Royals: Prince Andrew determined Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie don’t suffer
Plans were already afoot for a ‘slimmed-down’ monarchy. But Prince Andrew is determined his daughters don’t suffer as a result of his missteps.
Nothing has gone right for Prince Andrew since his disastrous television interview last weekend, but he is determined that his behaviour should not be blamed on his daughters. He wants Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie to take over many of the royal patronages he is being forced to surrender.
A source close to Andrew said it was a “logical next step” for his daughters to replace him as patrons of a range of the organisations he has supported. Although some of them may welcome a continuing connection with the duke’s family, one of the most influential charity leaders has warned that Andrew should not treat patronages as a “dowry” for his daughters.
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“You certainly can’t have a situation where the sins of the father are visited on the children,” said Sir Stephen Bubb, director of the think tank Charity Futures. “But the decision on patronage is a matter for the charity itself to decide what is most appropriate.”
Andrew’s hopes of protecting his daughters from the fallout of the Jeffrey Epstein affair follow a bruising week of public revulsion at his performance in his BBC interview with Emily Maitlis. Instead of clearing the air about his involvement with a convicted American paedophile, he succeeded mainly in embarrassing the royal family and in fanning demands for his removal from public responsibilities. His failure to express a word of sympathy for Epstein’s victims earned him contempt on both sides of the Atlantic.
Several prominent charities and cultural groups have already cut ties with the duke and he is said to be “actively considering imminently resigning” from every other organisation with which he has formal links. His official website associates him with 181 charities and foundations, about 30 of them involved with young people or education.
“He will more likely than not make the decision very soon to step down, in order to save all the rest of his charities from having to make the decision themselves,” a source said.
Buckingham Palace has suggested that his patronages might be only “temporarily mothballed” until Andrew can clear his name. It is not clear how he will ever be able to shake off the allegations that have haunted him since he became a friend of Epstein’s in the late 1990s.
The prince has repeatedly denied having sex with underage women or engaging in any other form of impropriety, but the explanations he put to Maitlis were met with mainly disbelief or ridicule. He offered bizarre accounts of his visit to a Pizza Express in Woking and the medical conditions that supposedly prevented him from sweating in nightclubs.
“He’s absolutely finished,” concluded Penny Junor, the royal biographer. “If Andrew is no longer representing or supporting the monarch in any capacity, or doing good charitably, what’s the point of him?”
Andrew has long been concerned at plans outlined by his older brother, the Prince of Wales, for a “slimmed-down” monarchy that would leave little official role for the York princesses. Beatrice, 31, is engaged to be married next year and there have already been reports that she is scaling back plans for a traditional royal wedding.
Eugenie, 29, married the British wine merchant Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle last year. She is interested in charities that help people with spinal injuries because at the age of 12 she underwent back surgery herself to correct a curvature of the spine. She is already a patron of eight charities and is a co-founder of the Anti-Slavery Collective, which campaigns against modern slavery, including what it describes as “people in forced sexual exploitation”.
Beatrice, who is dyslexic, has focused on charities involving children’s welfare and education. According to her father’s website, she is patron of two foundations and eight charities and is global ambassador for Street Child, a charity where her mother Sarah, Duchess of York, is the founder patron. In 2012, she and six friends co-founded the Big Change Charitable Trust, which describes itself as a “social impact accelerator”. Both princesses have joined their mother as patrons of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Taking on more charitable responsibilities would enhance the princesses’ royal status, but their father is in the process of cutting ties with British organisations that may wish to distance themselves from the York household, or seek more senior royal patrons.
Since last weekend’s interview, Andrew has lost the support of the English National Ballet, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Outward Bound Trust, of which the Duke of Edinburgh was patron for 65 years. Beatrice is already a trustee of Outward Bound.
Major sponsors of Andrew’s flagship Pitch@Palace scheme for entrepreneurs, including Barclays, KPMG and Standard Chartered, have also withdrawn their support and the project will no longer be run from Buckingham Palace.
“The role of a patronage is to promote the cause to the public through a high-profile personality who will attract public attention to the cause and therefore help the charity to fundraise and campaign and pay attention to what the charity is trying to achieve,” said Bubb. He noted that when Eugenie was married she wore a wedding gown designed to show the scar on her back, and is now associated with a related charity.
“Charities compete for royal patronage and it has done a huge power of good,” he added. “Look at the work of William and Harry for mental health and the work of Princess Diana for Aids. They will probably not be queuing up for Princess Beatrice and Eugenie, but in some cases it will be appropriate.”
The most important say in how Andrew’s retreat is handled may well come from Charles, who is understood to be angry and frustrated that his eight-day official visit to New Zealand with the Duchess of Cornwall was overshadowed by the Epstein scandal. Charles’s visit ended yesterday with a Maori ceremony in Kaikoura.
Contrary to reports, it has emerged that Andrew’s interview was not sanctioned in advance by the Queen. “The Queen did not give her approval,” a royal source insisted. “The fact that notion has somehow been put about has aggrieved people in the [royal] households.”
The source added: “There is no way the Queen and her private secretary wrote a ‘yes’ on a memo that fully explained what was proposed. Andrew had a son-to-mother conversation, letting her know that he was planning to address the controversy, but without going into any details. What should have happened was the full palace process, where the interview proposal was placed under all the scrutiny and due diligence that usually takes place.”
Sources close to the Queen say she is “privately supportive” of Andrew, who was seen riding at Windsor with his mother last week, but “deeply frustrated”. There is a feeling in royal circles that the monarch was “hoodwinked” by her son.
Royal sources said Prince William was also involved in conversations with the Queen and Prince Charles over the decision to remove Andrew from royal duties. “William thinks the right thing happened,” said one source. Another added: “William is becoming more and more involved in decisions about the institution [monarchy] and he’s not a huge fan of his uncle Andrew.”
Indeed, the only huge fan that Andrew appears to have left is his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and even she has gone quiet after popping up on social media shortly before the Maitlis interview to declare her ex-husband “this giant of a principled man”. Ferguson has not posted on her Instagram account since.
It was reported last week that the Duchess of Sussex had taken a contrasting view. Meghan was said to have been “troubled” by her husband’s uncle’s baffling remark that “if you’re a man it’s a positive act to have sex with somebody”.
While many royal fans will be hoping that Charles’s return to Britain might help stamp some authority on his wayward family, it is clear that for Andrew there will be scant respite from scrutiny.
Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts, who claims Epstein ordered her to have sex with Andrew, will give an interview to the BBC’s Panorama next week, just as the Queen is about to host Nato leaders at Buckingham Palace.
The Queen is understood to have cancelled a party she planned to host for Andrew and his charities to mark his 60th birthday in February; it is expected to be replaced by a private family dinner.
Planning is also under way for the Queen’s Christmas broadcast, where one of the themes may turn out to be “forgiveness”. For now, for Andrew, forgiveness is in very short supply.
The Sunday Times
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