claimed that Her Majesty might have made another – yes, another – grievous error when it came to her paunchy, toad of a son.
The Queen might just have left him a large amount of money in her will, meaning he may have the funds to attempt to stage a public comeback.
The impeccably connected Richard Kay (who was one of the last people Diana, Princess of Wales, called before her death) has reported in the Daily Mail that “it is thought [Andrew] was left a substantial inheritance by the Queen”.
How “substantial” is a “substantial” sum, you ask?
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing given that royal wills, under a special royal legal provision, are kept secret for at least 90 years and are kept in a safe, location unknown, that can only be accessed by a specific judge.
However, the late Queen really did have some serious dosh to play around with, with the 2022 Times Rich List putting her personal wealth, that is not including the Sovereign Grant and revenue from the Duchy of Lancaster, at about $646.5 million.
And this is where we get to the really troubling bit – just what the duke might do with this injection of funds into his Coutts bank account. According to Kay, one thing the 62-year-old could use his new-found liquidity for is “to mount a legal challenge against [Virginia] Giuffre.”
Next week will mark exactly one year since it was revealed that Andrew had reached a financial settlement with accuser Giuffre, who had alleged in a United States civil court that the royal had sexually abused her on three occasions when she was a teenager.
He has always vehemently denied her claims and it’s worth noting that the settlement included no admission of guilt.
While estimates of exactly how much the duke might have paid to prevent the case from going to court vary from $5.2 million (NZ$8.25 million) to $21 million (NZ$33 million), it was obvious that the royal family wanted this tawdry, horrible situation tidied away before the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Nothing was going to interfere with a national opportunity to crack out the bunting and finger sandwiches.
But today, the topography of the royal family has shifted dramatically, with Andrew no longer having to take his beloved mother into consideration and with him now having the financial firepower to drag Giuffre back to court without having to beg his brother for a six or seven figure IOU.
Late last year, Giuffre withdrew from a lawsuit against lawyer Alan Dershowitz, saying she might have “made a mistake” in accusing him of having sexually abused her.
Then, in January, The Sun reported that in the wake of the Dershowitz news, Andrew was “considering legal options” including whether he could have the settlement overturned.
Poor King Charles. The possibility that his eternally vexatious younger brother might be about to barrel back into the headlines is something His Majesty needs about as much as Harry and Meghan getting their own afternoon chat show (I can see the pastel sofas and his’n’hers matcha lattes now).
Another factor to keep in mind in this possible new Andrew mess (shudder) is that, reportedly, next month the non-disclosure agreement applicable to both Andrew and Giuffre, a Perth-based mother-of-three, will run out, leaving them both free to speak publicly.
“It was crafted to cover the year of the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee,” a source has told the Mail.
“Once it is up, there is nothing to stop the Duke possibly becoming more proactive.”
And it is that last word – ‘proactive’ – that should have Charles reaching for an enormous afternoon stiffener with a Quick-Eze chaser, given he already has one royal firestorm to deal with in the form of his ever bolshie son and daughter-in-law.
His Majesty already has the headache of trying to work out what to do about the Sussexes and their repeated, pouty primetime eruptions, without his radioactive brother deciding he might want to try and clear his name.
And this is where the King is really in a bind, given that with Queen Elizabeth’s influence gone and the Duke of York reportedly now having the dough to pay his own lawyers’ bills, there is nothing to stop Andrew causing as much of a ruckus as he wants.
But, this story gets worse yet for Charles.
As if it wasn’t enough to witness an aggrieved, self-pitying Andrew clog up front pages and the court system, he might also attempt to crack the bestseller list.
A longtime friend of Andrew has told the Mail that “It is inconceivable that he has not thought” about writing a tell-all of his own.
(Shall I give everyone a minute to stop choking in stupefaction and horror?)
“Plenty in his circle think that’s just what he should do and Fergie, who has written her own memoir, My Story, has got all the contacts in publishing,” the friend told the Mail.
“He would never have considered it while his mother was alive but it would be the perfect riposte now.”
Meanwhile, also in January, the New York Post reported that Giuffre has signed a literary deal of her own worth millions. (The rate things are going, Charles’ blood pressure is going to skyrocket every time he sees a WHSmith book catalogue on Queen Camilla’s desk.)
The irony in the late Queen having supposedly left her second son a “substantial inheritance,” is she has given him the ammunition to make her eldest son’s first year as King that much more nightmarish. As Charles practises wearing the St Edward’s crown and not toppling over, he also has to face the prospect of the Andrew scandal rearing back up to plague the palace – again – like some sort antibiotic-resistant strain in a Saville Row suit.
I’ll let you decide if money can’t buy happiness – but it can certainly buy plenty of drama.
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