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The queen really can’t read the room on Andrew
The queen’s support of Prince Andrew seemingly knows no bounds. After warning press photographers away from Balmoral, as previously reported by The Daily Beast, The Sunday Times reports the queen has “let it be known” that she wants the prince—accused in a civil lawsuit of raping a then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre three times while she was being trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein—to remain as colonel of the Grenadier Guards.
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Andrew vehemently denies the accusations, but gave up many of his patronages in the wake of his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview, where he mounted a bizarre defense of his actions. He is now widely seen as a beyond-toxic member of the royal family, though one who still clearly commands the loyalty and devotion of his mother, as well as ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and his two daughters.
A senior military source told the Times: “The queen has let it be known to the regiment that she wants the Duke of York to remain as colonel and the feeling is that nobody wants to do anything that could cause upset to the colonel-in-chief. It is a very difficult, unsatisfactory situation. His position is not tenable or viable. How can you have a colonel who can’t perform the role? For the brief time he was in post, he was a good colonel, but the feeling across the regiment is that it’s not appropriate to retain him. You can’t have a colonel who can’t do public duties.”
Senior defense chiefs “all agree that he should go,” the source told The Times.
Royal biographers detailed the queen’s resolute attachment to her in The Daily Beast on Friday, saying the queen’s closeness to Andrew can be traced back to her feeling more relaxed as a parent and monarch when Andrew and Edward were born, compared to their older siblings, Charles and Anne. While Andrew can enjoy the protection and indulgence of the queen while she is alive, he will likely not feel anything like the same when Charles ascends to the British throne.
Earlier this month, the Times said, a source close to Charles said the ongoing Andrew/Giuffre/Epstein drama was causing “unwelcome reputational damage to the institution” with “hideous regularity,” with Charles viewing it as “probably an unsolvable problem.” In Charles’ mind, the source said, a “way back for Andrew “is demonstrably not possible.”
Could the queen sue Meghan and Harry?
The slightly jarring prospect that the queen is “getting lawyered up” to fend off Harry and Meghan’s onslaughts is raised by the Sun. “The feeling, coming right from the top, is that enough is enough,” a royal source told the paper. The Sun reported senior palace aides are in talks with libel experts. “There is a limit to how much will be accepted and the queen and royal family can only be pushed so far…They are getting lawyered up. Harry and Meghan will be made aware and know repeated attacks will not be tolerated,” the source said. Another quick reminder: the queen is famed for never complaining about negative attacks on her or the monarchy because it only draws attention to them.
Camilla won’t forgive Meghan, source opines
The ever-loyal Telegraph makes a determined stab at arguing Camilla Parker Bowles has “finally won over the nation” citing as evidence of this remarkable rehabilitation data showing that she “is now the 10th most popular member of the royal family, with a higher approval rating than Harry and Meghan.”
Another way of describing her position in YouGov’s rankings would be “below Prince Edward and above Princess Beatrice.” More prosaically, the polling firm says, she has a mere 36% popularity rating. This score is calculated, YouGov says, “by taking the proportion of people who view something positively and showing it as a percentage of all of the people who have given any opinion about that thing.” So this means that...well, you do the math.
Intriguingly, for a woman so urgently in need of public understanding, she apparently has little for Meghan. One source tells the Telegraph: “I don’t think the Duchess will ever forgive Meghan for what she’s done to the Prince of Wales.”
“The Crown” will feature Philip’s special friendship
After last season’s anguished debate about what The Crown presented as fact comes… the next season of The Crown featuring lots more of the same. The Sun reports that season five of the smartly dressed soap opera will include a storyline focused on Prince Philip’s friendship with Penny Brabourne. Philip will be played by Jonathan Pryce and Brabourne by Natascha McElhone, although quite what The Crown will show is a mystery. The pair were known to be good friends, but—as for anything deeper between them—nothing, as they say, has been proved.
