The Social World

Tag: Prince Andrew

  • Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should ignore Congress

    Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should ignore Congress

    As an American who respects the constitutional role and historical continuity of the British crown, I view the recent congressional request to interview Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with disgust. In early November, several of the most progressive Democratic members of the US Congress sent a letter asking him to participate in a “transcribed interview” regarding his past association with Jeffrey Epstein, with a response deadline of November 20.

    While Congress is free to seek information, the request carries no compulsory authority over a foreign national residing in the United Kingdom. In this context, the decision to issue such a demand – despite its unenforceability – is less an exercise of legitimate oversight than a symbolic, politically motivated gesture. Its implications extend beyond the individual to the broader relationship between the United States and a cherished ally.

    No congressional body has the power to compel testimony from a British citizen living on British soil. The Democratic signatories are well aware of this limitation. They hold no subpoena authority in this matter, nor any realistic diplomatic leverage to transform their request into an obligation. What they do have is political incentive: Epstein’s network remains a potent source of scandal, and the opportunity to summon a disgraced royal provides ready-made headlines when so many prominent Democratic names are implicated.

    It is not as though Andrew has escaped consequences. Far from it. The King has stripped his brother of the remaining symbols of royal status: the style of His Royal Highness in any official capacity, his leasehold of Royal Lodge, and the last vestiges of public duty. A man who once served his country in wartime now lives in seclusion, his military titles and patronages relinquished, his public life reduced to silence. His 2022 settlement with Virginia Giuffre – substantial in scale, though without admission of liability – closed the civil litigation against him. He has repeatedly denied criminal wrongdoing, and no jurisdiction, British or American, has brought charges against him. The monarchy has taken its course. To pretend he remains unaccountable is to ignore the very real penalties he has absorbed.

    Why, then, must salt be poured on this wound by the US government? The Democratic members leading the request – foremost among them Representatives Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam – frame their interest as part of a wider effort to “uncover the identities of Mr. Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers.” Yet it strains belief that, five years after Epstein’s death and with Ghislaine Maxwell already serving a lengthy prison sentence, the testimony of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is uniquely indispensable – particularly when so many powerful and prominent Americans have escaped scrutiny. The timing is difficult to ignore: rudderless Democrats facing a fresh election cycle appear eager to present themselves as champions of justice.

    More troubling is what such a request implies about the relationship between sovereign states. The Crown has endured invasions, civil wars, religious upheavals and aerial bombardment, yet it has never sought validation by submitting its internal affairs to foreign legislative scrutiny. When Parliament executed Charles I, it did not appeal to European assemblies for absolution. When George III lost the American colonies, he did not send the Prince of Wales to justify himself before the Continental Congress. The constitutional monarchy has survived precisely because it understands its own prerogatives and responsibilities. Its legitimacy arises from the British people and the British constitution – not from congressional committees in Washington.

    Were Andrew to travel to Washington now – stripped of titles and shorn of institutional protection – he would be entering a political theater in which the rules are set entirely by those seeking to question him. There would be no adversarial process, no opportunity for cross-examination, and no safeguards against selective leaking. Congressional interviews are not judicial proceedings; they are political platforms. To expect a private British citizen, however notorious, to submit himself to such a process is to disregard both diplomatic custom and the principle of sovereignty.

    Britain has already acted. The King, exercising constitutional authority, has removed his brother from public life. The United Kingdom has determined the appropriate response to Andrew’s conduct. For American lawmakers to insist on an additional public reckoning – particularly those belonging to a party long eager to downplay the Epstein-related associations of prominent figures among their own ranks, such as Bill Clinton – is less a pursuit of justice than an attempt to distract and obfuscate.

    None of this excuses Epstein’s crimes or the moral failures of those who enabled him. But justice is not advanced by this shameless smokescreen. The Crown is larger than any one man, and it has acted to protect its integrity. The US government should acknowledge that action rather than attempt to supersede it.

    Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is under no obligation to respond to Congress’s request—and he would be right not to. Sovereign nations must know where their authority ends. It is time certain members of Congress remembered where theirs does.

  • Will the Andrew formerly known as prince appear before Congress?

    Will the Andrew formerly known as prince appear before Congress?

