‘Shadow king’ Charles rises as Prince Andrew heads into exile
The Prince Andrew scandal is exercising the mind of ‘shadow king’ Charles. Expect big changes to the British monarchy.
What now for a prince in exile? Prince Andrew’s position in the royal family was already close to untenable before Virginia Giuffre, a mother of three from Cairns, spoke directly into the loungerooms of the British public on Tuesday (AEST) about having under-age sex with him.
“This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked, this is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guys’ royalty,” Giuffre said in a BBC interview on has left the British public aghast.
In 2011, when Andrew was enmeshed in scandal over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Queen grilled her son and was reassured he had not been involved with under-age girls. She then invested him with the highest honour, the insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order for services to the sovereign. The grand letters KG, GCVO after his name will do nought for his shredded reputation now.
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Giuffre, now 35, claimed she was a trafficking victim who had sex three times with Andrew from 2001 when she was 17. She described how she says she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to give Epstein massages when she was working as a locker-room attendant at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and later was taken to London to meet Andrew.
Her interview came less than a fortnight after Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview with BBC Newsnight, in which he insisted he benefited from the Epstein friendship. Andrew denies having sex with Giuffre or any inappropriate behaviour towards under-age girls. But the public reaction has smashed through the privilege the prince has depended on his entire life. It has raised questions about Andrew’s retirement and future role, the size of the royal family and the future of the monarchy.
But it also has given an insight into the workings of the royal family as they deal with the fallout of the long-simmering scandal, which has now boiled over.
Humiliating aftermath
Breaking down in tears, Giuffre described the humiliating aftermath of being made to have sex with Andrew at a townhouse in London after a night out at the exclusive Tramp nightclub. She said she was told to dance with him by Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend at the time. Maxwell has denied any wrongdoing.
“It was horrible and this guy was sweating all over me,” Giuffre said. “His sweat was like it was raining basically everywhere, I was just like grossed out from it, but I knew I had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine would have expected from me.”
She said Maxwell told her she would have to do for Andrew what she had done for Epstein, meaning she would have to have sex with the prince. “That just made me sick,” Giuffre said.
“There was a bath. It started there, then went into the bedroom. It didn’t last very long, the whole procedure. It was disgusting.”
She added: “He got up and he said ‘Thanks’. I sat there in bed, just horrified and ashamed and felt dirty.”
Giuffre said she felt trapped: “It was a wicked time in my life. It was a really scary time in my life. I had just been abused by a member of the royal family … Yeah, I didn’t have chains, but these powerful people were my chains. The highest levels of the government were allowing this to happen — not just allowing but participating in it.”
She pleaded to the public “to stand up beside me to help me fight this fight” and to “not accept this as being OK”.
The ‘shadow king’ rises
Five women now have given sworn depositions that Andrew witnessed Epstein abuse other under-age girls.
The royal family could make available the police protection logs which would detail exactly where Andrew was but has not yet done so. Andrew, now 59, could give sworn testimony, as requested by the Epstein victims, but has not yet done so. Then there is the fact that Andrew was allowed to maintain some highly questionable friendships. All of this is exercising the mind of Prince Charles, who has become increasingly powerful as a “shadow king” while the Queen advances into her mid-90s.
Charles has long argued for a slimmed-down monarchy that will see his line of the family take centre stage. The developments of the past few weeks have fast-tracked his wishes.
That means even more responsibilities for his heir, Prince William, and the Duchess of Cambridge — while the now sixth in line Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex will be left a more tightly controlled unit.
The previous latitude given to the Sussexes will be redirected to focus on more traditional charity work to promote British and Commonwealth interests.
Prince Andrew will be retired to the golf course, hoping to avoid being dragged into any US legal actions.
There are suggestions that the Queen, 93, will stand aside for Charles to be regent when she turns 95.
And when the Queen and Prince Philip, 98, die, the state occasion balcony waves are likely to feature King Charles III, Queen Camilla, the new Prince of Wales (William), Kate, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, with the Sussexes rounding it out. Just how far down the line a King Charles will dispense the civil list money for royal duties is unclear, but Andrew’s parliamentary annuity of £249,000 ($470,800) reimbursed from the Queen’s private money is under threat.
Tuesday’s NATO state dinner was a sign of things to come. Andrew, the Falklands War navy helicopter pilot, was off the guest list as the Queen welcomed heads of state and government, including Trump, at Buckingham Palace to mark 70 years of the alliance.
Andrew’s sister, Princess Anne, and his brothers, Prince Charles and Prince Edward, attended while Prince Harry and Meghan were on leave after needing a holiday from the pressures of work and family. Prince William was in Oman and Kuwait.
