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Prince Andrew’s full exclusion from public life seems only a matter of time after plans were announced this week to shake up the arrangements which allow him to deputize for the monarch.
But contrary to some reports, Andrew still has a supportive group of loyal friends and is looking forward to a “busy” winter dominated by what he ill-advisedly called in his disastrous Newsnight interview “straightforward shooting weekend(s).”
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A source told The Daily Beast that Andrew was fully aware of King Charles’ plans—trailed in Britain’s Parliament this week—to water down his last constitutional role as a so-called “counselor of state,” changes that mean he will now never be called on to exercise that role and stand in for an incapacitated or absent monarch.
The source added that Andrew was “relaxed” about the planned move to add Edward and Anne to the ranks of the counselors of state, effectively replacing him and Prince Harry (although they won’t actually lose the title in a diplomatic concession made by the palace, instead being effectively diluted out), saying the “new arrangement” was “discussed and agreed with the queen earlier this year and the duke was aware of it.”
The source also pushed back against a characterization of the duke as a virtual “recluse” in a recent feature by the Daily Telegraph, saying it was “overstating things” but conceding that he “does lead a quiet life these days with little socializing.”
Andrew was stripped of all royal roles and duties by his late mother just weeks before he made a multi-million dollar out of court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, a Jeffrey Epstein trafficking victim who had accused Andrew of raping her when she was a teen.
Several other sources have told The Daily Beast that they believe Andrew will still have a social outlet via his network of longstanding shooting friends over the coming months, with one saying he is “looking forward to a busy” winter of social and personal events anchored around the pheasant shooting season, which got underway in the U.K. on Oct. 1.
Old friends and acquaintances of the prince said he is likely to receive multiple invitations for shoots in England and Scotland, some of which he has attended for decades, hosted by landowning friends who remain loyal to him.
Although the palace would not confirm whether or not King Charles would still allow Andrew to host shooting weekends at Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor, it is thought unlikely that Charles will strip him entirely of the privileges, which were always extended to him by his mother.
Hosting a day or two at some of the best shooting in the land is a powerful incentive for bloodsports enthusiasts to remain on friendly terms with Andrew. For Andrew, it’s a passport to a winter of fun, as, according to unwritten convention, shooting invitations are not generally supposed to be accepted unless they can be returned in kind. (Now underway, the pheasant shooting season runs to the end of January.)
One old friend of Prince Andrew’s told The Daily Beast: “He still has the support of a loyal group of friends in England and Scotland. The winter is quite a social time for him as he is still a prized guest at some really good shoots where he can rely on the discretion of the host and the other guests—and his presence isn’t likely to be revealed to the newspapers. I’m sure he is looking forward to a busy few months.
“He understands that his official, public life is at an end, but that doesn’t mean he is just twiddling his thumbs at home staring at the walls. Life is quieter than it once was, and the death of his mother left a huge hole. But he spends time with the children and grandchildren, and he has Sarah for company day to day.”
Among the shoots that Andrew is believed to have attended in the past and may attend again, one source said, are lavish weekends at the Tennant family’s Glen Estate, a few hours south of Balmoral. He has in previous years, also been a guest with Sarah Ferguson at the Duke of Westminster’s sporting estate, Abbeystead, in Lancashire, a source said.
One aristocratic shoot owner told The Daily Beast: “The friends who have always invited him shooting will continue to invite him, he will still be allowed to play. I would be extremely surprised if Charles withdrew his permission to host a couple of days at the royal estates, and all those people will have to ask him back, so I am sure he will be as busy socially as he has ever been.”
The owner, who does not like Andrew or host him at his shoot, despite having crossed paths with him over the years through mutual friends, added, “Some people like to bathe in his title and I am sure they will continue to want to do so. The fact of what he may have done 25 years ago is really not relevant to that. The much more remarkable thing to me is that he has ever had any friends at all, because he is an arrogant twat of ocean-going proportions. But I certainly wouldn’t flounce out of a shoot if he turned up. He wasn’t found guilty of anything, and there is still a presumption of innocence in this country.”
Lady Colin Campbell, the royal writer and YouTuber who has argued that Andrew has been unfairly persecuted, told The Daily Beast: “I am sure he watches plenty of television, but he always was something of a couch potato. But the idea that he has been dropped by his entire social circle over allegations which remain, I would emphasize, completely unproven, is preposterous. That’s simply not how upper-class life in England works, as anyone who actually has any experience of it would know.”
