Andrew's Jeffrey Epstein ties left the Queen fearing scandal would destroy her work with abuse survivors. Photo / Getty Images
The Queen expressed concerns that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s association with Jeffrey Epstein was compromising her work supporting sex abuse victims, the Telegraph understands.
Discussions about how the row over the King’s brother was affecting the Queen’s ability to fulfil her public role formed part of the decision-making process that led to him losing all of his titles and his Royal Lodge home.
Having spent decades helping rape and sex abuse survivors, the Queen was appalled at Andrew’s association with Epstein, and increasingly felt it was getting in her way.
The fact that continued revelations about Andrew and Epstein were undermining her work as patron of several sexual and domestic violence charities added urgency to the ongoing discussions about Andrew’s defenestration.
Tellingly, when Buckingham Palace released its historic statement announcing the removal of Andrew’s royal titles on Thursday evening, it was accompanied by a message from “Their Majesties” who: “Wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
It was the first time the Palace had referred to survivors of abuse in connection with Andrew.
The Queen felt deeply uncomfortable with the idea of fronting anti-abuse campaigns, such as her Wash Bags project providing luxury toiletries to rape crisis centres, and SafeLives, which campaigns against domestic abuse, while Andrew remained within the fold.
A recent book disclosed that the Queen once had to fight off a groper in a train carriage when she was a teenager, giving a fresh insight into why she is so passionate about the cause.
One former courtier said: “The Queen is an extremely good judge of where the public mood is at any one time, and likewise the King is very tuned in to public sentiment because he meets so many people every day and is always out and about, so he knows what the temperature is.
“Both of them know that they have to have the trust of the public because without that, they don’t have the agency to do their job.
“This was an issue that was beginning to infect the whole institution’s ability to do its job. They could see that trust in the institution was being impacted.”
That institution includes the Duchess of Edinburgh, who is a supporter of the International Day to End Violence Against Women, the UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the Government’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative.
The first public sign of how uneasy members of the Royal family felt in Andrew’s presence came at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on September 16.
It was a rare public appearance for Andrew, who has largely stayed below the radar since his disastrous Newsnight interview about Epstein in 2019, and as he left Westminster Cathedral, he tried to start a conversation with the Prince of Wales.
In a moment that was captured by television cameras, Prince William did his best to ignore his uncle, looking deeply uncomfortable as he refused to reply and tried to avoid eye contact.
It was an inadvertent harbinger of what was to come a month later. On October 12 two Sunday newspapers revealed that Andrew had emailed Epstein to say “we are in this together” after a now infamous photo of his sex abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre had been published.
The revelation proved that Andrew had lied when he claimed he had cut off all contact with Epstein the previous year, and fury exploded within Buckingham Palace.
Days later came further disclosures in the Telegraph about Andrew meeting Cai Qi, the alleged spymaster at the centre of the collapsed trial of two British men accused of spying for China.
Security services had even deemed Andrew a potential risk to national security because of meetings with questionable associates, including Yang Tengbo – a Chinese businessman banned from the UK amid suspicions of espionage.
On Friday October 17, with fears of more revelations to come and Giuffre’s posthumous memoir about to hit bookshelves, the King decided a public punishment was necessary.
He made it clear to his brother that if he did not give up his Duke of York title and other honours voluntarily, they would be taken from him, so Andrew released a statement in which he announced that he would cease using them.
The King, who was days away from a historic visit to the Vatican where he would become the first British monarch in more than 500 years to pray with the Pope, was hoping desperately that the move would draw a line under the scandal, but the bad news kept coming.
The following day, October 18, it was reported that Andrew had told one of his police protection officers to investigate Giuffre, having obtained her date of birth and US social security number, after the picture of him with her was published. The Metropolitan Police began looking into whether Andrew had misused police resources.
Then came the news that Andrew had been living rent-free in Royal Lodge, the 30-room home in Windsor where his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson has her own rooms, for the whole time he had lived there.
In Westminster there was talk of Parliament stepping in to legally remove Andrew’s dukedom and titles, and MPs decided they had better start looking into royal finances to find out more about the lease on Royal Lodge, which rang alarm bells in the palace.
There is no such thing as a helpful intervention from Parliament as far as the Royal Household is concerned, as once MPs get a taste for meddling in royal affairs, there may be no stopping them.
By the end of last week attitudes had hardened, and the King returned from Rome resolute in his determination to go further. Reporters received a tip-off that they should be outside Royal Lodge on the evening of Thursday October 23, and although nothing happened, it prompted speculation that the King had been intending to visit his brother there for a face-to-face meeting.
By the end of last week, it was clear that negotiations were at an advanced stage. Andrew was told that his departure from Royal Lodge and the formal removal of his titles were non-negotiable.
A survey carried out by Savanta, and published last Friday, showed that support for the monarchy had fallen below 50%, having been at 60% as recently as June. The King had already sensed as much.
Other members of the Royal family, most notably Prince William, were brought into the conversation to make sure they were all on board.
Although William was keen to resolve the issue of his uncle before he inherits the throne, he was anxious to ensure that his cousins, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, were shielded from any fallout. He was reassured that they would not lose their titles or their London homes in St James’s Palace and Kensington Palace.
He was “extremely supportive” of his father’s decision, royal sources say, and was kept in constant touch with what was going on, without personally attending any meetings.
Andrew dug in his heels initially, pointing out that his “cast iron” 75-year lease on Royal Lodge meant he did not have to go anywhere if he did not want to, but eventually came to the realisation that his brother was not going to back down.
On Monday the King was heckled as he went on a walkabout outside Lichfield Cathedral, which was not a unique occurrence – especially as the heckler was from the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic – but which nonetheless caused uncomfortable headlines.
Buckingham Palace, surprisingly, floated the idea of Andrew living at Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor estate, with Ferguson given another house nearby. Even Andrew could see that would never work: he would still be living in a taxpayer-funded property, so little would have changed.
The only viable options for housing him were at Sandringham or Balmoral, the King’s private estates, where he could not be accused of being a drain on the public purse, and so Andrew agreed to move to Sandringham, which is a manageable drive from London, and informed the Crown Estate, which owns Royal Lodge, that he wished to terminate his lease.
The issue of removing his titles was rather stickier, and constitutional experts had to be consulted to make sure it could be done using a Royal Warrant – effectively a decree in the name of the sovereign.
Once that was agreed, Buckingham Palace informed Downing Street of the decision, and the King sent a royal warrant to David Lammy, the Lord Chancellor, instructing him to remove the Dukedom of York, as well as Andrew’s titles of Prince and Royal Highness, from the Peerage Roll.
“It took a while to get everything sorted out because it was a complex process - you can’t always move at the speed of the media,” said one former courtier.
“But the King is acutely aware of when enough is enough.”
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