{"id":253109,"date":"2025-10-26T17:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253109\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:56:10","slug":"desperate-king-charles-camp-blame-queen-elizabeth-for-andrew-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253109\/","title":{"rendered":"Desperate King Charles\u2019 Camp Blame Queen Elizabeth For Andrew Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In Sunday\u2019s big royal story in the <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/royal-family\/article\/king-charles-brother-prince-andrew-scandal-6r6cqznlr&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/royal-family\/article\/king-charles-brother-prince-andrew-scandal-6r6cqznlr\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/royal-family\/article\/king-charles-brother-prince-andrew-scandal-6r6cqznlr\">London Sunday Times<\/a>, King Charles\u2019 camp is blaming the late Queen Elizabeth II for the Andrew problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt seems to me that Queen Elizabeth has quite a lot to answer for,\u201d one source was quoted as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s as if she left an unexploded bomb for Charles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The king\u2019s camp is now seeking to pin the most toxic scandal of the Windsor age on a woman three years dead, whose devotion to her role made her a byword for duty. This tells you everything you need to know about the chaos inside the fragmented and fried court of Charles III.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Let\u2019s start with the events of October 2017, when Sir Christopher Geidt was forced out of his role as private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II in a palace \u201ccoup\u201d engineered by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and (ironically enough) supported by Prince Andrew.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"DUBLIN, IRELAND - MAY 18:  Sir Christopher Geidt looks on during a visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to Government Buildings on Merrion Street on May 18, 2011 in Dublin, Ireland. The Duke and Queen's visit to Ireland is the first by a monarch since 1911. An unprecedented security operation is taking place with much of the centre of Dublin turning into a car free zone. Republican dissident groups have made it clear they are intent on disrupting proceedings.  (Photo by Chris Jackson\/Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NLMNNPG2ANAJHJCUSSLM4ZOUEY.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"574\"\/>In 2011, Sir Christopher Geidt accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on their first visit to Dublin, Ireland. Six years later he was forced out, by Charles, from his role as private secretary to the queen in a palace \u201ccoup\u201d. Chris Jackson\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Geidt was regarded as one of the last genuinely independent-minded figures in the Royal Household, someone who could, on rare occasions, say \u201cNo\u201d to the monarch. He had earned a reputation for steadying the institution. His departure signaled the moment when Charles began to assert operational dominance over the monarchy, leaving the queen with a less visible role in decision-making.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Decisions once flowing from the sovereign were now routed through the Prince of Wales\u2019 office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The queen, though still the symbol, was increasingly infirm; the machinery of rule was under Charles\u2019 control. The suggestion that she should have personally overseen the eviction of her own son while dying is absurd. If anything, the failure to act more decisively in those years lies squarely with the man who was, for all practical purposes, already king.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew, Duke of York (wearing the uniform of Colonel of the Grenadier Guards) watch a flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping The Colour, the Queen's annual birthday parade on June 9, 2018 in London, England. The annual ceremony involving over 1400 guardsmen and cavalry, is believed to have first been performed during the reign of King Charles II. The parade marks the official birthday of the Sovereign, even though the Queen's actual birthday is on April 21st. (Photo by Max Mumby\/Indigo\/Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PNB3UUGVXJEGLPM5P6IPXW5ZLI.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"779\"\/>Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, watch a flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping The Colour, the Queen\u2019s annual birthday parade on June 9, 2018, in London, England.  Max Mumby\/Indigo\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">From that point onwards, with the queen increasingly constrained by illness and pain, Charles essentially functioned as co-monarch in all but name.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The formal transition began as significant power quietly shifted, and he increasingly steered strategy, personnel, and public affairs decisions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The fact that the queen was later revealed to be suffering from bone cancer and increasingly incapacitated lends a particular texture to Sunday\u2019s claims that she indulged Andrew, when Charles\u2019 camp has repeatedly sought to use his cancer (which is horrible but has not left him bedridden and in agony as the queen often was) as an excuse for his misjudgments and weakness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The reality is that Charles was already pulling many of the strings by 2019. He was the mastermind behind the 2020 decision to strip Andrew of his HRH, and the 2022 decision to settle with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that Andrew raped her three times, and who died by suicide earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Virginia Roberts holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually.&#10;(Emily Michot\/Miami Herald\/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FOECKNAGMZB55ARFDORUQ46NXQ.