    Amidst all the ceremony and gravity of Britain’s Remembrance Day service on Sunday, one salient fact could not be ignored. The King has long talked of his desire for a “stripped-down monarchy,” and now he has his wish. The only male figures from the Firm who were out on show alongside him were the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward, who together had the effect of making the royals look a rather paltry selection compared to the grander gatherings of the past.

    We all know about Harry, but although some would like to see him, too, stripped of his royal title, Montecito’s second most famous resident continues to be able to refer to himself as a prince. This is not a luxury that his disgraced uncle enjoys any longer, as he adjusts to life not as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, but plain old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As he prepares to leave Royal Lodge for a more modest existence in a grace and favor home tucked in some obscure corner of the Sandringham Estate, he may look around and wonder if his disgrace is yet over. Well, judged by recent events, the bad news for him just keeps on coming.

    During his “heyday,” Andrew liked to present himself as a swashbuckling, entrepreneurial figure, thanks to his Pitch@Palace initiative, which invited would-be moneymakers to come to Buckingham Palace and get their businesses off the ground. Unsurprisingly, given his shame, this is no longer a going concern. Documents seen by the Guardian show that the last remaining part of the business, Pitch@Palace Global, has been wound up after its UK side foundered in 2021.

    Admittedly, after Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview, it is doubtful that even the most desperate would-be businessman would have seen the soon-to-be banned old Duke of York as the answer to their prayers, but the knowledge that this beleaguered endeavor is no more shows how total, and terminal, his disgrace is. (Lest we forget, it was from the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace that the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo emerged, suggesting that Andrew’s judgment when it comes to those he kept company with has always been terrible.)

    And what of middle England? Well, Andrew has a few supporters who argue doughtily for the presumption of innocence before guilt is proved. Yet the overwhelming majority of the country consider that enough wrongdoing has now been established to regard the former prince as unspeakable, and they are not afraid to make their feelings felt. Residents of Prince Andrew Road and Prince Andrew Close in Maidenhead are hoping that the names of their streets will be changed, to avoid the taint of association. One long-sufferer local, Kelly Pevy, told the Daily Telegraph that: “If you’re giving someone the address, it’s the first thing [they’re] going to say. When I speak to energy companies and they ask for the address, they make a little joke. It’s mentioned more and more, and so then you start thinking about it more.”

    It remains to be seen whether the dwellers of Maidenhead succeed in their petition to the local MP to end this little joke, but if Andrew takes a moment out from a head-down routine of self-pity and video games, he may by now be seeing the enormity of the disgrace he faces. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have asked that he be summoned to the United States and Congress to answer questions about the precise nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Although they have no legal power to compel him to attend, Andrew knows that to do so would be potentially hazardous. Not only could he be prosecuted for perjury if any part of his testimony is false, but his presence in America would open him up to investigation, even arrest, for his alleged activities with the then-17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.

    Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – there is currently some debate as to whether his last name will be hyphenated or not – is as maligned as anyone in public life today. Yet if he had stopped playing Call of Duty on Sunday and watched his elder brother and nephew remember the fallen, he would have been aware of what real courage and real sacrifice look like. Andrew, by contrast, is an insignificant figure, too sinister and grim to be pathetic and too boring to be laughable. His downfall, in all its embarrassing little details, reflects the man perfectly.

  • Prince Andrew finds refuge in video games

    Prince Andrew finds refuge in video games

    Oh God, not that. That’s all we need, I thought, reading in a long account of Britain’s Prince Andrew’s current travails that “according to visitors to Royal Lodge,” he now “spends much of his time playing video games.” Even before all the unpleasantness with the child-rape allegations against Jeffrey Epstein, one of the Prince’s more embarrassing qualities was his appearing as an “ambassador” for this or that – usually accompanied by a helicopter trip to a golf course.

    Now he’s reduced – no chopper, no putting green; woe is him – to being an ambassador for adults who play video games. As an adult who plays video games, and even writes about them from time to time, I generally welcome news of figures in public life who do the same. Not on this occasion.

    Does it not, after all, play into the worst stereotypes of the hobby? We are invited to picture this paunchy blue-blooded delinquent – a man so gauche he’s said to have rejoiced, lifelong, in demanding his phone extension end in 007 – sitting in his monogrammed underpants and his silk robe, surrounded by old pizza boxes, hammering away at the PlayStation into the small hours of the morning because he has nothing else in his life. Curiously, the exiled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is also said to spend most of his time holed up in his Moscow apartment gaming. Rumor has it that he tends to play World of Tanks, a multiplayer online game in which he prefers using Russian equipment.

