It’s ridiculous to watch Buckingham Palace run the same old plays and hope that magically something will change, if only they brief hard enough. This play has gotten incredibly obvious during King Charles’ reign, but I guess Charles prefers this to “being direct” and “handling touchy family situations like a literal king and/or effective manager.” So, here we go. The Daily Mail had a lengthy piece about the House of York – Prince Andrew and his two daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice. Palace sources reveal that Charles has sent letters, trying to order B&E out of their rentfree London homes. Palace sources reveal that Andrew has encouraged his daughters to fight for their titles, their homes and their royal positions. Palace sources reveal that force had to be employed to get Andrew to move out of Royal Lodge, and now that he’s living in Marsh Farm, he demands that staff still call him by his royal titles. Some highlights:
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie at Peter Phillips’ wedding: Instead of being dropped off by car directly outside All Saints Church in the village of Kemble, as other family members did so they could make a discreet entrance, the sisters, with their loyal husbands in tow, chose to totter along the road in full view. This was, make no mistake, a very clear attempt to reassert their royal status after months of turmoil sparked by their parents’ dramatic fall from grace… But behind this extraordinary gesture of defiance, as the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal, was none other than their disgraced father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. For while Beatrice and Eugenie are said to have been in two minds about whether or not even to attend their cousin’s nuptials, I can reveal that Andrew – still nursing an ego as bruised as his recently-photographed face – emailed his daughters from exile in rural Norfolk, urging them not merely to show their faces but to ‘hold their heads high’.
Andrew believes he’s been scapegoated: According to the Daily Mail’s well-placed royal source: ‘Andrew has hardened considerably of late and believes he has been used as a scapegoat. He believes that the King has exceeded his authority and acted beyond his powers. He is beginning to fight back.’ As well as chasing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Crown Estate after his lease at Royal Lodge in Windsor was cut short by his eviction in February, Andrew is also demanding a payout for his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who was also thrown out and has since left the country.
King Charles won’t meet with his brother: While demands for face-to-face meetings with King Charles have been quietly ignored rather than refused, Andrew’s main point of contact is Lord Benyon, the Lord Chamberlain, who acts as the brothers’ go-between and has been to visit the former prince at Marsh Farm cottage, his new abode on the Sandringham Estate. The King, meanwhile, did not so much as put his head around his brother’s door when he was in residence at Sandringham last month – evidence, if any more were needed, of just how much a thorn in his side his feckless brother has become. According to the source: ‘Camilla in particular believes that the King would soften his stance towards Andrew if the two met up. His Majesty dislikes conflict and prefers to bury his head in the sand whilst others do the dirty work.’
Eugenie & Beatrice’s rentfree London homes: As the Daily Mail has exclusively discovered, the King is not at all happy about this arrangement, which was put in place by the late Queen before she died, and has made efforts to move the pair on. Last year, Palace officials wrote to the princesses indicating that current ‘dwelling arrangements’ at royal residences were ‘to be reviewed’ and diplomatically suggested that they ‘might consider making alternative arrangements’ for central London lodgings. According to the Daily Mail’s royal source: ‘They seem to have done nothing, prompting a follow-up letter in April. The King has delegated the matter to officials to avoid getting his hands dirty and having to have awkward conversations with them.’
Beatrice is dragging her feet about moving: Beatrice, it is said, is ‘a particular issue’ as she stands in the way of plans to extend commercial lets at St James’s Palace. She has a relatively secluded apartment in what is a very open-plan palace and doesn’t want to move,’ says the source. ‘Anne, the last working royal living there, is unfussed by the opening up and is happy to remain there or move to an apartment elsewhere – whatever is best for the King.’
Eugenie’s KP cottage: ‘She is known to be very fond of it,’ says the Daily Mail’s royal source. ‘She really doesn’t want to go although the option of paying the rent herself, with the amount made public, has been put on the table. William would prefer that a clean break is made and that she move out of the royal gated community.’
Andrew had to be “forced” out of Royal Lodge in February: The Daily Mail has now learnt that Andrew falsely believed the unexpired lease would protect him and ignored warnings that the King’s men were on their way to ‘move’ him to Sandringham under cover of darkness. According to my royal source, he sat firm, confident that no one would dare to remove him by force, while Sarah Ferguson, now lying low at a private Austrian ski chalet, did an instant flit. ‘Andrew didn’t go quietly and some light force was employed,’ says the source of that bleak winter night in early February.
Prince Andrew demands that staff call him by his titles: If Andrew has had something of a rough ride in recent weeks then he remains bloodied but unbowed – still clinging on to his unwavering belief in his status, no matter what the King does. Not least, I can reveal, he is still insisting on being addressed by his staff – all three of them – as ‘Sir’ and referred to as ‘The Duke’. Few will forget the expletive-laden rant he delivered last October from the top of the staircase at Royal Lodge where he reminded his lackeys that despite being stripped of his titles, they’d better not forget he was still the son, brother and uncle of monarchs and the father of princesses, a man related to the thrones of Greece and Denmark through his father.
Interestingly, these royal sources did not know how Andrew got that huge bruise on his face a few weeks ago, which says to me that perhaps these insiders are not so well-placed after all. As I said, this is all Charles’ narrative, and these are the methods Charles is trying to employ to handle Andrew and his daughters. While I think Andrew is deplorable, I also think it’s funny that Andrew knows Charles so well, and that Andrew is (in essence) challenging Charles to put up or shut up. Two things can be true at once – Andrew has done horrible things for which he should be in prison AND he’s being scapegoated by a completely rotten and toxic system (a system which knew a lot about his crimes). Say what you will about Andrew, but he’s always wanted to see his daughters well cared for and treated with respect. That’s something Charles doesn’t understand in the least.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.
