Charles Did the 'Right Thing' in Andrew Saga ― But Experts Say the Queen Wouldn't Have Approved
In the royal household, family sometimes is more important than duty, and even Queen Elizabeth, known for putting the Crown above all, wasn't exempt from having biases. She famously favored her ‘favorite’ son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. But time, and scandal, have a way of unraveling even the strongest loyalties.
On October 30, King Charles stripped his younger brother of all remaining titles and also ordered him to surrender the lease of Royal Lodge, a Grade II-listed property that has been the former Prince’s home for the last two decades. The decision marked a striking contrast to the approach of the late Queen, who, despite Mountbatten Windsor's controversies, kept him within the royal circle. However, what his mother once handled with silence, Charles has now faced head-on.
Reflecting on the same, royal commentator Afua Hagan told The Express that the King ‘did the right thing’ by acting where his mother could not. “I don’t think the late Queen would have done it because we’ve been talking about Epstein and Andrew for 20 years,” she opined, adding, “She definitely could have done something before now, but Andrew was her favorite, so she just absolutely did not want to do that, and also he has now become the King’s problem." The King's decisive act was also praised by Virginia Giuffre’s family, who publicly showed support for the monarch.
Writing for the Sunday Times, Roya Nikkah also echoed the sentiment. She noted that the former Duke was the late Queen’s ‘weak spot,’ and now Charles is left to deal with the fallout. A source close to the royal family reportedly told her, “It seems to me that Queen Elizabeth has quite a lot to answer for. It’s as if she left an unexploded bomb for Charles. The thing about the Queen was that everyone always said she was so dutiful, and she was — but this was a terrible dereliction of duty. She indulged Andrew all the time and always avoided confrontation.”
This situation only intensified after Mountbatten Windsor’s $16 million settlement with Giuffre in 2022, a payment TIME reported was partly financed by the late Queen and Charles. While the late monarch eventually asked her son to give up his ‘HRH’ style and military honors, she stopped short of stripping him of his titles, including his dukedom and residence.
But now, with the support of Prince William, Charles has leaned heavily on his younger brother to vacate Royal Lodge and shift him to a private estate on his Sandringham estate, as per PEOPLE. For the former Prince, who has not been seen in public since he attended the Duchess of Kent’s funeral in September, the once unthinkable has become unavoidable.
Chiming in on 'the Andrew issue,' royal biographer Robert Hardman, meanwhile, detailed in the Daily Mail's Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things podcast that the late Queen’s compassion for Mountbatten Windsor stemmed from her lifelong empathy for the so-called ‘spares’ in the royal family. "I think it's because she saw the fact her father was a spare — and she also felt great sympathy for her sister, Margaret, who could never find her true role in life,” he opined. One of the Queen’s courtiers also told The Times that the late monarch struggled with the idea of stripping her son of his titles. “It is very hard for a mother to humiliate her son — far easier for a brother to do it," the Palace source said, adding, "That story is as old as the Bible.”