King Charles has announced, to mark his 74th birthday, that he will be asking Parliament to amend the Regency Act to increase the number of counsellors of state who can conduct official public business while the monarch is overseas or otherwise indisposed. He has asked that it now include his sister, Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, and his younger brother, Prince Edward, the splendidly named Earl of Wessex and Forfar. It represents a generous spirited recognition of the services that Anne and Edward have undertaken for decades, often with little gratitude or reward: springtime for the Princess and Prince.

It is, however, very much winter for two existing counsellors of state, namely Prince Harry and Prince Andrew. Although they have not been formally stripped of their responsibilities, neither man has any official role within the Royal Family anymore. The appointment of the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex as their replacements is a simple, if brutal, reminder that under the reign of King Charles anyone who is thought to be surplus to requirements for ‘the Firm’ can now be discarded.

There is no love lost between Prince Andrew and King Charles

There is no love lost between Prince Andrew and King Charles. After the endless humiliations of the Virginia Giuffre affair, to say nothing of Andrew’s jaw-droppingly misguided appearance on Newsnight, the not-so-grand Duke of York knew that he was on borrowed time. His only chance to remain a visible member of the Royal Family was while his mother remained alive. Since the Queen’s death in September, he has been adjusting to the knowledge that he no longer has a supporter within the Firm, and most of his family would probably be happier if he wholly retreated into private life. The ever-ambiguous royal status of his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, is not helped by their father’s continuing infamy.

Matters with Harry are more complex. It is widely believed that the publication of his memoir, Spare, in January is a colossal mistiming by his publishers, Penguin Random House. Harry’s book will now both miss the lucrative Christmas market and is too early to capitalise on the mass publicity that King Charles’s coronation on 6 May, 2023 will receive.

Yet persistent rumours suggest that an earlier version of the book was heavy in its criticism of the Queen Consort, which now might seem both bitter and unfair given the general regard that Camilla is held in. It is possible that if the book does not contain any jaw-dropping exposes, there might be a way back for Harry to quietly resume some kind of limited role within the Royal Family, possibly tied to the Invictus games. But if he goes studs in, then he will join his uncle in the Siberia of reputational notoriety.

King Charles has so far shown himself to be a decisive figure, rather in the mould of his father than the more conciliatory monarch some might have expected. His birthday present to himself shows that the new monarch is capable of acting ruthlessly but also practically, clearing out the Augean stables as he moves towards his ideal of a modern, slimmed-down monarchy. How Andrew and, more importantly, Harry respond to their side-lining will be fascinating to see. Still, if there isn’t a doleful Meghan Markle-fronted podcast before too long, in which her husband puts ‘his side’ of ‘that story’, then it would be an astonishing missed opportunity for the Duke of Sussex to wallow in the self-pity that the he has become so closely associated with.

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