    What games is Andrew playing, the likes of me can’t help but wonder? The generic mobile game Royal Match – in which you shuffle gems into rows of the same color to rescue a portly royal personage from drowning, being eaten by a snake or locked in prison – would be a bit on the nose. Is he trash-talking noobs in some Call of Duty multiplayer lobby? Again, unlikely: a man with the prince’s ego wouldn’t stick long at a game in which the hand-eye coordination of a 65-year-old is tested anonymously against that of a teenager. I prefer to imagine that he’s playing through some deep, long, immersive, cartoony, learn-at-your-own-pace one-player game of the sort that bears no relation to reality. Super Mario Galaxy, say, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

    In that case, we can say that this situation is decipherable – that if you were watching the only life you have known crashing around your ears, you might like to escape into another world. A defining quality of good video games – which makes them as addictive as other things that share this property – is that they are deeply absorbing. They take you out of yourself and into another place. That is not in and of itself a bad thing. Humankind cannot, as a wise man once said, bear very much reality.

    It strikes me that video games could offer a safe and harmless outlet for the prince’s bruised ego. He is a man, after all, who sets very great store by rank and station. He loves to be called “Sir.” A couple of weeks ago, a bit before the Firm harvested his various titles like Mario running through a cache of power-ups, it was reported that he had emailed Epstein saying “We are in this together” fully three months after he claimed to have ceased all contact. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing. What struck me most strongly, apart from him contradicting his earlier statement, was that said email was apparently signed: “A., HRH The Duke of York, KG.” Could there be anything more cringe-inducing than following that slightly nauseating just-the-initial signature with a cavalcade of formal titles? Even if this was the work of a standard email footer, it tells you something about the man.

    All those titles and honors he collected, cherish them as he did, arrived by accident of birth. They were imaginary honors – no more substantial than pixels on a screen. Yet there’s something to be learned from that. Even if the wider world disdains him and the titles he hoarded are gone, he can acquire some new ones in the virtual world. Better ones, in fact.

    For any achievements he earns in a video game are ones he will have gained by working for them. My 11-year-old was cock-a-hoop when he cracked platinum ranking in Rocket League (a game where you play soccer with cars, m’lud) – and I don’t blame him. It’s a positively Ruritanian honor as far as the outside world is concerned, but it means that in this small arena, he excels. Same with, say, a purple parse on Ragnaros in Warcraft Logs.

    They don’t hand video game achievements out for free. You have, in the parlance of that world, to grind for them. There’s no shortcut to the muscle memory that allows you to navigate the final level on Bubble Bobble or learn how to snapshot trinket procs for the optimal feral rotation; no way of bypassing the endless matches you need to play to optimize your team on FIFA.

    Just ask Elon Musk. So hungry was he for the approbation of the video game community, the big wally, that he claimed to be in the top 20 Diablo IV players in the world – only to be called out when live-streaming a game which showed that he had only a semi-shaky grasp of the skills involved. It was widely concluded that he had been getting other players to “boost” his character. No great surprise. Reaching that sort of rank in that or any other game would require not only unusual talent but the investment of much, much more time than Musk can reasonably be expected to have devoted to it.

    You can’t rank up in video games, as you can in the royal family, by whining at Mom until she gives you another medal, feathered hat or garter ribbon. You need to work at it. So if Prince Andrew devotes himself to collecting 121 stars in Super Mario Galaxy, we should regard it as the closest thing this wretched creature will get to redemption.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 10, 2025 World edition.

  • Prince Andrew no more

    It’s all over for Prince Andrew or, as he is now known, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The former Duke of York, ex-trade envoy and, for all we know, Grand Pooh-Bah of Kazakhstan, has been stripped of every one of his titles. Andrew has also been ejected from his Windsor mansion by his brother, the King.

    In a terse, angry statement, Buckingham Palace that said that: “His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honors of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him. Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

    And, with those 109 words – six more than the original statement that sent this rather tarnished Adam out of his garden of Eden, or at least the Royal Lodge that he had been living in, rent-free for decades – Andrew was removed into banishment.

    The language of the statement is unprecedented. “Censures” is a word that is particularly damning. So, too, is the statement’s sign off: that the Royals’ ‘thoughts and utmost sympathies’ are with abuse survivors.

