This is a moment of peril for the royal family

Only a few days ago, Buckingham Palace must have hoped, perhaps without complete conviction, that their announcement that Prince Andrew had “agreed” to give up his use of various historic royal titles would be sufficient to satisfy public opinion.

Everyone knew there was more to come out about the prince’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, particularly from the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, and whatever leaks from the “Epstein files” might find their way into the media.

The aim of the official statement issued last Friday was that it would pre-empt another round of disastrous stories, and soften the inevitable backlash against the prince, and, far more importantly, the institution of the monarchy itself.

It’s fair to say that things have not turned out well. The measures taken, plainly at the behest of the King and Prince of Wales, did not lessen the tumult about Andrew and what he has been accused of doing.

This story has dragged on for too long and with such little transparency that the patience of both the royal family and the British public is being tested to exhaustion. As Andrew put it himself in his infamous 2019 Newsnight performance interview, Epstein has been “a constant sore in the family”, and it clearly hasn’t healed. That, though, is his own fault.

After that debacle, the prince was forced to “step back” from public life and became something of a recluse. But his past has come back to accuse him once more. The public has been outraged, again, by the latest revelations, one including an orgy. And there is growing indignation about Prince Andrew occupying a 30-room mansion on the Windsor estate with apparently a full security and staff complement – all at a peppercorn rent. A recent highly damaging biography was called Entitled, and that is precisely how he his perceived.

Even at this juncture, it would still be best if the King and the Prince of Wales could have further frank discussions with Andrew and persuade him that he needs to “go further” once again – indeed he must do so for the sake of the institution of the monarchy itself. He does need to formally relinquish his titles, not merely place them in some fictional limbo of “abeyance”. He should renounce the right to call himself a prince, whether it is a birthright or not. If he is no longer to be a member of the royal family, let alone a working royal, and rarely glimpsed in public, then he has no further practical use for the Order of the Garter, or any other honorifics.

For Andrew, further retirement from his old life is not only the right thing to do, but inevitable. His brother must adopt a rigorous approach: disdain, distance and dislodge. Andrew himself declared last week that “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first”. Now he has to do so.

Make no mistake, this is a moment of peril for the royal family. The crisis of public confidence echoes the national mood after the death of Diana in 1997, that is to say, a dangerous sense that the palace is not only out of touch with the public mood but is failing to properly respond.

If Andrew can bring himself to obey the commands of his brother Charles, it would prove that the House of Windsor is capable of running its own affairs. If not, he should be fully aware that parliament will not stay silent, and that the controversy will drag the palace into democratic politics and controversy – which is a place it cannot be. Some MPs are already agitating for legislation that will take the decisions out of Andrew’s hands.

Rehabilitating the reputation of Andrew is not on the cards right now. What is possible is a more stable and sustainable future that offers a way out of the past that continues to torment him and, no doubt, distress his daughters.

If Andrew decisively becomes a private citizen, gives up the titles, revises his disputed account of events, admits his failures and above all tries to help the victims secure justice, as he has promised, then their pain and that of his family will start to ease. Prince Andrew’s duty to himself and his family is to obey the King, honour the legacy of his late mother, respect the wishes of the people, and live his life out with dignity on a path to redemption.