The imminent threat of an FBI subpoena in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation prompted Prince Charles to encourage Queen Elizabeth to make the difficult but historic decision to tell Prince Andrew that it had become impossible for him to continue his royal duties, reports from multiple outlets say.
The queen on Wednesday summoned Andrew to Buckingham Palace to effectively “sack” him — four days after his disastrous interview with the BBC about his controversial friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The queen consulted with Charles about her decision, as the royal family and Buckingham Palace “braced” for a subpoena from U.S. authorities investigating Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and Aug. 10 death, the Telegraph reported.
It’s possible that the FBI was heading to London to interview Andrew before Christmas, viewing the Duke of York as a “key witness” in their probe, the Daily Mail added.
“It was a devastating moment for both of them,” a friend of Andrew’s told The Sun about the meeting with his mother. “It is unlikely he will ever perform royal duties again. He is disgraced.”
The queen felt she had no choice but to tell Andrew to step back from public life after furor rose over her second son’s “disastrous,” “car crash” interview about Epstein and allegations he had sex with one of the financier’s underaged “sex slaves” in 2001. The Duke of York came off as arrogant and unsympathetic to Epstein’s victims and offered cagey, provably false claims for why the allegations against him cannot be true.
“(The queen) saw the fallout and was very unhappy,” a royal source added to The Sun. “She has spent her whole life protecting the monarchy and in just one week her son’s actions threatened to tear it apart.”
While the queen previously stood by her son, everything changed after the BBC interview. “Something had to be done to draw a line under all of this,” the source told The Sun.
Reports also say the queen discussed the situation with Charles, who is on a royal tour in New Zealand, The Sun and Telegraph reported. Charles also had “crisis talks” with his younger brother and told him he needed to step down.
A senior palace source told The Sun: “Charles was very involved in the decision as heir to the throne. He knew action had to be taken. The Duke knew he couldn’t fight anymore. His royal career is over.”
From a Daily Beast report from Monday, it sounds like Charles was champing at the bit to get Andrew out of the public eye, especially since the outrage over his brother’s BBC interview has overshadowed his trip to New Zealand.
“Charles’ jealous streak is well known,” one friend of the royal family told The Daily Beast. But royal writer Christopher Anderson also told the Daily Beast: “Charles does not want to inherit a crown that has been tarnished, scratched, and dented by a fresh round of scandals.”
In a statement issued Wednesday, Andrew, 59, said he accepted that his association with Epstein, who died in a Manhattan jail while facing new sex trafficking charges, “had become a major disruption to my family’s work.”
Andrew also vowed for the first time that he would fully cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. The investigation reportedly is looking at others, like Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly helped find and groom underaged girls for Epstein and his rich and powerful male friends to have sex with.
Maxwell is a longtime friend of Andrew’s who introduced him to Epstein in 1999. She is accused of forcing Virginia Roberts Giuffre to have sex with Andrew three times in 2001 when she was 17. Andrew has repeatedly denied, including in the BBC interview, having sex with Giuffre or even of having met her.
The Daily Beast added that there is speculation that Andrew agreed to do the BBC interview because he suspected that the FBI subpoena was coming. As the theory goes, he hoped “to get out ahead” of the story by winning over public opinion before law enforcement closed in. But his haughty manner and bizarre claims had the opposite effect.
The interview prompted attorneys representing some of Epstein’s victims to say that Andrew needs to get into contact with U.S. authorities as soon as possible. That includes celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who said Andrew should do so “without conditions and without delay,” the Daily Beast said.
Lisa Bloom, who represents five of Epstein’s victims, said she wanted Andrew to come to the United States to give evidence, the Daily Mail said.
“Andrew and his staff must cooperate with all investigations, show up for civil depositions and trials, and produce all documents,” Bloom said. “Nobody is above the law and everybody should have to answer questions.”
Perhaps in a face-saving move, Andrew said in his statement that he was the one who offered to give up his royal duties, and the queen consented. However, a “well-placed” palace source told The Telegraph, “Effectively he was told to bow out gracefully. They agreed he could release a statement saying it was his decision but it was the Queen who told him to do it.”
A statement by His Royal Highness The Duke of York KG. pic.twitter.com/LfMFwMyhcb
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) November 20, 2019
However the situation went down, Andrew’s life is expected to change significantly, the Sun said. For one thing, by losing his job as a royal means he also loses his tax-payer funded $322,000 annual income. However, he can keep his home in Windsor Great Park and he’ll still collect income from his mother’s estate, the source of her multimillion-pound private income, the Daily Mail said.
The duke also is stepping down from all his patronages. A palace courtier told The Sun, “There will be no activity for any charities. No public activities whatsoever.”
However, the queen gave Andrew permission to continue to work with the Pitch@Palace entrepreneurship initiative he founded in 2014 because it is a private project, the Daily Express said. The queen also assured Andrew that he remains a member of the royal family, which means he could still stand on the balcony at Buckingham Palace at major events, like the annual Trooping the Colour.
Royal observers called Andrew’s loss of royal status “historic” and “unprecedented.” University of Plymouth Professor Judith Rowbotham told The Sun that the development is on par with Edward VIII’s decision in 1936 to abdicate the throne and to agree to go into exile in order to marry U.S. divorcee Wallis Simpson. “There are plenty of parallels there,” she said.
