Andrés, the spoiled son of the Queen isabel II, the longest-running sovereign United Kingdom, felt the relentless iron hand of his mother, who this week, without the slightest fuss, ripped from him all noble titles, including military ones, which members of the British royal family.
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That was the final humiliation for the hitherto prince and Duke of York, 61, who will now have to defend himself as a common citizen in a civil trial in New York, where an accusation weighs against him for sexual abuse of a minor happened two decades ago and that is part of the case Epstein.
Indeed, the reputation of Andrew, once considered a hero of the Falklands War (1982), had been shattered by his shameful relationship with the late American financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
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In the same case, another British woman, Ghislaine Maxwell, the fallen socialite and former partner of Epstein, was convicted of child sex trafficking on behalf of the businessman, who committed suicide in August 2019 in his prison cell, accused of exploiting sexually underage girls for more than a decade.
The roads were closed to Andrés last Wednesday, when a New York judge refused to file a civil lawsuit filed against the prince in August last year by a victim of the billionaire, which puts him at risk of a trial if he does not succeed. reach an economic agreement with the woman.
This is the American Virginia Giuffre, who accused Andrés of having sexually assaulted her three times in 2001, when she was 17 years old, all under the tutelage of Epstein.
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Now, without his titles, Andrés will have to defend himself “in this case as a private citizen,” according to the Buckingham Palace on Thursday, shortly after he issued a terse statement announcing that “with the Queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliation and royal patronage will be returned to the monarch. The Duke of York will continue to hold no public office and will be pleading his case as a private citizen.”
According to those close to Buckingham Palace, the text of the message summarizes “a brutal move”, which seeks above all to protect the reputation of the British crown and that palace sources assure that it was orchestrated by Prince Charles (Andrew’s older brother) and Guillermo (his nephew).
“It was an announced fall, but few believed it would be so brutal,” the international analyst and follower of British politics, Isaac Bigio, told EL TIEMPO, describing Andrés as “the queen’s spoiled child”, who in his At the age of 22, he dared to pilot a helicopter between bullets and skirmishes in the confrontation over the Malvinas Islands or the Falkland Islands, as the English prefer to call it.
For his part, the crown commentator Peter Hunt believes that “the Windsors have shown that when the institution is under threat, dynastic preservation triumphs over flesh and blood” and that is why the decisive decision to withdraw the privileges Andrés now and not wait for the result of the trial in new york.
And so, rather than face endless uncomfortable questions about Prince Andrew’s future, Buckingham Palace has gone on a preemptive strike, effectively announcing that Queen Elizabeth II’s third son will never play an official royal role again.
However, many believe that the decision was painful for the queen, having to weigh between being a mother or a monarch, in the twilight of her impeccable reign, and just as she is preparing to celebrate her platinum wedding on February 6.
“Although Andrés is often said to be his favorite son, the royal code of duty – country first, family devotion second – is imprinted in his DNA. Like her grandmother, Queen Mary, who overrode her own maternal instincts to save the monarchy at the time of Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936, the now 95-year-old queen will do whatever it takes to preserve the institution to which he has committed himself all his life”, Anna Pasternak, author of the bestseller Princess in love, which tells the story of the late Princess Diana and one of her lovers, Captain James Hewitt.
Andrew, the third son of the queen, has been labeled in many ways: good boy, playboy and even war hero. His wide smile and charisma disarmed both subjects and foreign dignitaries, in his more than a hundred commitments representing the crown around the world.
In his youth, he was seen as the most eligible bachelor and was known for multiple conquests before marrying, in 1986, with Sara Ferguson, with whom he had two daughters, the princesses Beatriz (1988) and Eugenia (1990). The marriage ended ten years later, in 1996.
His relationship with the son-in-law of former Tunisian president Ben Ali was very controversial, as well as with the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and the press knew of countless love affairs on his itinerant trips and parties.
Andrés’s drama began in 2011, when he was linked to the pedophile Epstein and a photo was made public, where the prince is seen hugging a very young Virginia Giuffre, who was then known by her maiden name Roberts; in another he is seen walking through Central Park with Epstein, in December 2010, a year after he was released from prison. “It was a reckless relationship,” Andrés acknowledged.
Those photos weighed in the decision to open the case against the hitherto Duke of York in the United States. In court documents, Virginia Giuffre says she was a victim of sex trafficking and abuse by Jeffrey Epstein from the age of 16. According to the woman, part of her abuse involved being loaned out to other powerful men, including Prince Andrew, whom she directly points to as having sexually assaulted her three times as a minor.
More than 80 years later, it might seem that real history is repeating itself. And with a mysterious echo, Andrés follows his great-uncle, Eduardo, into exile from real life. Although he will remain hidden in Windsor, rather than living abroad, the curious underworld between his background of privilege and his foreign status as a private citizen will surely prove no less easy to navigate than it was for the Duke of Windsor.
“From a brand perspective, the Andrew question has been hanging around them (the monarchy) for a while and it’s only going to get worse,” says Pauline Maclaran, Royal Holloway Marketing Professor, University of London and author of the book. Royal fever: the british monarchy in consumer culture.
However, the academic believes that the queen’s great personal popularity will allow her to stay above this, and that, if anything, will increase public sympathy for her and her legacy.
The truth is that the case of Andrés could not have come at a worse time, just when Buckingham Palace had announced bombastic plans for the celebration of the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II in the crown, who will thus go down in history as the longest-living monarch in the world.
The official celebration will be between June 2 and 5 to better take advantage of the benefits of summer, instead of the same day of the anniversary of the accession to the throne, February 6, the first in which the late Prince Philip, husband of the queen for seven decades.
Within the plan is a cake contest in which the winner will be served at the palatial party lunch, to which although hundreds of thousands of subjects of the British crown will be invited, the presence of Andrés remains in doubt.
MARIA VICTORIA CRISTANCHO
Special for WEATHER
LONDON
On twitter: @mavicristancho
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