An unprecedented controversy shakes the British monarchy, after the civil process that Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, will face in a New York court, accused of sexually abusing a minor. While the investigations progress, the prince’s case adds to the shadows of the British monarchy.
Since 2019, Andrew, known as the Duke of York, has stood in the back door, out of the spotlight, when all his public duties were taken away from him on behalf of the royal family, his blood family.
Elizabeth II, acting as head of state, stripped him of his more than ten military titles and royal patronage, with a 22-year career in the British Royal Navy, to clear the cloak of doubt over one of the most recognized institutions in the world.
But the decline for Andrew, whose public life abruptly ended in 2019, began when the child trafficking case exploded against his friends, millionaire child molester Jeffrey Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The mere fact of that friendship, of which there are several photos as evidence, is already scandalous.
In an interview with France 24, Nigel Cawthorne, the well-known author of ‘Prince Andrew, Epstein, Maxwell and the Palace,’ assured that “given that the civil trial will not take place until September at the earliest, the Prince Andrew scandal will hang like a pall on the platinum jubilee of the queen in the summer”.
The civil process in the United States
Virginia Giuffre, Andrew’s plaintiff, claims that when she was 17 years old she was forced, at Epstein’s request, to have three sexual encounters with the duke, facts that he has repeatedly denied.
These would have been in London, New York and on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
Giuffre claims he met Andrew at Maxwell’s house. Proof of this would be the photo that has put the prince in trouble, in which she poses smiling, being a young girl, with the prince who hugs her and has a hand on her waist.
In the back of the image, Ghislaine Maxwell also smiles. According to Giuffre, that night she went dancing with Andrew at a nightclub in London. One of his memories is that he sweated a lot.
In an interview with the ‘BBC’, Andrew denied these accusations. He even claimed to have no recollection of ever meeting her.
He claimed that on the date he allegedly met Giuffre, he took his eldest daughter, Beatrice, to a friend’s birthday party at the Pizza Express restaurant in Woking, just outside London.
Even Andrew said he can’t sweat because he has a medical condition that inhibits it, after facing bouts of stress as a pilot during the Falklands war in the 1980s.
Virginia Giuffre’s defense wants you to prove your inability to sweat.
Andrew’s lawyers have tried to shield the prince by arguing that a trial in the United States would not have jurisdiction because Giuffre resides in Australia.
These accusations are so scandalous and damaging to the image of the royal family that the columnist for the ‘Daily Mail’, a pro-monarchy newspaper, Stephen Glover, has publicly asked Andrew to explain himself and face justice.
“An innocent man should have nothing to fear from the law. The prince has every right to insist on a fair hearing, but once that right has been granted, evading very serious charges becomes disgraceful, despicable and destructive,” says Glover.
Another controversial image
In 2010, in New York, Prince Andrew was photographed on the street with his friend Jeffrey Epstein, who had been released from prison accused of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
In that famous interview with the ‘BBC’, Andrew justified that trip to the United States because he wanted to personally tell his pedophile friend that the friendship was over.
Andrew and Epstein met in 1999. The banker’s then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced them. Since then they built a close friendship.
So much so that Andrew invited him to one of his daughters’ birthday parties, to Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth’s favorite residence, and to a hunting weekend at the monarch’s private estate, Sandringham, in England.
The response of the British monarchy as the sexual abuse case progresses
The Queen, trying to protect the integrity and future of the monarchy, which is being tainted by these serious accusations, acted quickly. Making public that Andrew is not above the law and that he no longer represents her or the royal family.
In addition to removing his military titles, he also stripped him of his category of royal highness, that is, he can no longer be called that way, making him just another mortal.
The royal family also wants and needs to quickly distance itself from the controversy, just this year that the 70th anniversary of the reign of Elizabeth II will be celebrated, and the massive events of the monarchy will return.
The brief statement from Buckingham Palace, just four cold lines, is very eloquent about Andrew’s future.
“The Duke of York will continue to take no public duties and will plead his case as a private citizen.”
The British tabloids, generally with luxurious sources inside Buckingham Palace, assure that Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, and his son, Prince William, second in line to the succession, were key to safeguarding the honor and reputation of the royal family.
Cawthorne, the author of more than 200 titles, mostly on the monarchy, thinks Andrew unlikely to return to public office.
“Now that the queen has stripped her favorite son of his title of her royal highness and his military honours, there is no going back,” he says.
These tabloids also report, through sources close to the queen, that these accusations against her son have been devastating for her, who is about to turn 96.
The Prince of York was until just a few months ago one of the most unknown ‘royals’ in the world, but, surely, his name will be one of the most remembered in history.
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