The news that the disgraced former Duke of York has been turfed out of his home of Royal Lodge in the middle of the night and rusticated to a rather less grand property somewhere on the Sandringham Estate will not, perhaps, be greeted with particular sorrow by many. Ever since the latest and highly embarrassing round of revelations concerning Andrew’s scandalous association with Jeffrey Epstein, it was inevitable that the royals would have to act ruthlessly and swiftly in order to get ahead of the situation.
In truth, King Charles had fewer options available than he might have liked. Keir Starmer’s suggestion last weekend that Andrew should head to the United States in order to testify before Congress about Epstein was an unorthodox move, in that it goes against any political convention to propose that a senior royal should head to another country to provide sworn legal testimony. Some might even suggest that the Prime Minister has overstepped the mark. Yet when it comes to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the mark was overstepped a very long time ago, and most people share Starmer’s belief that some kind of justice – whether retributive or otherwise – is long overdue.
This justice, then, has been meted out with Andrew’s midnight flit from Royal Lodge, and subsequent rehoming to a property that will be considerably beneath the lavish standards that he has come to expect. Although he will eventually be given Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate, where he will be under the king’s watchful gaze, it is a very public humiliation, along with his titles being stripped from him last October. The first question that came to mind when the latest revelations came out were what, exactly, the royals could still do. Now, the King has pulled the only lever left at his disposal. It will soon become clear whether this is enough.
There is, of course, no suggestion that any member of the royal family knew anything about Epstein’s activities and proclivities while he was alive, and Andrew vigorously denies any wrongdoing, as he has continued to do ever since the stories of his friendship with Epstein first emerged. Yet the Firm had been left looking impotent and irrelevant in the face of the continued and highly damaging disclosures. Just last week, stories were being trailed to the newspapers that senior royals – including, surprisingly, the Prince of Wales – felt that Andrew had been punished enough and that he should be allowed to retire into obscurity. Anyone with an ounce of public relations savvy would have known that worse was soon to come from the Epstein files. And, of course, there could well be more.
As Andrew adjusts to his new and straitened life, he can consider his limited options. If by some miracle, he appeared in front of Congress and offered exculpatory testimony that somehow managed to do justice to Epstein’s victims and cleared his name in the process, he might begin the long, slow journey back into the public’s good graces. But it is hugely unlikely that this will happen, not least because he will be wary of visiting the United States and opening himself up to the possibility of arrest for complicity in Epstein’s crimes. Instead, he is likely to skulk in Norfolk, brooding, while his family attempt to salvage the situation.
This should have been a positive 2026 for the royals after two disastrous years. The publicity blitz around the King’s new documentary Finding Harmony was clearly intended as something of a reset. Yet Andrew’s latest scandal has ruined this goodwill. The King might be forgiven for regretting that imprisonment in the Tower of London is no longer an option for this perennially troublesome former prince. Charles has acted as decisively as he can, but the suspicion still remains that more damaging disclosures are left to come, and the question then is what more, short of sending him off into anonymous private life, can be done. The answer will test the strength – and relevance – of the royal family like nothing has before.
