Prince Andrew, the royal at the center of a media maelstrom in Britain, caught a huge inadvertent break this week. His older brother, King Charles III, made history Thursday when he visited the Vatican and prayed in the Sistine Chapel with Pope Leo XIV — the first British monarch to pray with the pontiff since Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church in 1534.
Yet that’s not the royal story dominating headlines.
Andrew is at the center of overlapping scandals: allegations that he committed sexual abuse, revelations about his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and growing scrutiny over his living arrangements. Public outrage at the abuse allegations intensified in the run-up to publication this week of a memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an American who said she was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager and forced three times to have sex with the prince. Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegations but, in the face of mounting pressure, announced last Friday he would no longer use titles, such as Duke of York, that had been conferred on him.
British lawmakers are navigating a tricky path as outrage grows among their constituents.
His titles were not removed — a distinction that, as it became understood, fueled fury. The next day, communications between the prince and Epstein surfaced showing that the men had discussed Giuffre’s allegations two months after Andrew had claimed he’d broken off contact. The prince has said he has no recollection of meeting Giuffre and questioned the authenticity of a photo showing him with his arm around her waist. Yet last weekend, two U.K. newspapers — the Mail on Sunday and Sun on Sunday — published an email reportedly from the prince showing that the day after Giuffre’s allegations were first published in 2011, the prince told Epstein “we are in this together” and “keep in close touch, and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
Neither Andrew nor Buckingham Palace commented as the message was scrutinized against the prince’s previous public statements. The inconsistencies are obvious, even if some people still have sympathy for the prince — who has never been convicted of a crime but settled a civil lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022 with no admission of guilt for an undisclosed sum and a one-year restriction on her speech.
Other troubling reports have streamed out in recent days with, again, no response from the prince or palace — that Andrew apparently asked his police guard to dig up information on Giuffre, something else he discussed with Epstein after he’d claimed to have ended contact. (The Metropolitan Police have said they are “actively looking into” this.) Reports also allege the prince had met with people linked to the Chinese spy case that recently roiled the British government. Then the terms of Andrew’s lease were disclosed, indicating the prince has lived rent-free for two decades at Royal Lodge, an incongruously named 30-room mansion he rents from the Crown Estate. (Technically, the rent is one peppercorn per year, if demanded, an arrangement that reflects the 7.5 million pounds the prince spent renovating the property but that, over time, is starkly below what the estate would fetch on the open market.)
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would support a parliamentary inquiry to ensure “proper scrutiny” of Crown Estate properties. Revenue from the estate goes to government coffers. On Thursday, Starmer’s government effectively blocked debate on the prince’s titles or home by refusing to give lawmakers time for discussion. Andrew is reportedly in talks to vacate Royal Lodge. The Telegraph reported Friday that he is negotiating with palace aides over where he would go and how much he would be compensated for breaking his 75-year lease on the property.
So anxious has Buckingham Palace been for the spotlight to stay on Charles that a spokesman said Monday that the monarch is focusing on “duty and service” in his long-standing mission to bring communities together” and hopes that people will not be distracted by “other matters.”
No British prince has had a title formally removed for more than a century.
But the other matters appear close to breaking through. With some of the reporting about Charles’ Vatican trip and his role as supreme governor of the Church of England — one of his many titles is Defender of the Faith — the Christian themes inherent in the trip have sparked questions about the royal family’s tolerance as the Andrew scandal has dragged on.
In 2019, the prince gave an interview to BBC “Newsnight” to address questions about his connection to Epstein. Andrew neither disavowed the friendship nor expressed sympathy for abuse victims. Criticism was so swift and strong, Andrew soon announced he would step back from public duties. In 2022, before settling Giuffre’s lawsuit, the prince returned his military affiliations and patronages. The publication of Giuffre’s memoir has amplified her voice — all the more hauntingly as she died by suicide in April at age 41. Among experiences so disturbing she at times implores readers to keep going, she writes that she thought she might “die a sex slave” at the hands of Epstein’s circle. Her tale is indelibly personalized; the human toll of years of abuse on display.
British lawmakers have a tricky path to navigate as outrage grows among their constituents over the prince’s association with a convicted sex offender, possible abuses of royal privileges and his cushy home life, especially as ordinary Brits face rising costs for food, housing and energy. In Britain’s constitutional monarchy, royals generally stay out of politics and politicians largely steer clear of matters regarding the royals. There are actual limitations on what Parliament can discuss when it comes to the conduct of members of the royal family. So it’s significant that some lawmakers have taken steps to raise the issues of Andrew’s title and housing setup.
“The argument that this is purely a matter for the royal family will not wash,” Vernon Bogdanor, an expert on the constitutional monarchy at King’s College London, told the New York Times. No British prince has had a title formally removed for more than a century, when the Titles Deprivation Act of 1917 was invoked to revoke honorifics from four men who had sworn allegiance to an enemy nation, Germany, during World War I. But the timing of the king’s trip this week was both a lucky break for Andrew, who couldn’t be censured with the king out of the country, and possibly the last straw for Charles, whose historic moment was marred by the focus on his brother.
For years the royal family and palace aides, believing Andrew’s denials, deferred to the prince. But the issue of action on Andrew is no longer a question of if but when and who — whether it will be lawmakers or the royals themselves who draw a line, and whether he will lose his grand mansion, his titles or both.