    No doubt some will still choose to defend Andrew. Seven percent of the public expressed sympathy for Andrew this week, despite the publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir. Yes, 93 percent of Brits may have turned their back on Andrew, but it’s still remarkable that anyone is willing to stick up for Andrew.

    Perhaps they are entitled to, just as there are those who believe that Elvis is living in platonic bliss somewhere. But the realists will see that Mr. Andrew Windsor, as we can now, finally, call him, has been served the punishment that his arrogant, selfish actions have merited all along.

    Andrew can skulk in some ignominious corner of the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England for the rest of his days. Few would see that as anything other than a fitting judgment on a man who refused to believe, even when confronted with the most damning of evidence, that he had done anything wrong. Posterity, and his public, will contend otherwise.

  • Have the Virginia Giuffre revelations got Prince Andrew sweating?

    Have the Virginia Giuffre revelations got Prince Andrew sweating?

    It is a staple of Gothic fiction that the malefactor is often caught out by a document or apparition that appears from beyond the grave. And so it appeared for Britain’s scandal-riddled Prince Andrew, ever since it was announced that Virginia Giuffre, who the now-former Duke of York allegedly had sexual relations with when he was 41 and she was 17, was posthumously publishing a memoir, entitled Nobody’s Girl, in which she offered candid accounts of what, precisely, happened with Andrew, courtesy of the disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone – including the royal family – braced for impact, and the decision to remove Andrew’s title and Order of the Garter must surely have been dictated by this latest humiliation.

    Although Nobody’s Girl is not published until next week, excerpts have now been released to newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, and it is a strange mixture of the newsworthy and the unremarkable. Giuffre once again recounts how she had sex with Prince Andrew three times, courtesy of Epstein’s pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, and how she was paid $15,000 by Epstein to keep the duke happy. She describes the actual sex as being unremarkable, if tending towards the fetishistic – “He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches” – and the whole thing was over in less than half an hour.

    The picture painted of Andrew is certainly unflattering and aligns closely with that Giuffre had already said in various court depositions – how she was taken to the exclusive London nightclub Tramp, despite being underage, and how the duke “was sort of a bumbling dancer, and I remember he sweated profusely.” (This, of course, led to Andrew’s reputational downfall in his 2019 Newsnight interview, in which he said, straight-faced, that he was medically incapable of perspiring.) The most damning statement is Giuffre’s reflection that “he was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.” After all, in her recollection, Andrew was the second son of Elizabeth II, and Giuffre was just one of the innumerable girls that Epstein provided for him, as if on a platter.

    Andrew, of course, denies all claims of wrongdoing and also has suggested that not only did he never have sex with Giuffre, but that he has no recollection of meeting her. Few are convinced. Resurfaced emails suggested that he and Epstein were “in this together” and that when the fuss had died down, “we’ll play some more soon.” These were far more damaging than anything that has so far been released from Nobody’s Girl, because the association with Epstein – which lasted far longer than Andrew had admitted – is so toxic that it will hang over him like a nuclear cloud for the rest of his life.

    With this calumny removing any chance of a public comeback, Andrew will now be grasping at what little comfort he can seize from the situation. It is highly unlikely, on present evidence, that criminal proceedings will be brought against him, and even if they were to be opened in the US, it is highly unlikely that an extradition attempt would succeed. It is widely believed that no member of the royal family would ever be tried in a criminal court in the UK – noblesse oblige dies hard – and so it is likely that Andrew will remain at liberty, even with his reputation shot to naught. Likewise, there is no revelation from Giuffre’s book – so far, at any rate – that dramatically worsens his situation. Yet there is every chance that, as the Epstein emails slowly drip-feed into public view, there is worse to come, and one could hardly blame the banned old Duke of York for lying awake at night awaiting the next revelation – and sweating profusely at the thought of it.