Instead of tucking into the elaborate banquet, Andrew was back home at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, consoled by his former wife, Sarah Ferguson.
His two “blood princesses” Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice were not invited either.
Questions for Queen
Crucially, the Andrew calamity has also raised serious questions about the authority of the Queen — her indulgence of her favourite son and his sordid situation.
This is not an overnight disaster that has taken the royals by surprise. These developments have been more than a decade in the making.
Andrew says he cannot recall ever meeting Giuffre or the photograph of the two them together on the landing of Maxwell’s house.
Andrew says he was being honourable by visiting Epstein in 2010, then a convicted sex offender, four years after cutting off contact, ostensibly to tell him he was now really cutting off all contact.
All the while he enjoyed at least four days of Epstein’s hospitality in his New York townhouse and a private dinner party. Giuffre says that explanation is “BS”, as is any claim that the photo of Andrew with his arm around her when she was 17 is in any way fake.
Within hours of Andrew’s November 16 explanation, the British newspapers found photos of Andrew looking sweaty and with women draped all over him, at odds with his claim that as a royal he created a distance between people; and that he was incapable of sweating. Just last week a registered masseuse came forward saying she was surprised at the lack of security when she was hired to give Andrew a massage — naked under a towel — at Buckingham Palace. The rush to strike Andrew’s name as patron from such an august body as the Outward Bound Trust and his Pitch@Palace charity from various universities including the University of Wollongong and the University of Huddersfield has been a shock to the royal family that Andrew had only ever been endured rather than endeared. The broadcast was the tipping point at which his patronage was no longer desired by scores of charities and universities.
Much of the public anger has built up from when Andrew was made Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment, crisscrossing the globe to promote his country’s interests in 2001. But many people suspect that instead of negotiating trade deals while travelling first-class and staying in luxury accommodation funded by the British taxpayer, Andrew was promoting his own interests and that of his non-British friends.
In 2011 he stepped down as trade envoy amid bad publicity about his friendship with Epstein, and also because of questionable relationships with other business people.
Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant said the prince should not be used as a UK trade ambassador.
“I am afraid he has now just become a national embarrassment,” Bryant said.
“My worry is that sometimes when he goes on these trips I am not sure whether he is helping us out or he is just helping himself.”
History of scandal
Through the years it has emerged that Andrew repeatedly blurred his private and professional interests. In 2004 he used a trade trip to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to try to flog his marital home and gift from the Queen, Sunninghill.
Billionaire Timur Kulibayev, a son-in-law of former Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev, bought it three years later for £15m — £3m above the asking price despite it being in further disrepair.
Andrew would use Buckingham Palace lunches to curry favour with people of the ilk of Sakher El Materi, the billionaire son-in-law of now deposed Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Another close friend is Libyan Tarek Kaituni, who was jailed in Tunisia for drug possession and also was convicted of attempting to smuggle a machinegun into France.
Kaituni claimed to broker secret meetings between Andrew and former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and secured the release of the Lockerbie airline bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi. He gave Andrew’s daughter Beatrice an £18,000 diamond necklace for her birthday just before Andrew was accused of lobbying a British company called Biwater on his behalf and taking a commission to secure business in Libya.
Was Andrew embarrassed? Last year Kaituni was invited to Princess Eugenie’s wedding to Jack Brooksbank.
Just last month Kaituni was sipping Laurent Perrier pink champagne with 100 guests at the 60th birthday celebrations of Andrew’s former wife, Ferguson.
And remember the scandal nine years ago when Fergie was exposed selling access to Andrew for £500,000?
“If you want to meet him in your business, look after me, and he’ll look after you,” she told an undercover reporter.
“You’ll get it back tenfold … That opens up everything you would ever wish for. And I can open any door you want. And I will for you.”
Just this week an email cache dubbed “The Prince Andrew Papers’” was published in the Mail on Sunday showing that Andrew held a 40 per cent share of a business with property tycoon David Rowland and that it was registered in a Caribbean tax haven at the time he was shoehorning Rowland and his son Jonathan into various British trade missions and promoting Rowland’s Luxembourg bank.
All the while the British public was paying for Andrew’s trade trips — an annual travel bill of more than £460,000.
Given the state of various legal manoeuvres in the US, Andrew is likely to avoid trans-Atlantic trips in case he is forced to give a deposition. A statement from Buckingham Palace says: “The Duke of York unequivocally regrets his ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein’s suicide left many unanswered questions, particularly for his victims.
The duke deeply sympathises with those affected who want some form of closure.
“It is his hope that, in time, they will be able to rebuild their lives. The duke is willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.”
Additional reporting: Agencies
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