Prince Andrew has stepped down from public/royal life. That’s his version of events. What really happened, the best we can tell, is that the Queen and her courtiers spent several days trying to cover Andrew’s ass and it was blowing up in their faces too. And then Charles called his mother from New Zealand and convinced her that Andrew has to go. So the Queen met with Andrew and fired him, basically. I want to be clear about this, because this is what those “sources” are saying and it’s what I genuinely believe happened: Charles called it and the Queen delivered the blow. If Charles had been in-country, he probably would have done in concert with the Queen. But I truly think the Queen’s first, second and third instinct was to protect her favorite child, and Charles was the one pulling the strings on Andrew’s firing.

I’m framing it that way because nearly one full week after Andrew’s catastrophic BBC interview, the courtiers have settled on the talking point of “the Queen is very decisive and she fired Andrew for the good of the monarchy, because she’s a political genius.” No. She’s not. She’s clearly got terrible PR instincts and significant blind spots when it comes to certain people. And if you need further evidence of that, just look how the courtiers are trying to turn this around on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

The Queen is back in control and sending a message to young royals such as Meghan and Harry not to step out of line, sources say. Her Majesty’s ruthless move to sack her own son Prince Andrew, shows that she will not let anything, or anyone, damage the monarchy.

A royal source said: “The Queen has acted quickly and decisively. She’s back in control. This scandal with Andrew and Epstein was threatening the crown and she wasn’t prepared to let personal feelings stand in the way of protecting the institution. This is a warning to any of the younger royals, particularly Meghan and Harry, that she won’t tolerate them stepping out of line. She was not happy with the TV interview they did and them generally doing their own thing. The house of York has a history of doing its own thing, and look where that has got them. The Sussexes need to take heed, keep their heads down, do a programme of British engagements up and down the country and most of all do as they’re told.”

[From The Sun]

“She was not happy with the TV interview they did” – the TV interview they did where they spoke about their own mental health and talked about how difficult it has been to be victimized by a vicious, months-long smear campaign which was partially (or wholly) orchestrated by various royal houses. That interview is being compared to Prince Andrew’s BBC debacle, where he lied about his sweat glands as a way to deny raping a teenager who was trafficked to him and where he pushed a nonsensical, ever changing justification for why he spent four days in a convicted pedophile’s New York mansion. Those two interviews were EQUALLY unpleasant for the Queen. And as I said, I still believe that the Sussexes are doing a lot of thinking about what’s next for them, and whether they’re actually going to leave. If the “lesson” from this Andrew catastrophe is that “the Sussexes need to shut up and just sit there and be smeared,” I do think they’ll leave. But I’d also like to say: it’s not the Queen calling the shots or being decisive at this point. It’s all about (shadow king) Charles now and what HE wants.

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