  • Duchess of York’s email to Epstein spurred by ‘chilling’ call

    Duchess of York’s email to Epstein spurred by ‘chilling’ call

    Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and former wife of Prince Andrew, has come under scrutiny this week after an email that saw her praising pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed. The Duchess’s spokesperson said that Ferguson had received a “chilling” phone call from the criminal after she gave an interview in 2011 confessing to have made a “terrible, terrible error of judgement” in accepting £15,000 from Epstein and insisting: “I abhor pedophilia” After the phone conversation, Ferguson emailed Epstein to say she “humbly apologized” for criticizing him publicly and described the convicted child sex abuser as a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend.” Good heavens…

    In light of that correspondence with Epstein, the Duchess was dropped as a patron by a number of charities – including a children’s hospice. Defending Ferguson, her spokesperson and adviser James Henderson recalled:

    People don’t understand how terrible Epstein was. I can remember everything about that call. It was a chilling call and I’m surprised anybody was ever friends with him given the way he talked to me. He said he would destroy the York family and he was quite clear on that. He said he would destroy me. He wasn’t shouting. He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty.

    Henderson told the Telegraph that as a result of the call, he saved Epstein’s number to ensure he would never pick up again if the pedophile chose to make another call. But while her adviser may understand the rationale behind Ferguson’s gushing email to Epstein, the charities she has worked with for decades are not quite as forgiving. After years of philanthropy, the Duchess has had her ties to organizations including the Teenage Cancer Trust, the British Heart Foundation and the Children’s Literacy Charity severed.

    Ferguson’s former husband, Prince Andrew, settled a civil case out of court with the late Virginia Giuffre – who accused him of sexually assaulting her on three occasions when she was 17 years old, accusations he denied. Andrew’s Newsnight interview in 2019 on his friendship with Epstein further damaged his reputation and he no longer uses the title His Royal Highness in an official capacity. More recently, ex-UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, was sacked from his role after email exchanges with Epstein were uncovered – showing the diplomat had offered to help the pedophile try and overturn his conviction.

    But will the intervention of Ferguson’s adviser earn her much sympathy? Cockburn wouldn’t be so sure…

  • What is Prince Andrew hiding?

    What is Prince Andrew hiding?

    This month marks exactly forty years since I became a literary agent. In that time I have been involved with many bestsellers but the publication last week of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York about Prince Andrew has been my most successful book. What makes it especially different is that I am not just its agent but also its author.

    It has been a strange but exciting experience watching a project which has gestated for four years to finally see the light of day. The reaction has been overwhelming with the Daily Mail, which serialized the book over five days, calling it “The most devastating royal biography ever written” and interviews with media organizations all over the world.

    The media has now moved from reporting the disclosures in the book to discussions on connected but wider issues raised such as the need for greater royal transparency – a subject I have campaigned on for many years – and to the future of the monarchy itself. The Australian Daily Telegraph has even written “Lownie’s book is the touchpaper for more revelations to come, and if the palace is implicated, even by oversight, it could be far more damaging than even the abdication of King Edward VIII 90 years ago next year.” Let us see.

    As an historian, I am used to working with documents. This book, my first biography of a living person, is a departure as it relies almost entirely on interviews. Royal books are notoriously difficult to research. There is an omertà of silence around the British royal family with friendship circles that go back generations, tight non-disclosure agreements and a strong sense of loyalty and deference. Writing about the intelligence services was easier.

    For the book, I approached some 3,000 former school friends, work colleagues, staff and business associates, of whom roughly a tenth agreed to be interviewed. What surprised me was how many agreed to go on the record – often the most senior officials – and can only surmise that they felt the story needed to be told.

    My aim in writing the book has been to ask questions of the late Queen’s second son and to investigate evidence of financial corruption at the heart of the royal family.

    This is not a message monarchists – and I count myself one of them – want to hear so there has been a lot of criticism of me as messenger. Another criticism has been the fact that I have included details of the couple’s private life. This is always a dilemma for a biographer where the inner life of the subjects must be addressed.

    Much has been removed on advice mostly on grounds of privacy and taste. We debated at length questions such as whether Prince Andrew had a reputation to lose and where the boundaries lay with such a public figure. My feeling is his early sexual experiences shaped his later sexual behavior and that reporting credible evidence that he went through 40 women on a four-day official visit to Thailand paid for by the taxpayer was legitimate.

    It is perhaps episodes such as these which may explain why none of the files relating to his time as special representative for trade and investment between 2001 and 2011 have been released in spite of numerous Freedom of Information requests from me over the last four years.

    The Information Rights Departments of the Foreign Office and the Department of Business and Trade have skillfully deployed every possible exemption from health and safety and national security to commercial confidentiality and personal data, to ensure the files – some of which by law should have been deposited in the National Archives after 20 years – remain closed.

