The Observer
Focus 09.01.22 37Prince Andrew
talks with the
Queen as the
royal family
appear on the
balcony of
Buckingham
Palace after
Trooping the
Colour in June- Getty
ing up to the super-rich, precisely
because he lacks that kind of money
himself. So again his mother, who
is thought to have bankrolled his
defence, would be his benefactor.
That brings into the spotlight the
contested question of whether her
wealth is private or a product of her
position as head of state, and there-
fore subject to some kind of tax-
payer oversight.
M
onarchists insists
her private wealth
and her public
dispensation are
completely sepa-
rate , but any set-
tlement paid by the Queen would
provide republicans with ballistic
ammunition. What seems extraordi-
nary is that this conclusion has been
moving steadily closer for more than
a decade, and the prince, and all
those he has repeatedly reassured of
his innocence, have been frozen in
a state of denial, just hoping that it
will all go away.
Catherine Mayer , the author of a
biography of Prince Charles and co-
founder of the Women’s Equality
party, says that Buckingham Palace
did “something very stupid” when
the scandal fi rst surfaced in 2011.
Shortly after he was photo-
It’s hard to imagine
that any royal will
again be afforded the
indulgence that has
accompanied Andrew
around the globe
graphed with Epstein in 2010 stroll-
ing in Central Park, New York,
following the American’s release
from prison on charges of procur-
ing a minor for prostitution, Andrew
was removed from his position as
international trade envoy and rede-
ployed on other matters, includ-
ing as a royal business guru with
the Pitch@Palace initiative. Mayer
believes that decision was sympto-
matic of a wish to sidestep the issue
rather than confront it.
“The whole story is a genuine
tragedy because of all the lives it has
ruined,” she says. “But there is also
a soap opera quality to it in that you
see characters ignoring things, of
trying to cover them up in the belief
that they will make things better,
and you, as the viewer, know that
they’re going to get worse. I’ve had
that feeling watching this.”
One problem, says Mayer, is that
there has been no comprehensive
strategy across the royal f amily on
what to do. Although its members
talk about the family as “the fi rm”,
lending the idea of disciplined busi-
ness entity, this, says Mayer, is a
misconception.
“It has always been, and increas-
ingly in latter years, not one insti-
tution but a series of institutions
or courts and households fre-quently in confl ict with each other,”
she says. Royal observers note that
staff working for Prince Charles and
Prince William have briefed against
Andrew. A mixture of the Queen’s
protectiveness, the wary exaspera-
tion of other royal households and
Andrew’s stubborn resistance to
sound advice, left him to forge his
own ad hoc strategy. It resulted in
his fateful decision to put his side of
the story across in the excruciating
November 2019 Newsnight interview
with Emily Maitlis.
As a textbook example of how
not to do damage limitation, it is
unlikely to be surpassed any time
soon. “You saw how completely
untethered he is to outside reality,”
says Mayer.
Looking back at that disastrously
revealing encounter, it is notable
how often the prince used Maxwell
to try to put some distance between
himself and Epstein (who hosted
Andrew on many occasions and
gave large sums of money to his ex-
wife, Sarah Ferguson, and possessed
16 separate phone numbers for the
prince). At one point he describes
the fi nancier as a “plus one”.
But now that Maxwell herself has
been convicted of sex traffi cking a
minor, among other serious charges,
it leaves the prince with no one to
saddle with his poor judgment of
character. In among a catalogue of
evasions and failing memories, his
one line of consistent defence is that
he was not aware of anything unto-
ward going on in any of the Epstein
or Maxwell households at which
he stayed. For Lacey, among many
other observers, this is simply not a
credible proposition.
“He consorted for 10 years with
a couple whose lifestyle revolved
around the sexual exploitation by
Epstein of vulnerable women and
underage girls, a number of them
traffi cked by Maxwell. The overt-
ness of this predatory way of life
was apparently inescapable. What
do you imagine when you travel in a
private plane nicknamed the ‘Lolita
Express’? And then you invite these
degenerates to stay at Balmoral?”
When challenged on his appar-
ent blindness by Maitlis, the prince
came up with an explanation that
Mayer sees as a self-indictment
rather than exoneration. He effec-
tively said that he lived among serv-
ants all the time and was used to not
taking any notice of them – even,
presumably, if they were scantily
clad teenage girls.
“It shows his extraordinary
arrogance and disconnection,”
says Mayer, “and he unintention-
ally spoke a truth that is deeply
damaging to him and the wider
institution.”In fact, his brusque
manner with servants is well-docu-
mented. A senior footman once told
a reporter who worked undercover
at Buckingham Palace that on wak-
ing the prince “the response can
easily be ‘fuck off’ as good morning”.Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre
and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001.Of course, Andrew would not be
the fi rst obnoxious royal, nor the
fi rst dissolute prince. The institu-
tion’s history is full of badly behaved
characters. But we are now living in
the third decade of the 21st century,
in a time of transition not just for
the royal family, as they prepare for
the prospect of a new monarch, but
society at large.
Ten years ago, in the pre-#MeToo
days, a movie mogul such as Harvey
Weinstein could terrorise and abuse
women with impunity. His friend
Epstein all but got away with rape
and sex traffi cking thanks to the
political infl uence he was able to
exert.
And back in 2011 it may well
have seemed that Giuffre’s allega-
tions against Andrew were destined
to remain the outlandish cry of an
inconsequential person, an unprov-
able rumour that would fade along
with all the other neglected claims
made against the rich and powerful.
Even a photograph taken inside
Maxwell’s home could be dismissed
as fake – although how could a
young woman get access to an
image of the prince that no one else
has ever seen to put it in a mocked-
up picture?I
t never did add up, and with
the passage of time, the
attempt to remove himself
from that troubling scene
in his friend’s house looks
more and more like a des-
perate tactic. Just as the prince’s
claim that he stayed with Epstein for
four days to tell him that he could no
longer be his friend out of a sense
of “honour” was always far-fetched
and miserably self-serving.
It seems unlikely after all these
years that the prince will change his
story, and if there is a settlement
it will doubtless come with a non-
acceptance of any personal respon-
sibility. Yet this is unquestionably a
watershed case. It’s hard to imag-
ine that any royal will ever again be
afforded the indulgence that has
accompanied Andrew around the
globe.
Although the monarchy will sur-
vive this current crisis, it may well
do so in a more streamlined ver-
sion with fewer passengers. The
days of overgrown playboys trad-
ing on the family name in exchange
for paid-for company and pay-offs
to ex-wives should be numbered.
And if they are, it will be in no small
part due to the efforts of a group of
women from largely humble back-
grounds who refused to back down
in the face of their abusers.
“I am looking forward to vindicat-
ing my rights as an innocent victim
and pursuing all available recourse,”
Giuffre said seven years ago. “I’m
not going to be bullied back into
silence.”
As even Prince Andrew would
have to concede, she has certainly
not allowed that to happen.