If only the royalist community hadn’t spent the past eight years screaming, crying and throwing up over every little thing Prince Harry and Meghan did, said and wore. Maybe the royalists would have been better prepared for this moment. A degenerate prince arrested on a private, royal estate and held in custody while his royal homes are searched for evidence of his extensive crimes. A likely prosecution of the king’s brother in the king’s court. An heir to the throne who is also up to neck in Jeffrey Epstein associations. I can feel the panic creeping through some of the early commentary on former Prince Andrew’s arrest on Thursday morning. The panic of… the boy who cried wolf. Or this case, the royalists who cried “worst moment since the abdication.” They’ve spent years trying to convince people that Meghan’s jam was a crisis for the monarchy, now when a real crisis is here, they’re like “wait, what??” From Robert Jobson’s Mail column:
The British monarchy has survived wars, revolutions and constitutional crises across a millennium. It may now not survive one man: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I have covered the Royal Family for 35 years. Diana’s death. The annus horribilis. Harry and Meghan’s exodus. None of it compares to this. Today, as is being widely reported, police visited Andrew at 8am at his new home on the Sandringham estate, and he was arrested.
Palace obfuscation, courtiers talking of complications in response to probes about Andrew’s behaviour and where the $16million (£11.8million) payment to his chief accuser, the late Virginia Giuffre, came from, will no longer be possible. And for the monarchy, the complications truly are life-threatening. Should Andrew be charged after his arrest, the legal terrain would be treacherous in ways rarely discussed publicly.
Were he to claim for example, that he had kept the King informed of any part of his conduct, the implications for the constitution would be extraordinary. Charles cannot testify in his own courts. A prosecution could collapse before it reached the dock – much as royal butler Paul Burrell’s case imploded in 2002 when it emerged that Burrell, charged with theft, had told the Queen that he had taken some of Diana’s personal items and papers for safekeeping. On that occasion, the Crown could not call its own monarch as a witness. The case fell apart. Those who understand how these things work have not forgotten that precedent.
Charles understood the threat clearly enough. He stripped his brother of his titles. It was an attempt to draw a cordon between Andrew and the House of Windsor. It hasn’t held. William knows it too. He has known it for years.
This February, as William flew to Saudi Arabia on an official three-day visit, his office issued the couple’s first public statement on the Epstein crisis: ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.’ Seventeen words. Timed to be issued before he landed in Riyadh, so the question might be considered answered and not follow him on to the ground. It followed him anyway. Twice, from the sidelines of a football pitch in the Saudi capital, reporters asked whether the Royal Family had done enough. The answer, in William’s view, is no. It has never been enough. Sources close to him are unequivocal: he believes his grandmother indulged Andrew for too long and that by implication his father has been too slow to act.
‘William believes his father is letting sentiment destroy credibility,’ one source put it. ‘William wants Andrew gone for good. But Charles still sees a brother.’ That is the rift at the heart of the palace. Not Harry. Not the courtiers. Andrew.
What will happen to the monarchy now? Can it be business as usual? In late April, Charles travels to the United States – the first visit by a reigning British monarch since his mother toured Virginia and Washington in 2007. The occasion is America’s 250th anniversary of independence. It should be a moment of pageantry and soft power at its finest. It won’t be.
At Lichfield Cathedral last October, a heckler shouted: ‘How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?’ At Dedham in Essex this February, another: ‘Have you pressurised the police to start investigating Andrew?’ The King heard both. He ignored both. The crowds around him booed the questioners down. That was England, where royal loyalty still runs deep enough to provide cover. America is different. There are no royalists to shout down the awkward questions. Epstein’s crimes were largely committed on American soil. The congressional pressure is American.
Representative Ro Khanna has already said publicly that the King ‘has to answer what he knew about Andrew’ and warned the monarchy itself could fall if he doesn’t. That is a sitting US congressman speaking. Not a protester outside a cathedral. A lawmaker. The US visit risks becoming the most damaging royal walkabout in modern history even though Andrew has now been arrested.
Charles and William understand better than anyone the danger of the swirling water they are now entering. It fills them with dread. Understandably so. Because never in my lifetime has the monarchy looked so vulnerable.
In the heat of Andrew’s arrest, I forgot that Charles’s visit to the US is still on the books. So is Prince William’s trip to the US, which is loosely scheduled for the World Cup and the Fourth of July. If both of those visits go ahead as planned… well, I was going to say that the American reaction would be bad, but I don’t know. People are paying attention to the Epstein Files, no doubt. But are they paying attention to the details of what William and Charles have done to cover up these crimes? Eh. Anyway, sucks to be a royalist these days!
(Incidentally, I think history will show that the Sussexit in 2020 was actually the beginning of the end, and Harry and Meghan’s exit is connected to how Andrew was protected. Therefore, the Sussexit threw the first brick in “the worst crisis since the abdication.”)
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
