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The British royal family don’t usually do surprises. But this Christmas there were two. The first was King Charles III using his first Christmas speech to take a political stance and profess his solidarity with striking public servants.
The second was Prince Andrew sauntering into church with the rest of the fam, acting for all the world as if 2022 was not the year he paid a multi-million-dollar sum to settle sex abuse allegations out of court. The disgraced prince at one point even stopped to chat and joke with the crowds, asking one well-wisher how she was doing.
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When she responded “freezing” he replied: “Did you know the trick is to bring a newspaper? Stand on a newspaper and you insulate your feet.”
Whether or not the “trick” works is one question. A bigger one is: What the hell was Andrew doing there at all?
“It was a magnanimous gesture by the king,” a friend of Charles and Camilla told The Daily Beast when asked why, after an absence of three years, Andrew was this year permitted once again to join the family procession to church. (In 2019 he attended the private 9 a.m. service with Charles and was banned from the big 11 a.m. walk to church; there was no walk to church in 2020 due to COVID; and in 2021, when Christmas was held at Windsor Castle, Andrew did not attend.)
Magnanimous as this year’s very visible gesture of inclusion may well have been, it is also rather confusing, especially when the matter of Andrew at church had effectively been settled.
Indeed, ever since the Newsnight interview and the launch of legal action against him by Virginia Giuffre, Andrew has tended to be conspicuous by his absence at most royal gatherings.
What makes Charles’ decision to include him this year even odder is that much of Andrew’s exclusion from the life of the royal family has been at Charles’ behest, and against the wishes of their late mother, who always regarded Andrew as her favorite and tried to create opportunities for him to be included.
The Reverend Canon Dr Paul Williams (L) talks to Prince Andrew, Duke of York (C-L), Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (C-R) and Lady Louise Windsor (R) after the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church on Dec. 25, 2022 in Sandringham, Norfolk.
Stephen Pond/Getty ImagesA few examples tell the story of the extent to which Charles has sought to defenestrate his brother.
When Andrew was officially expelled from the royal family in November 2019, Prince Charles was on tour in New Zealand. Charles is widely believed to have ordered up and approved the statement in which Andrew resigned all his royal duties and patronages, having previously tried to cling on to them. The suspicion that it was Charles’ hand behind Andrew’s statement was fueled by the fact that it was issued unusually late in the day in the U.K.—but shortly after breakfast time in Auckland.
Or take the moment earlier this year, when Andrew was due to participate in an Order of the Garter ceremony presided over by his mother. Charles (supported by William) insisted he be excluded at the last minute, according to reports, and prevailed.
Weeks earlier, when Andrew popped up unexpectedly on his mother’s arm, leading her to her place at the memorial for Prince Philip, it is said to have infuriated Charles in particular. And then just the week before Christmas, the king finally kicked his brother out of his Buckingham Palace office, meaning he can no longer get mail sent to that iconic address. A source told The Sun: “Any presence at the Palace is officially over… The king has made it clear. He isn’t a working royal. He’s on his own.”
So Andrew suddenly being allowed, by Charles, to participate in the Sandringham stroll to church, when a precedent had effectively been established that he was not to be included in this tabloid moment, presumably to his brother’s satisfaction, is rather remarkable.
“Andrew is no longer part of the institution, but he is part of the family. His mother made that very clear,” says the friend.
This formulation—part of the family but not part of the Firm—could come back to haunt Charles.
It leaves open questions about whether Andrew will attend almost every high-profile event, most notably the coronation, surely an institutional event if ever there was one.
Yet it would be unwise to assume that he will not be there at his brother’s big day in May, especially as the Palace strongly hinted that Harry and Meghan will be invited to attend, with a source telling the Telegraph: “All members of the family will be welcome.”
And, if the new formulation in the corridors of power is that Andrew is in the family, that means he has an invite. A friend of Andrew’s told The Daily Beast that the question of whether or not he would be invited to the coronation was a matter for the king.
Neither Buckingham Palace nor Prince Andrew’s office responded to requests for comment on issues raised in this story.
Asked if his inclusion in such a totemic royal event as the Christmas walk was a reward for his silence, the friend of Charles and Camilla said, “He has done what he has been asked to do in terms of keeping a low profile. It’s no secret that Charles has never been close to Andrew, but Andrew has, for all his other faults, been intensely loyal to the institution.”
In an arch reference to Harry and Meghan’s recent Netflix show and Harry’s forthcoming memoir, Spare, the friend added, “[Andrew] hasn’t sold out the family secrets to the highest bidder.”
Whatever contradictions may be apparent in Charles’ newly forgiving attitude to his errant brother, it may well suit Charles to look (and indeed be) “magnanimous” as the new king.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, attends the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church on Dec. 25, 2022 in Sandringham, Norfolk.
Stephen Pond/Getty ImagesAndrew’s appearance at Christmas Day also closes off discussion about whether an effort will be made to deprive Harry and Meghan of their titles at senior levels.
It won’t, for fear—as a source recently told The Daily Beast—that to do so would open up a “Pandora’s box” of problems, and that pressure would build on Charles to strip Andrew of his title.
An item in the Daily Mail’s pseudonymous Ephraim Hardcastle column recently cited a source as saying, of plans to strip Harry and Meghan of their titles, “His Majesty doesn’t want it.”
Charles has decided that blood is thicker than water and that his brother should not be cast out from the life of the family.
Yet Charles may yet come to rue this non-Windsorish moment of putting family before Firm, as it creates opportunity for entirely valid media speculation about whether Andrew will or won’t be present ahead of forthcoming events.
Should the king be praised for showing a spirit of Christian charity? Or does this merely reinforce the narrative that the royals have quite shocking double standards when it comes to Andrew as opposed to Harry and Meghan?
