Has Prince Andrew moved from being public pariah to invaluable personal carer in a new assisted living program for his mother? It’s hard not to come to any other conclusion.
Queen Elizabeth seemed not to care about the outrage caused by choosing him to escort her into Westminster Abbey for the service honoring the life of Prince Philip. Let’s be clear: Nothing about that choice was accidental. It could only have happened in such a blatantly public way at the insistence of the monarch herself—and, probably, in defiance of protests from other family members.
The Mail reports that the queen had “overruled” Princes Charles and William’s wishes on the matter, who had raised concerns “on more than one occasion” about Andrew’s prominence at the event. Another Mail report claimed Andrew had “strong-armed” the queen; the monarch “couldn’t say no to her favourite son.” His siblings were “dismayed” by his actions. According to one insider talking to the Telegraph: “They (the other royals) didn’t know until it happened. The plan changed.”
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As we try to unpack all the implications of this for the private lives of the Windsor family, one thing, no matter how startling it seems, becomes obvious: Andrew provides a comfort level for the queen in her newly frail condition that nobody else can. This goes beyond the verifiable history that he has always been her favorite son. The relationship has apparently become one of need and, even, of dependency. He lives near her in Windsor; time and weird circumstance has brought mother and shamed, though favored, son back together.
When its design was hatched, the Platinum Jubilee year was going to be an immaculate production, with a calendar of public events locked into place, assiduously rehearsed and leaving nothing to chance. Instead, because of the queen’s impaired mobility, it has become hair-raisingly unpredictable. Whether the queen would actually make it to the abbey was not made clear until a few hours before she did. That’s not how things used to work. Once, this was the gold standard of organizing public spectacles.
What is going on? There was every reason to expect that it would be Charles who took his mother’s arm if she needed help. After all, what would be a more convincing message of a well planned succession, the harmonious partnership of monarch and heir? That would have been good for the cameras at the abbey, letting the story be joyful, that she was slowly recovering, and we could all stop worrying about how much longer she would be around. Instead, much of the world looked on aghast: What was she thinking?
Some say the choice was practical; as they are geographical neighbors, it made most sense to escort his mother. But optics are everything, and the royals know that keenly. Andrew did not shrink back, he did not assume a visually minimal presence. He was front and center, and that was a deliberate choice on his and presumably the queen’s parts.
A public relations disaster of that magnitude undermines any sense of a coherent royal message. But even an ace professional spinmeister could not prevail if the outcome is decided by the will of the queen, as it seems to have been. Nonetheless, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of the man given the thankless task of trying to bring order to the unraveling royal menage.
Last year Andrew Parker was appointed Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household. Parker was previously Britain’s top spook, head of MI5. He was highly regarded for the way he handled a series of terrorist attacks in London, and for the way he publicly identified the wider risk posed by political extremist groups. The security of the royals is obviously a high priority, but it does not call for the skill set now needed to handle the volatile state of the royal family as they stumble their way toward what will be a fraught process of succession in which the ultimate fate of the monarchy could be decided.
The focus now is not just on when and how King Charles III and Queen Camilla will ascend to the throne (the queen will decide when she is of a mind to) but how the back-ups, William and Kate, will play as a generational change of face for the institution. That’s why the fallout from their Caribbean tour matters. William tried valiantly to recognize that the crown has no future role in the islands: “We support with pride your decisions about your future,” he said in the Bahamas. “Relationships evolve. Friendships endure.”
But whether he really understood that it was the past, not the future, that was the elephant in the room is unclear.
He could learn a lot by reading a book published in 1944, Capitalism and Slavery, written by Eric Williams, a former prime minister of Trinidad. Williams was the first to make a case that profits from the slave trade bankrolled the Industrial Revolution, creating a slew of new mercantile dynasties. Since then, other historians have made that case stronger—in effect showing that many parts of the British Empire, especially the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, were “modernized” by industrializing white supremacy.
William might also address the issue of the carbon footprint of his royal tour. The Cambridges brought with them an entourage including two private secretaries, a team of flacks and high-maintenance levels of personal staffing—all riding aboard a luxuriously-appointed Airbus widebody jet from the Royal Air Force’s “VIP Voyager” fleet, normally used by that habitual freeloader the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and his foreign secretary, Liz Truss.
Last year, William was scathing about the so-called “space tourism” rocket rides being sold by Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, saying, “They should be trying to repair the planet, not trying to find the next planet to live on.” That now seems like the same kind of hypocrisy practiced by his father, who similarly avoids flying commercial while preaching about the need to take urgent steps to save the planet. (The queen is more grounded. Speaking of climate summits, she reportedly said of world leaders, “It’s really irritating when they talk, but they don’t do.”)
In any case, what is the purpose of royal tours if they just consolidate the impression that the royals are living at this level of personal comfort and in a bubble of historical denial? The full burden of that question falls more on the Cambridges than anyone because they were supposed to be different, true inhabitants of this century.
Meanwhile, let us wonder about the immediate and most compelling family drama. For example, the conversation between the queen and Andrew after they left the abbey and were driven back the twenty miles to Windsor. There was, no doubt, a shared sorrow about the departed husband and father, a robust and forthright spirit who has certainly left a space that cannot be filled. As for the rest of it, whatever observations about immediate kin may have passed between them, and just exactly what it is that the queen finds as common ground with Andrew, we have no clue.
Charles and William were the enforcers of Andrew’s excommunication (although sources told the Telegraph William’s role in this was “overplayed”). The assumption was that it would be permanent. There is no sign that he will be allowed to resume any of his old regular public duties. Charles and William must hope that the queen still agrees to that. But, once Charles is crowned, the problem becomes more urgent and personal to him—and to William. Should Andrew then be finally cast out as the Duke of Windsor was, following his abdication, and sent to a life of embittered exile?
“Ultimately, while the Queen remains on the throne, it will be for her to decide what future role Andrew has to play in family life,” the conclusion of the Telegraph’s post-memorial service article read. “But as far as the Firm is concerned, he’s finished.”
As of now, apart from attending to his mother, Andrew has no day job. He is basically unemployable. This is not simply because of the stain of his Epstein entanglement but because, long before that, he was so incrementally disreputable as he grifted through the world of oligarchs and Gulf monarchies. As long as the queen is alive he has swagger. What happens when she dies is—as he must know—another, likely much bleaker matter.
