Lordy, lordy and lawks-a-mercy, can it get any worse? Just when you think there are no depths left for the Yorks to plumb, up they turn, laughing and joking at a funeral shortly before it turns out that Sarah Ferguson was sending apologies to Jeffrey Epstein after publicly promising to have nothing to do with him. There was I, on the verge of feeling sorry for the Yorks so comprehensively have they been made to pay for their behaviour, before it turns out that matters were even worse than we thought.
That said, the Yorks have been made to pay by way of loss of status, privilege, title and royal standing, but what neither of them has done is apologise or atone. And in both cases, did they have no sense of pride? Most people do not spend their lives grubbing around with very rich people in the hopes that some money would fall off the table, but that seems to have been the modus operandi of both. It seems particularly incredible given that Andrew has never been slow to remind anyone, anywhere that he is of ancient royal blood.
Can you even begin to imagine his mother sucking up to someone like Epstein in the hope that he would pay off Prince Philip’s debts?
Not that Philip would have even dreamt of behaving in such a manner and he had a far worse childhood than did Fergie, which seems to have been her excuse for her particularly indulgent behaviour to date. I am a pragmatic monarchist: it may be an anachronistic institution but it works.
At its best, a la President Trump’s state visit, no other country in the world could have laid on that kind of spectacle, to the obvious delight of the most powerful man in the world. But the antics of the Yorks risk holing the Windsors below the waterline and something really has to be done.
And that something could be emulating the behaviour of John Profumo who having been brought down by a scandal and wreaked devastation on the institution of which he was a part, did not try to hang on to the trappings of the establishment, in his case as an MP, but spent the rest of his life working for Toynbee Hall, a charity in east London.
He was never paid for his work and eventually became its chief fundraiser, raising a huge amount. His wife, the entirely blameless actress Valerie Hobson, also devoted the rest of her life to charity.
Profumo eventually totally redeemed himself, receiving a CBE in 1975 which, incidentally, was awarded to him by the late Queen. The former Secretary of State for War only rarely appeared in public: he understood what he had to do to undo a great wrong.
It is difficult to the point of impossible to think of Andrew working tirelessly for a charity for no remuneration, but if he did, it might just work.
It must be better than the kind of empty life he’s leading at the moment – and if he continues to damage the monarchy the way he has done then one day, probably pretty soon too, there aren’t going to be any more princes of ancient, royal blood.
