The British monarchy is an exercise in defying historical gravity. In 1900, most of the world was governed by royal dynasties. Today, they are a vanishing breed. The Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs have gone up in flames. The Scandinavian royals are mere bicycling monarchs. Britain’s royal family is unusual, along with Japan’s, in preserving the magnificence if not the substance of power.
The Prince Andrew affair — his entanglement with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and, through them, his accuser, Virginia Giuffre — is the worst thing that has happened to the Windsors since Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936.
A month ago, the prince was bravely promising to clear his name in court of charges that he sexually abused and raped Giuffre on three separate occasions when she was 17. On Tuesday, he reached an out-of-court settlement with her in which he agreed to pay a “substantial donation” — estimates suggest that it was in excess of 10 million pounds ($13.5 million) — to her charity supporting the rights of victims of sexual abuse. The terms of the deal prevent either side from discussing the case or the settlement itself in public. The prince didn’t issue an apology or admit to any wrongdoing. But he has cleared himself of legal jeopardy by leaving his reputation, such as it was, in tatters. “His final disgrace” was the tabloid headline splashed on The Sun.
The settlement has put paid to any chance of the prince returning to public life. The queen had already prepared for this eventuality last month by stripping him of his military titles and royal patronages. Now, the sidelining will be complete. Whether his premature retirement will be a blow to the monarchy is open to doubt: He and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson were always clodhopping at best and embarrassing at worst. Before the current scandal, his nicknames included “Randy Andy” and “Airmiles Andy.” On both the occasions that I’ve encountered him, his performance was subpar: once at the British Embassy in Washington when he gave a grumpy endorsement — or rather anti-endorsement — to Scottish whisky, and, once at Davos, when he stood alone at a bar studiously talking to nobody.
The real question is whether culling a single mangy stag will be enough to save the rest of the herd.
The royal family prides itself on its professionalism, calling itself The Firm and enjoying the assistance of high-flying diplomats and civil servants. But the Prince Andrew affair could hardly have been handled worse. The prince’s November 2019 interview with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis was a masterclass in how not to handle a crisis — express no sympathy for a trafficked teenager, make weird claims about not being able to sweat, and boast about growing up in a castle. Powerful courtiers who knew the prince’s limitations should have stepped in to prevent it. His legal defense was equally bone-headed: the team, which he put together himself, essentially followed the same failed legal strategy as Maxwell by trying to paint Giuffre as a fortune hunter. Its American rivals, led by David Boies, ran rings around them. Again, the Palace should have stepped in to prevent the debacle.
The payment of such a huge sum also raises troubling questions about the royal finances. Who will sign the check? Prince Andrew’s accounts are likely a hopeless mess — and contain the makings of more embarrassing headlines if the press decides to probe them. He certainly can’t lay his hands on more than 10 million pounds with any ease. The most likely source of the money is the queen, as some reports are already saying. But that raises even more sensitive questions. Why does she enjoy taxpayer subsidies if she has several million pounds under the bed? And should the head of the British state be buying her son’s way out of a sex scandal? Not a good look at a time when living standards are falling and #MeToo sentiments rife.
For now, the royal family is protected by the queen’s enormous and enduring popularity, which was founded on her consummate professionalism but is burnished, as she ages, by her fortitude in dealing with life’s tragedies, not least the death of her husband last year. Still, she cannot go on forever. Prince Charles is a loose cannon. The finances of his charity, the Prince’s Foundation, are under scrutiny: The Metropolitan Police announced it is going to investigate claims it helped to procure honors for a Saudi Arabian citizen. (A spokesman said the heir to the throne had “no knowledge of the alleged offer of honors.”) Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are in the habit, if not the business, of stirring up royal controversies. Opinion polls suggest that younger people are turning against the institution. The furious reaction on Twitter to Prince Andrew’s out-of-court settlement suggests that the sleeping beast of republicanism may be beginning to awaken.
To secure its long-term survival, the Firm needs to do more than lock Prince Andrew in a castle and hope that the public will forget about him. It needs to learn some lessons from this whole sordid affair. It needs to prune the royal tree severely — stop funding minor royals (who are always a potential source of scandals) and focus exclusively on the direct heirs to the throne. It still galls that Prince Andrew’s younger daughter Eugenie was treated to an all-singing-and-dancing royal wedding at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle: She’s only 12th in line to the throne. Better professionals must be hired to improve the operation of the royal machine — as well as appointing courtiers who have a passing acquaintance with the 21st century.
Defying gravity requires constant self-reinvention as well as ceaseless effort. Falter for a moment and you plummet, painfully, to Earth.
____
ABOUT THE WRITER
Adrian Wooldridge is the global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously a writer at the Economist. His latest book is "The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World."
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
