The Bug presents the third and final report in a series looking back on events involving the royal family this year.

 

One issue that King Charles III will need to deal with on an ongoing basis is what to do about his younger brother the Duke of York, Prince Andrew.

In 2022 the late Queen Elizabeth II made it clear that stripping Prince Andrew, her second son, of his royal privileges and honours was to be just the start of some “overdue royal housekeeping”.

 My Buckingham Palace sources told me that the Queen was actually relieved when it became apparent that she would need to remove Prince Andrew’s many military titles and royal patronages because of his past association with US sex fiend, the late Jeffrey Epstein, and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

“The truth is that for the past few years, Her Majesty has been thinking long and hard about her own role and that of the monarchy in general and her own family members in particular,” one palace source told me.

My royal source said it was not widely known that Her Majesty not only ended up taking  away Prince Andrew’s titles, including his ability to style himself as His Royal Highness, but she had also personally thrown out his goods and chattels from Windsor Castle. (main picture)

“As she hurled the Duke’s belongings out she broke her long silence and was chatting to anyone who came near, and to herself, about how she was determined to do some overdue royal housekeeping,” one royal source confided in me.

“She made it clear she was ‘slimming down’ the royal family, starting with Prince Andrew.”

My inside sources told me that Her Majesty also made it plain there was more “slimming down” to come and was often heard in the months before her death muttering about her plans to “do likewise to Charles, Ann, and Edward and their sponging partners and bludging families”.

One of her courtiers was even told by the Queen that she had the idea of junking Prince Andrew’s royal decorations and entitlements after “we got rid of those loons”.

The courtier at first thought the Queen was referring to a flock of pesky waterbirds that had been eradicated after taking roost at Windsor Castle, but soon realised that Her Majesty was referring to Prince Harry and his wife the former Meghan Markle.

“Besides, we don’t really have loons in Britain, they’re more a North American species,” my source said.

Stripping the Duke of York of his military titles and his consequent exclusion from many royal events caused tremendous friction within the royal family in 2022.

My sources told me that Prince Andrew was incensed at being barred from the traditional Buckingham Palace balcony appearances by Her Majesty, one of which he tried to “crash” but was swiftly ushered away by royal household staff. (below)

“The Duke of York forcefully rejected the official reason for his exclusion, namely that the balcony line-up was to be restricted to ‘working royals’,” one of my royal sources told me at the time.

“His counter-argument – that none of the royals actually work so why should he be singled out – fell on deaf ears and he was soon diagnosed by Her Majesty herself with COVID-1, meaning he could not appear even if he wanted to,” my source revealed.

Before settling on her plan to take away the Duke of York’s titles, Her Majesty flirted with another plan that would have given Prince Andrew at least some small compensation.

The first part of her plan involved Andrew changing his full name by deed poll from the official Andrew Albert Christian Edward Windsor on his birth certificate from 1960.

Under the Queen’s plan he would add a new first name, “Prince”, and change his current surname to “Andrew” so that people could legitimately address him as Prince Andrew.

The second part of Her Majesty’s plan would have involved appointing him to a new peerage by creating a new dukedom based on the Shire of York, a small local council in the wheatbelt east of Perth in Western Australia.

That way he would have been entitled to call himself Duke of York.

My source told me that Her Majesty was well aware that her entire contingency plan was possible only because of her position as head of state of Australia.

The Queen knew hers was a risky plan and in fact she frankly told one courtier: “If Australians vote to become a republic then I’m fucked.”