    Frame the request too widely and it will be rejected on the grounds it will be too expensive to search. Narrow the request and one is told the department holds nothing. If one does manage to secure the odd piece of paper it will be almost entirely redacted in black.

    Why are these files so important? They would reveal who Prince Andrew took on his trips, who they saw and what business might have been done. I already know from talking to diplomats that he brought along his daughters, with all the attendant security costs, giving them a Filofax of contacts to expand their networks.

    Others on the trips included Jeffrey Epstein as well as Andrew’s business partners David and Jonathan Rowland who were able to shoehorn into the schedule meetings pertinent to them rather than for the promotion of British trade.

    What it might also confirm is the long list of demands that were sent ahead ranging from an insistence that drinking water be served at room temperature to Weetabix being provided at breakfast. One girlfriend was impressed to see among his luggage what appeared to be a surfboard. He sheepishly had to admit it was an ironing board to ensure, even though he stayed at five-star hotels, that his trousers were always neatly pressed.

    In many ways, Entitled is a tragi-comedy – the story of how a popular royal couple fell from grace. I am interested to see how it may play out.

  • Will Virginia Giuffre sink Prince Andrew?

    There’s an old saying that revenge tastes best when served cold. The late Virginia Giuffre has gone a step further by serving up her final helping of vengeance against Prince Andrew by publishing her sure-to-be-revelatory memoir, Nobody’s Girl, from beyond the grave this October. Giuffre collaborated with the writer Amy Wallace on a 400-page book that is expected to divulge in no doubt excruciatingly painful and embarrassing detail, the various relationships that she had with the notorious likes of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and – of course! – the Duke of York himself.

    Announcing the book, her publisher Knopf claimed that it would offer “intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell, and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew.” Although Giuffre died by suicide in Australia in April this year, at the age of 41, she sent Wallace an email expressing her wish that the book should be published in any event, saying that: “The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness.”

    Knopf supposedly paid millions of dollars for the memoir, matching the rumored multi-million pound settlement that Giuffre reached with Prince Andrew in 2022 out of court, which allowed him to avoid the potentially disastrous – and legally hazardous – prospect of testifying in court in the civil sexual assault case that she brought against him.

    It was widely speculated that Andrew was informed by his family (or, at least, his late mother) that if he was not entirely certain that the case would go in his favor that he would have to pay up, but that if he was not cleared in a public forum that he would no longer have a place in the royal family. This has largely proved to be the case ever since, and although the Duke occasionally appears, embarrassingly and briefly, at set-piece events such as Christmas get-togethers at the royal country retreat of Sandringham, he has effectively become a non-person.

    Will the book be great literature? That seems doubtful

    Although Andrew might wish that his withdrawal from public life is enough, that seems unlikely to be the case. The rumors surrounding his behavior with Giuffre (and others) are sufficiently widespread and persistent firstly for a recent biography of him, Entitled, to be a number one bestseller in the United Kingdom (although some critics, including me, found the book to be a relentless hit job that grew wearying long before the end) and now for the publication of Nobody’s Girl to be one of the biggest literary events of the year, perhaps even the decade.

    Will the book be great literature? That seems doubtful, but it will, without any doubt, be essential reading for anyone who is interested in the downfall of wealthy and powerful men. It’s not even impossible that it might have some light to shed on that most vexed and controversial of issues, namely whether her tormentor Jeffrey Epstein really did repent of his sins long enough to commit suicide, or whether someone else stepped in during one of the convenient periods that the prison CCTV cameras were turned off.

    In any case, Giuffre’s book will be unmissable proof that, even with its author no longer present to point the finger, she is still wholly capable of causing reputational damage to the great and the not-so-good. Many of those surviving may have breathed a sigh of relief at her death. This news has proved that such an exhalation would have been deeply premature.

  • I actually feel sorry for Prince Andrew

    I actually feel sorry for Prince Andrew

    “Many would have preferred this book not to be written, including the Yorks themselves.” So Andrew Lownie begins his coruscating examination of the lives of Prince Andrew and Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson, which has excited significant media attention due to its scandalous revelations. Lownie, a historian and literary agent, has pivoted away from an earlier, more conventional career as a biographer of John Buchan and Guy Burgess to the self-appointed role of royal botherer-in-chief. After earlier, similarly scabrous books about the Mountbattens and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII and his wife, Wallis Simpson), he now finds his first contemporary targets, and the results are predictably marmalade-dropping.

