King Charles’s state visit to the Vatican is one of great personal importance to the 76-year-old monarch, and he’ll be very much hoping that his brother doesn’t rain on his parade. It marks the first time a British monarch has prayed with the Pope in 500 years, a historic moment billed by the Palace as of huge significance.
A royal source said the visit is “deeply significant for the King personally,” as it marks his decades of work in bringing communities together. They also described it as “the fullest and most significant state visit to the Vatican by a monarch”.
Charles is even being conferred with the title ‘Royal Confrater’, in recognition of his work to find common ground between faiths.
But as the King aims to celebrate a milestone moment for ecumenical relations within the Apostolic Palace, the Andrew problem is still causing a storm back home.
This afternoon, the MP for York Central will introduce her backbench bill that is intended to give the King the power to remove Andrew’s titles, which are currently held in abeyance. Rachael Maskell will speak shortly after PMQs at midday, and says she has 11 co-sponsor MPs.
Recent polling shows that 80 percent of Britons want the prince to be formally stripped of his dukedom, after he announced on Friday that he would no longer use the title. Only legislation can strip the prince of the title.
But the King is reluctant to go down that route, as he believes it would be a waste of Parliamentary time and could take up to a year for the legislation to pass.
The prince’s links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have dominated the headlines for days, with fresh focus on his sex accuser Virginia Giuffre’s allegations, which Andrew denies, after the publication of her posthumous memoirs.
On Sunday, fresh reports plunged Andrew into a deeper crisis, as it was claimed that he tried to obtain personal information about Ms Giuffre through his taxpayer-funded police protection. The Metropolitan Police is actively looking into the claims made.
And on Monday, senior Tory MP Robert Jenrick said it was “about time Prince Andrew took himself off to live in private” as “the public are sick of him” after it emerged Andrew has paid a “peppercorn rent” on his 30-room home for more than 20 years.
The King’s brother is under mounting pressure to give up his Royal Lodge mansion, but experts have warned that the lease is water-tight tight so there is no formal mechanism to evict him from the property – he would have to leave voluntarily.
The Palace had hoped that Friday night’s statement would draw a line under the sorry saga and enable the focus to return to the King and other senior royals’ important work, but five days on, and Andrew continues to be plastered on the front pages.
On Monday, when the King visited families affected by the Manchester synagogue attack, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the King wants to focus on “duty and service” and hopes people will not be distracted by “other matters”.
With all eyes on the King and Queen as they land in Rome this evening, they will hope the focus remains on their state visit and not on the disgraced prince, who continues to drag the whole family down with him.