Brabourne’s royal connection began after marrying Norton Knatchbull, 3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma, in 1979 (Knatchbull was a grandson of Lord Mountbatten, and related to the royals). The Sun reports that Brabourne and Philip spent time together after the death of her daughter Leonora in 1991, and their friendship was further cemented by a shared love of carriage driving. Earlier this year, she attended Philip’s funeral.
A TV insider told The Sun: “This is a relationship which naturally raised a few eyebrows and sparked quite a few whispers, but Philip and Penny maintained they were just friends. The makers of The Crown believe it is a relationship worthy of exploring and casting a veteran actor like Natascha is a reflection of how high profile the role is. But the highly personal relationship is unlikely to be welcomed as a storyline by Her Majesty or the rest of the royal family.”
Emma Corrin’s “Crown” proposal
In other Crown news, Emma Corrin, who played Princess Diana in series four, has revealed that director Ben Caron dropped to one knee to ask her to become his Diana. The bizarre moment happened after she had done a reading with Josh O’Connor, who had been cast as Charles, she told People. She said of the moment: “I remember we did the scene a couple of times and then Ben turned to [the producer] and was like, ‘Can I do it now?’ And he sort of got down and was like, ‘Will you be Diana?’ It felt kind of like a marriage proposal.”
In an interview last year, Corrin told GQ she landed the role after a “chemistry reading” with O’Connor. Asked what chemistry was being looked for, she deadpanned: “Kind of no chemistry.” Corrin is being replaced by Elizabeth Debicki for series five.
Why didn’t Jessica Mulroney wish Meghan Markle a happy birthday?
They were once inseparable buddies, but rumors that Meghan Markle ditched her old chum Jessica Mulroney after the Canadian celebrity got accused of exploiting her white privilege by the Black stylist and influencer Sasha Exeter have never gone away.
Now, the Mail reports, Jessica notably did not wish Meghan a happy 40th birthday on social media. The missed congratulations came just weeks after Mulroney, who lost TV and other high profile gigs in the wake of the Exeter row, posted and then rapidly deleted, a post which cryptically said, “It can be lonely having the world, friends distance from you and not even ask how you are.” The comments bear more than a passing similarity to Meghan’s complaint to ITV’s Tom Bradby that “not many people have asked if I am okay.”
Harry faces hypocrisy allegations for private jet use
Prince Harry played polo Friday for his charity Sentebale, just two days after the unintentional irony of him and Meghan breaking their silence on Afghanistan by saying they were “speechless” at the unfolding events there. Harry traveled back from the Aspen polo event via private jet, which, some estimates say, “could have emitted as much as ten tons of CO2.”
Harry, who recently told Oprah Winfrey that climate change was one of “the most pressing issues we are facing,” also pledged to donate $1.5million to Sentebale from the proceeds of his upcoming memoir.
Omid Scobie’s elegant dance continues
One wonders just how long the Sussex love affair with Omid Scobie will last. If one takes at face value the Sussex’s recent claim that they themselves are not stirring up and re-running their feud with the royals, Scobie certainly is, as the new chapter of his book Finding Freedom, which quotes a source close to the couple saying they were unimpressed by the queen’s handling of their racism allegations, proves.
Now Scobie has been on Good Morning America, where he said of the couple: “When it comes to that relationship with the queen, it is as strong as ever. They have nothing but love for her. Of course, we saw them name their daughter after the queen’s very nickname. So that really gives us an insight into that close relationship.” Quick reminder here: the queen’s minions told the BBC she was “never asked” for permission to use the nickname.
This week in royal history
Lord Mountbatten—and three others in his party—was killed by a bomb placed by the IRA on his fishing boat, Shadow V, in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, on August 27, 1979. On August 28, 1996, Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce was made official.
Unanswered questions
Is Prince Charles saying anything to the queen about her resolute support of Prince Andrew? And does her backing for her disgraced son mark the limit of Charles’ power?