    Prince Andrew’s decline in public popularity over the past decade, exacerbated by stories of his ill-considered friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and rumors of the sexual abuse of the underage Virginia Giuffre, was capped by his disastrous 2019 interview with a disgusted-looking Emily Maitlis, a presenter on Britain’s Channel 4, in which he tried and failed to salvage his reputation with a series of bizarre admissions that made him look both stupid and sinister. Today, he has an uneasy relationship with members of the wider royal family, who would like to be shot of him but are reluctant to cast off one of their own; and suspicions persist that it will only take one more scandal for him to be banished to reputational Siberia.

    Entitled, then, is designed to serve two complementary but distinct purposes. It is the first serious attempt to deal with the life story of a grotesque man who was nicknamed “Baby Grumpling” shortly after his birth in 1960. He was his mother’s favorite child, but even she acknowledged that he was “not always a little ray of sunshine about the house.” The bullying, arrogant boy who would rhetorically ask his Gordonstoun contemporaries “You do know who I am?” would grow up a lonely, essentially friendless figure. Even the knowledge that “Randy Andy” was, in the words of one former lover, “a well-built gentleman” would eventually become his undoing. Lownie writes that Andrew reputedly slept with more than 1,000 women, of whom by far the most notorious (supposedly) was Giuffre, who eventually won an out-of-court settlement rumoured to have been around £10 million.

    But Entitled also aims to delve beneath the benignly useless exterior of Ferguson – described by one source as “all high jinks and jolly hockey sticks and practical jokes.” Lownie suggests she is rather a pitiful figure who has clung to her ex-husband’s coat-tails in an attempt to maintain her status and income alike. She has always suffered insecurity about her appearance and weight, but her financial illiteracy was such that a court case revealed: “Sarah had explained her actions by saying she was drunk, was trying to help a friend and in debt.” Perhaps only drink could account for the decision to write a series of lifestyle books entitled Madame Pantaloon.

    Lownie achieves the near impossible: one almost feels sorry for Prince Andrew

    Yet if Fergie comes across as an essentially comic character, the Duke of York is a villain. Lownie clearly loathes the man, who is depicted in the most unflattering light at virtually every turn. If one contemporary attempts to excuse the worst of his behaviour as being driven by shyness or a desire to help friends, another source, usually anonymous, will testify to his arrogance or snobbery or some other unpleasant trait. He gets some grudging credit for his courage during the Falklands War, in which he participated as a helicopter pilot; but it is made clear that the exaggerated reporting of his exploits was driven more by duty than genuine admiration. And by the time we are offered a minutely detailed account of his Epstein-triggered disgrace and downfall, Lownie achieves the near impossible: one almost feels sorry for Prince Andrew. 

    This is not a book that any of the royal family will enjoy reading. There are casually delivered revelations, such as Prince Philip (Elizabeth II’s consort) having had an adulterous affair with Ferguson’s mother Susan in the 1960s, that no other biographer has ever made public. And there is a discussion of Andrew and Harry having a fight in 2013, following which Harry allegedly told William how much he hated his uncle Andrew. Lownie concludes cheerily: “It is ironic that the Duke and Duchess of York, ostensibly the strongest defenders of the monarchy, may through their behavior between them have done most to hasten its demise.” It is hard not to believe that the author would relish such a downfall.

    One cannot help wondering whether Entitled, which combines high-minded contempt and bitchy gossip in readable but seldom inspired prose, is the precursor to another, yet more scandalous account by Lownie of the younger members of the royal family, specifically Harry and Meghan. Perhaps it will be called Dumb and Dumber. In any case, this is a fascinating if oddly joyless book that will no doubt sell in huge quantities. But be prepared to feel queasy after this wallow in the dark side of noblesse oblige.

