How does King Charles deal with his embarrassing son and brother?
Even ardent Republicans might feel a twinge of sympathy for poor old King Charles III these days.
Not only is the 76-year-old monarch continuing his treatment for cancer, but he is wrestling with the problems posed by his most embarrassing relatives: his terminally disgraced brother Andrew with his wife ‘Fergie’ and his second son Harry, the Duke of Sussex.
The problems came together in September when ailing Charles received Harry for an awkward 53-minute meeting at his London home Clarence House, just as more horrific revelations arrived from across the Atlantic concerning the friendship between Andrew, the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the Duke of York’s ex-wife ‘Fergie’ – Sarah, Duchess of York.
The latest instalment of the ‘Epstein papers’ released by Democrats in the US Congress suggested that the Duke of York received intimate ‘massages’ while visiting Epstein aboard one of the dead financier’s private jet, while his wife wrote a grovelling message to Epstein in 2011 “humbly apologising” for having been forced to reject him in public, while privately describing him as a “supreme friend.”
She added that she was ashamed for having let him down so “hellaciously “.
Epstein hanged himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on multiple charges of trafficking under-age girls for sex.
The latest scandal engulfing the pair finally slams the door on any hopes that the Yorks had entertained of resuming any kind of role as working members of the Royal family.
Though long divorced, the Duke and Duchess still live together in Royal Lodge, a grand mansion near Windsor, and appeared together last month at the funeral for the Duchess of Kent.
On that sad occasion the Yorks were treated like semi-detached pariahs by the rest of their family, and the King is reported to have suggested that this will be the model on future family occasions when they attend weddings and funerals.
If Andrew’s appearance at such events is unavoidable, he will be smuggled into venues through side entrances and treated with distant disdain like the standing embarrassment that he has become.
Meanwhile, Prince Harry’s hopes of reconciliation with his father were dealt a devastating blow at their brief tea-time meeting during Harry’s recent fleeting visit to Britain.
The Duke of Sussex was said to be angling a bid to resume his royal role in his native land on a “half-in, half out” basis after stepping back from his job as a working royal when he and his wife Meghan decided to live life as pampered idle drones in California.
At his fruitless meeting with his dad – only the second time that father and son have met since the King’s cancer diagnosis more than two years ago – Harry presented Charles with a framed photo of his children Archie and Lilibet.
According to The Sun, Harry complained that their get together had felt more like an “official visit” than a genuinely warm kiss and make-up embrace.
A spokesman later released a statement denying that was how the Duke viewed the meeting, and accused sources of trying to sabotage him.
Even if the get-together was on the formal side, what did hopeless Harry expect after he has spent the past five years publicity insulting his family as cruel racists who had made his and Meghan’s life hell after their marriage?
The sad truth is the only blockage standing in the way of a reconciliation between the Duke and his family is Harry himself.
His constant loose-lipped whingeing comments to the media and inside his autobiography ‘Spare’ have thrown up such barriers between him and his family that a real resumption of relations – let alone him taking up his royal duties again – is very hard to imagine.
And things will get even more frosty in the future when Charles is succeeded as king by Harry’s elder brother William.
The Prince of Wales has never forgiven Harry and Meghan’s behaviour towards him and his wife Kate and is far more hardline than his soft-hearted father in keeping them firmly in the deep freeze of royal disapproval.
Harry may indeed regret having poured such vitriol on his family now, but he only has himself to blame for the breakdown.
Nigel Jones is a historian and journalist whose work has been featured in major British publications including The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Spectator. His previous positions include Deputy Editor of History Today and the Reviews Editor of the BBC History magazines