The scandal surrounding Prince Andrew and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein forced him to step back from royal life in 2019. But on Friday, October 17, Andrew released a statement via Buckingham Palace that he was going "a step further" and would not use his Duke of York title any longer. Speaking to Hello!'s "A Right Royal Podcast," royal biographer Andrew Lownie said the message "was a lost opportunity" for King Charles.
"The statement should have come from King Charles himself—that he'd taken decisive action," the Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York author said. While The King has been tougher on his brother than their mother, Queen Elizabeth, was—with Charles removing his brother's security and cutting him off financially—Lownie added that the monarch "should have actually taken the credit for this."
The author compared the situation to 2019, when it was announced that Prince Andrew would no longer be a working royal. "We had this statement from Andrew it was his decision to stand down five years ago, when of course it had been forced upon him…just absolutely ridiculous stuff that no one really believed," he said.
Lownie continued, "They turned what could actually have been a good way of dealing with the problem into a bigger crisis than it had been before."
In a report from the Times on October 21, it was revealed that Prince Andrew has not paid rent on his home, Royal Lodge, in the two decades since he's lived there. A lease obtained by the news outlet states that Andrew and his family are entitled to live at the Windsor Great Park home until 2078, explaining, in part, why he's still living at the property.
"The only way I think he can go is to voluntarily go," Lownie said of Andrew's "ironclad lease." The terms of the agreement also state that if Prince Andrew breaks the lease, he's entitled to significant financial compensation. Per the Times, the contract "includes a clause stating that the Crown Estate, which manages Crown properties for the benefit of the taxpayer, would need to pay him around £558,000 if he gave up the lease."
However, if Andrew's daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie's jobs and lives are impacted by their father's scandals, Lownie thinks that concern over "how his daughters are treated" could convince him to move out.