  • President and prince differ over exorcism of Epstein’s ghost

    President and prince differ over exorcism of Epstein’s ghost

    Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost, a specter of elite scandal, continues to haunt both the American presidency and British monarchy. Donald Trump, embodying the presidency’s assertive role, and Prince Andrew, entangled by Epstein ties, face persistent scrutiny. Court documents from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, unsealed in 2024, name both amongst Epstein’s associates, fuelling public demands for clarity. A 2025 poll shows 58 percent of Americans follow the saga, with bipartisan calls for document releases reflecting a quest for justice. Trump’s confrontational playbook and the monarchy’s reserved silence, though starkly different, are each tailored to their institutional contexts, proving appropriate despite Epstein’s lingering shadow.

    Trump’s playbook is defined by bold engagement. He rejects Epstein-related reports as “fake,” filing a July 2025 lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over an alleged 2003 letter from Epstein. Through press conferences and social media, he labels the scandal a “hoax” driven by a hostile media, asserting he cut ties with Epstein after a 2004 dispute over staff poaching at Mar-a-Lago. In July 2025, Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche she saw no concerning behavior from Trump, per ABC News sources. This supports his defense, countering critics’ claims. Republican subpoenas targeting Bill Clinton’s Epstein ties (e.g., four 2002–2003 flights) redirect scrutiny, aligning with Trump’s strategy to challenge establishment tropes. His 2025 decision to withhold Epstein files, despite campaign pledges, aims to shield allies from media distortion. While some supporters – 33 percent of Republicans, per surveys – seek openness, most back his resistance to perceived bias. This approach suits the presidency’s need for visibility in a polarized landscape, where assertive leadership resonates with supporters expecting defiance against a critical press.

    The monarchy’s playbook, conversely, is one of dignified restraint. Prince Andrew, after his flawed 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, withdrew from public duties in May 2020 and settled with Giuffre in 2022 for $16 million (£12 million), denying liability. Buckingham Palace issues brief denials, labeling allegations “categorically untrue.” This silence preserves the monarchy’s role as an apolitical symbol of continuity, avoiding spats that could erode its dignity. A new biography, Entitled by Andrew Lownie, detailing Andrew’s Epstein ties and financial misconduct, has heightened scrutiny, with only 9 percent public approval (YouGov, Q2 2025). Palace insiders discuss stripping Andrew’s titles – Duke of York, even “Prince”– via parliamentary action, a step Prince William may pursue as king, reflecting a cautious shift from King Charles III’s traditional approach. Andrew’s presence at events like Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 memorial sparks criticism, but the monarchy’s restraint aligns with public expectations of regal composure, allowing time to temper public discontent.

    These divergent playbooks suit their contexts. Trump’s confrontational strategy, leveraging Maxwell’s testimony and political tactics, fits the his style for bold leadership, meeting supporters’ expectations in a divided media environment. The monarchy’s silence, rooted in tradition, upholds its symbolic role, with title-stripping discussions showing measured adaptation to public pressure. Both approaches aim to preserve legitimacy, addressing the Epstein scandal in ways that reflect their unique roles: Trump’s visibility counters the media, while the monarchy’s restraint maintains national unity.

    Epstein’s phantom persists through victims’ voices. Giuffre’s advocacy and Johanna Sjoberg’s testimony of misconduct lend weight to public demands, cutting through conspiracy tropes. Teresa Helm’s criticism of a potential Maxwell pardon highlights the human toll, resonating across ideologies. Bipartisan lawmakers pushing for Epstein document releases reflect a call for justice, not mere sensationalism, underscoring the scandal’s gravity.

    Both navigate Epstein’s haunting legacy. Trump’s defiance, supported by Maxwell’s statement, aligns with his base’s distrust of media, though pardon speculation raises concerns. The monarchy’s silence faces accountability demands, as the Prince’s unpopularity fuels title removal calls. Yet, each playbook remains appropriate: Trump’s engagement suits a combative political arena, while the monarchy’s restraint preserves its symbolic gravitas.

    Leadership demands balancing reputation with trust. Trump sustains his base’s confidence by challenging media stories, while carefully managing file releases. The monarchy, addressing Andrew’s titles, upholds its role whilst responding to concerns, avoiding perceptions of aloofness. Both confront victims like Giuffre and Helm, whose voices keep Epstein’s ghost alive.

    Epstein’s shadow lingers, but Trump’s bold playbook and the monarchy’s cautious one each fit their purpose. For observers, the monarchy’s restraint reflects enduring tradition, adapting slowly to scrutiny. Trump’s defiance meets the MAGA movement’s need for action, navigating Epstein’s ghost with resolve suited to a polarized era.