Included in this post are some photos of Prince William out in London on Friday. He barely works, full-stop, but he rarely works on Fridays in particular. The event was William visiting the London Ambulance Service, where it looked like he was awkwardly making small-talk with EMTs and then awkwardly sitting at a big kids’ table and making “I’m listening” faces. By most accounts, this was his last bit of work before he and his family took off for the kids’ school break. God knows when we’ll see him again.
I bring up his family holiday, because William and his office want people to believe that William is responsible for what happened with Prince Andrew on Friday. Throughout the day, there was a persistent buzz that Buckingham Palace was going to make a move on Andrew, or that some kind of news would be forthcoming. It was all centered on what King Charles would do, and the potential conversations between the brothers (Charles and Andrew). In the first few hours after Andrew’s big announcement – that he would no longer use his ducal titles or his honors – the story remained centered on Andrew and Charles, and their consultation with each other. It still seems to be that this was all a generous deal struck between brothers, especially given that Andrew will retain Royal Lodge. Well, a short time later, William wanted credit for the Andrew situation.
People Magazine kept it simple, merely stating that William had been “consulted” about Andrew’s decision to “give up” his titles. GB News said the same – a mere consultation about the situation, and that consultation could have been an email or text for all we know. The Sun fleshed out some of the details – Charles was in Scotland in the past week, and he was on the phone with his courtiers and with Andrew, “leading frantic negotiations.” At some point, Charles “held crunch talks” with William about the situation. The Sun also points out that William won’t be happy about Andrew remaining at Royal Lodge, which is only half a mile away from Forest Lodge, the Waleses’ new forever home. Well, all of this vague “consultation” has led the Royalist to one inevitable conclusion: this was a huge victory for the Scooter King! Some macabre highlights from “The Fall of Prince Andrew is The First Great Triumph of King William V.”
William is responsible for all of this: Prince Andrew was publicly humiliated yesterday, forced to renounce his ducal title, and is now a duke only in memory. Buckingham Palace is furiously spinning the stripping of his titles as the personification of a resolute monarch, but let’s be very clear: the practical author of Andrew’s public annihilation is his nephew, the Prince of Wales. The announcement may have come from the office of the king, but it was William who wrote the latest chapter (one dare not say the ending because I’m told William still believes too many privileges remain to Andrew).
King Charles is dying: What the Palace refused to say [last year] —what the British papers continue not to print—is that the diagnosis was grave from the start. Reporters on the at times almost corrupt “royal rota” (a press pool) have spread the fiction of the “doing brilliantly” monarch. But everyone can see the truth: Charles looks exhausted, he has lost alarming weight, and he is still receiving regular radiotherapy and immunotherapy. He spends long stretches at Highgrove and Balmoral in near-total rest.
William has been gunning for Andrew since Charles’s cancer diagnosis: The announcement of Charles’s illness fired the starting gun on what courtiers call “the change of reign.” From that moment, power began to flow from the king to the heir. And from that moment, William’s patience—for his father’s sentimentality, for his brother’s chaos, and for his uncle’s entitlement—ran out.
William hated being ordered to chauffeur Andrew at Balmoral: William’s determination to do something permanent about Andrew when he becomes king can be traced to a single, humiliating moment: Balmoral, August 2023. William was ordered to drive Andrew to church. At that moment, Charles hadn’t pre-announced his own death. He was the all-powerful monarch who had to be obeyed. So William obeyed. The image—grim-faced heir behind the wheel, the disgraced Duke beside him—circulated around the world. William’s aides briefed furiously afterward that he had been obliged to do it, that it was not his wish. Those who know William say the episode hardened him. “That,” said one, “was the day he decided he would never be made to do something like that again.”
The Waleses refused to go to Christmas lunch in 2023: In retaliation, he refused to attend Christmas lunch with his family at Sandringham that year after learning Andrew and Sarah would be there. Charles imagined that inviting Andrew and Sarah Ferguson to join the family walk to church at Sandringham Christmas 2023 would be taken as a gesture of magnanimity. It was read as proof of delusion by William, who was incandescent.
William’s succession plan: “This is the pre-succession,” one former courtier told me. “It’s what Charles did to the Queen when he fired her private secretary, Christopher Geidt. Only now it’s being done to him.” William, for his part, has no interest in the sentimental family unity that his father prizes. He sees the monarchy as a brand, and Andrew (and Harry) as hugely damaging to it. His view, expressed repeatedly to aides, is that his uncle should never again be in the presence of the monarch. When Andrew attempted to get into a photograph at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral in September, William’s fury was instant.
William is already lobbying for credit: Intriguingly, the media looks ready to credit William for Andrew’s downfall. I’m noting repeated references to his role in reports, and I expect a lot of lobbying from his side on the matter in the next few days and weeks.
The Scooter King’s Letters Patent: But William, I am told, isn’t finished. When he ascends to the throne, I am told he will issue new letters patent (as royal executive orders are known) to strip Andrew (and Harry, Archie, Lilibet, Eugenie, and Beatrice) of their HRH and Princely titles. “When the king announced he had cancer,” said one palace source, “the reins slipped overnight.”
I like how the pro-Scooter royalists are gleeful at the thought of a vengeful, enraged, incandescent, jealous and punitive king. They’re rubbing their hands together at the thought of all of the screeching vengeance from the Scooter King, but they forget that William actually doesn’t give a sh-t about much, and he’s also lazy as hell. Sure, William is lobbying for credit for this Andrew situation, but you can actually tell from the quiet generosity of the “deal” that William had nothing to do with it. The deal is classic Charles – a half-measure, mid-dither, with barely enough red meat to appease the critics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure William despises his uncle and I’m sure William wants Andrew completely gone. But I just don’t believe William had much to do with what happened to Andrew on Friday. Maybe I’m wrong! Who knows. As for the new letters patent… lmao. It is what it is. William will look absolutely pathetic, but he’s too stupid to understand that.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
