As the furore about Prince Harry and Spare finally shows some signs of dying down – the book’s second week sales dropped 82 per cent, albeit with a wildly impressive 82,538 copies sold – it is time, once again, for his uncle to take centre stage. It seems as if the beleaguered and not-so-grand Duke of York has been involved in one scandal after another recently, and this week has been no exception.

Firstly, it has been made clear by King Charles that his disgraced brother can have no further official dealings with Buckingham Palace. His offices in the building have been closed down and he has now been informed that he will no longer be able to use the suite of rooms that he had access to, which – if the more sensational coverage is to be believed – he used as a kind of mid-life crisis bachelor pad. He is to be offered accommodation at St James’s Palace instead, if he needs it. But as one well-briefed courtier informed the Sun, ‘a bachelor’s flat in St James’s Palace doesn’t have the same allure for a single man.’

Yet the far more bizarre story that has come to light this week also hinges on Prince Andrew’s much-discussed status as a single man. It has been announced that he is seeking to overturn the allegedly multi-million pound settlement that he paid to Virginia Giuffre last February over allegations of sexual abuse, and a photograph has been supplied to the Daily Telegraph by the family of the Duke’s friend, the imprisoned socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, which is designed to indicate his innocence in the matter.

It is a strange picture. It shows a bath, in which two of Maxwell’s friends are sitting, fully clothed and with makeshift masks depicting the faces of Prince Andrew and Giuffre. The implication is that the bath was too small for the sexual activity that Giuffre graphically described in a memoir that was supplied to court: Maxwell’s brother Ian, who still maintains his sister’s innocence, told the Daily Telegraph that ‘I am releasing my photographs now because the truth needs to come out. They show conclusively that the bath is too small for any sort of sex frolicking.’

TELEGRAPH: The photo that ‘clears Duke’ over bath sex #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/lVpkcKol2q

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) January 27, 2023

Leaving aside the existential question of when a bath is too small and when it’s just the right size, Maxwell’s intervention may well have caused the Duke more harm than good. It is another embarrassing reminder that his public reputation is in the dirt, and that his continuing exclusion from any royal duties indicates that his family consider him just as culpable as the rest of the country does. No doubt, in his impecunious state, Prince Andrew would like to lay his hands on the money paid to Giuffre once more, and to clear his name by doing so. But too much water has flowed under the faucet for this to happen now.

The Duke would be best advised to disappear from public life altogether and draw this shabby, farcical charade to a close. However, the hubris inherent in his actions suggests, alas, that he lacks either the intelligence or the dignity to make such a choice. It seems inevitable that he will continue to bring shame on his family and his name for some time to come.