It’s been six years since Harry left England and eventually settled in California with Meghan and their son, Archie. (A daughter, Lilibet, was born in 2021.) Tired of the relentless and often racist coverage that Meghan Markle, a biracial American actress, received — a BBC radio broadcaster was fired after he posted a photo of a couple holding hands with a chimp with the caption, “Royal baby leaves hospital” — they stepped back from their senior royal duties, declared their financial independence from the taxpayer-financed dole, and opted for a life far from the palace.
“It brings me great sadness that it has come to this,” Harry said at a charity fund-raiser in January 2020, soon after their departure. “The decision that I have made for my wife and I to step back is not one I made lightly. It was so many months of talks after so many years of challenges.”
I wonder if one of those challenges was the stench of scandal surrounding his Uncle Andrew.
In November 2019, Prince Andrew, as he was then known, gave an interview on the BBC program “Newsnight” to discuss his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who was found dead in a New York jail cell three months earlier.
What Andrew probably envisioned was an opportunity to exonerate himself in the court of public opinion concerning allegations by Virginia Giuffre that, as a teenager, she was trafficked to Andrew by Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell, his accomplice. What the viewers saw was an incriminating mess delivered by a man who has never had to answer for his actions. Andrew tossed any shred of believability he may have had right into the abyss.
Two months later, Harry and Meghan left England.
Had Harry and Meghan remained in England, it’s plausible that “The Firm,” as the royal family is known, would have leaked nasty rumors about Meghan to chum the waters for the insatiable tabloids in an attempt to protect Queen Elizabeth’s favorite son from further harsh scrutiny.
According to Harry’s 2023 memoir, “Spare,” there was already a precedent for such actions. Members of the palace staff, he said, would feed negative stories to the press, especially about Meghan, or would refuse to dispute lies about him and his wife to divert unwanted attention from other family members.
While the media still take potshots at them — recently there was chatter that their cozy appearance at the NBA All-Star game was more performative than sincere — Harry and Meghan have continued to live private, productive lives. On Wednesday, they joined the World Health Organization in Jordan for visits to a refugee camp for displaced Syrians and a hospital caring for medical evacuees from Gaza , very much in keeping with the humanitarian outreach that made Harry’s mother so beloved.
But back in England, Harry’s family is again tending to its own self-inflicted wounds, as details of Andrew’s transgressions deepen. (In his book, Harry mentioned his uncle’s “shameful scandal,” and how his family did not remove Andrew’s security detail as they did with Harry and Meghan’s when they left England. “Whatever grievances people had against us, sex crimes weren’t on the list,” Harry wrote.)
In a recent interview on “7ampodcast,” an independent news show, Andrew Lownie, a royal family biographer, said of Andrew, “He’s boorish, he’s pompous, he’s arrogant, he’s un-self-aware, he’s a bully, he’s incredibly stupid, he has no sense of identity apart from his own status as a royal.”
Until Lownie mentioned the royal part, I thought he was describing another one of Epstein’s famous former pals, but on this side of the pond. (Epstein clearly had a type in men.) But the longer this scandal persists — and it shows no signs of flagging — the greater the chance that it may irreparably damage a monarchy that’s lasted centuries and, if we’re lucky, may bring down Trump’s second presidency which has already lasted too long.
This is an excerpt from Outtakes, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. Sign up to get Outtakes in your inbox each Thursday.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com.