Three cheers for King Charles after he finally cut off spendthrift Prince Andrew by withdrawing his £1m annual allowance after failing to fund his security team worth a substantial six figures.
He was right to withdraw financial support from the royal patron. But now it’s time for the King to go further and show some common sense.
He should serve his arrogant, entitled younger brother with an eviction order to permanently remove him from the 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park and send him to the much smaller house Harry and Meghan vacated: Frogmore Cottage.
Every day he remains at Royal Lodge is a stain on the monarchy.
Prince Andrew thought he would be safe at Royal Lodge as long as the late queen was alive.
But even ‘Mom’ had decided she had to get him off the big property, pictured.
Not just because the British public has long tired of the disgraced prince and his ex-wife Fergie living in a mansion fit for a king.
The late Queen Elizabeth also wanted Andrew out of Royal Lodge, as the Mail on Saturday’s Robert Hardman damningly revealed in his updated biography, Charles III: New King. New Court. The inside story.
He may have been the Queen’s favorite son, but even ‘mum’ had decided a year before he died that she had to move him from the grandeur of the Royal Lodge to Frogmore Cottage, which is also located in Windsor Great Park.
The irony is that Prince Andrew thought he would be safe at Royal Lodge while the late Queen was alive and footing the bill for her enormous security team and lavish expenses, but despite her obvious affection for him, even she had realized. How bad it seemed that his son continued to enjoy so much generosity.
“It was her plan to get him out, to end the Sussexes’ lease at Frogmore Cottage and move Andrew there,” a former close personal adviser to Elizabeth II told Hardman: “If she had lived another year, he would have been out. .’
They added: “It was mainly a matter of money, as you could see it was becoming unsustainable.”
The late Queen surely also appreciated how inappropriate it would seem for the firm to allow this self-indulgent, mindless prince to live on a large estate, even when his subjects were enduring a devastating post-Covid cost of living crisis and the monarchy had been rocked by the departure of the Sussexes and Harry’s ferocious attacks.
Photographs of the Royal Lodge show that it has since fallen into disrepair, with cracks in the walls.
In fact, Royal Lodge is so grand that George VI and the late Queen Mother lived there after the abdication in 1936, and she kept it as her private residence until her death in 2002.
Perhaps the late Queen was still bitter after bailing out Andrew by allegedly contributing to the estimated £12 million he paid to settle his sexual abuse claim with one of his former friend Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, claims he denies.
Be that as it may, it seems she was as repulsed as we all were (and still are) by Andrew’s extravagance and sense of entitlement.
It is hard to believe that after everything he has put the family through and after being stripped of his royal duties and his official title of HRH, he continues to live at Royal Lodge as if it were his right. It also seems absurd to me, by the way, that a man so disgraced that he cannot show his face in polite company or wear military uniforms at ceremonial events is still eighth in line to the throne.
What right does this self-pitying snob who spends his time watching television in a darkened room and practicing his golf swing have, does he think he has to stay in situ in a property worth at least £30 million? After all, her sister Princess Anne is happily content with Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, which is worth around £6 million by comparison.
It is clear that Andrew does not have the finances to maintain the Royal Lodge in any case.
The King should treat his worthless brother as any landlord would treat a wayward tenant.
While Andy has been sitting on his fat ass, last year his sister was the hardest-working royal, clocking up 457 royal engagements and taking on more and more duties following the news that both the King and Princess Catherine were suffering from cancer and the impact of that on their public duties.
It is clear that Andrew does not have the financial means to maintain Royal Lodge in any case. Photographs of its exterior this week showed patches of damp, moss-covered walls and areas of peeling plaster.
Andrew’s assurances that he can maintain the property, with a combination of money left to him by the Queen and his own business activities, no longer work in royal circles.
First, insiders say that whatever legacy his mother left him has long since been exhausted. Second, given his misfortune after associating with Epstein and taking trips on the convicted pedophile’s private jet, very few self-respecting businessmen seem willing to associate with him.
Now that King Charles has reportedly read him the riot card and interrupted him, he also cannot use his royal position to make profits as he did before.
And yet he still doesn’t understand it. He is said to have informed the monarch that, “regardless of any ultimatums, he was still going to stay at Royal Lodge.”
The King should now up the ante and treat his useless brother as any landlord would treat a wayward tenant. You should be served with an eviction notice under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988.
In 1982, Prince Andrew was on a high after distinguishing himself as a helicopter pilot as part of the Royal Navy task force sent to the Falklands to dislodge Argentine invaders.
He was rightly considered a hero then. Now, however, due to his own poor judgment, his association with a criminal like Epstein, and his inability to realize that he is no longer a valued member of the Royal Family, he is an outcast.
I have a suggestion for Charles. If Andrew continues to joke about leaving Royal Lodge and rejects Frogmore, send him to one of the many empty cottages on the Balmoral Estate. You can spend your days watching TV in a dark room up there and, when you surface, play golf on Scotland’s famous Old Course at St Andrews.
That is if the venerated golf club would accept it.