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"551\"\/>Virginia Roberts-Giuffre holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she claimed that Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually. She also claimed that Andrew raped her three times. She died by suicide in April 2025. Emily Michot\/Miami Herald Tribune News Service via Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The attempt to cast those failings as \u201cit\u2019s all the queen\u2019s fault\u201d is implausible and revisionist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The decision in 2019 to withdraw him from public life after the catastrophic Newsnight interview was forced upon her by Charles himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Yes, at the Duke of Edinburgh\u2019s memorial service in March 2022, she allowed Andrew to escort her down the nave of Westminster Abbey. The optics were bad, but the act itself was maternal, not political: a widow leaning on her son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Robert Hardman, who chronicled the event in his book Queen of Our Times, wrote that it was \u201cvery much her day, and her call,\u201d and that the family accepted it as a one-off. To conflate that misjudgment into a grand abdication of duty is to rewrite history in the crudest terms.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"WINDSOR, ENGLAND - APRIL 17: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew, Duke of York attend the funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2021 in Windsor, England. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born 10 June 1921, in Greece. He served in the British Royal Navy and fought in WWII. He married the then Princess Elizabeth on 20 November 1947 and was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich by King VI. He served as Prince Consort to Queen Elizabeth II until his death on April 9 2021, months short of his 100th birthday. His funeral takes place today at Windsor Castle with only 30 guests invited due to Coronavirus pandemic restrictions. (Photo by Yui Mok-WPA Pool\/Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/VTLMCA3CEZCTNET4G4TNASO2VE.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>The death of his father, Prince Philip, gave Andrew the chance to become a shoulder for Queen Elizabeth II to lean on. The queen had a huge soft spot for her second son. Yui-Mok\/WPA Pool\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Yes, Andrew sought, as Hardman has put it, to \u201crearrange the furniture,\u201d appealing to his mother\u2019s indulgence and trying to undo agreements made by his brother. Yes, when Andrew sulked, the queen yielded. Yes, she had a blind spot when it came to her favorite son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">But to translate that historical truth into the charge now being leveled by the king\u2019s team\u2014that Elizabeth somehow planted an \u201cunexploded bomb\u201d beneath her son\u2019s throne\u2014is a grotesque slur on his mother utterly unworthy of the king.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">When she died in September 2022, Andrew was already out, stripped of patronages, titles, and any public role. At the final Christmas of his mother\u2019s life, he had been barred from the family walk to church at Sandringham. He attended an early private service, alone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The notion, three years later, that his mother\u2019s handling of the matter was disastrous is outrageous revisionism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In fact, the settlement Charles inherited was clean, comprehensible, and, crucially, tolerated by the public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The descent began, in fact, the moment Charles became king. His mother had been entombed scarcely 12 weeks when, at Christmas 2022, Andrew appeared once again on the public walk to church at Sandringham. The symbolism was unmistakable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This was Charles\u2019 doing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Courtiers briefed volubly that the king wished to present himself as the Christian reconciler, the benevolent monarch who healed family wounds. It was, they said, his \u201cduty of forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The photographs, however, told another story: the smug duke smiling, well aware he was back under the royal umbrella, the rehabilitation underway.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"SANDRINGHAM, NORFOLK - DECEMBER 25: Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh leave the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023 in Sandringham, Norfolk. (Photo by Stephen Pond\/Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/UBSZQ7TAMZFA5D5QKZZ5AXD4FQ.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, leave the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church on Dec. 25, 2023, in Sandringham, Norfolk. Andrew had been banned from walking with the royal family during the last years of the queen\u2019s life, but Charles allowed him back in. Stephen Pond\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">From there, the drift became a pattern. Easter 2023: Andrew at Windsor with the family. Summer: Balmoral. Christmas 2023: in open defiance of William and Kate\u2019s objections, both Andrew and Sarah Ferguson joined the royal party for the walk to church.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A few weeks later, in January 2024, the absurdity reached its peak when the king ordered William to drive his uncle to church\u2014an instruction intended to display paternal authority over the heir.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Wales camp briefed furiously that they had been \u201cobliged\u201d to comply. Then, within weeks, came the king\u2019s cancer announcement, and the entire balance of royal power shifted. William and Catherine withdrew from all association with Andrew. The king, weakened but stubborn, pressed on with his twin obsessions: showing himself merciful, and forcing his brother from Royal Lodge, and failing in both.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">What has changed since is not the queen\u2019s record but Charles\u2019 need for alibis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">His reign, truncated by illness and mismanaged by courtiers frightened of what is coming next, has been beset by reversals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The drive to evict Andrew from Royal Lodge, undertaken \u201cin partnership\u201d with William, has become an unending farce, blocked by a cast-iron lease and by the monarch\u2019s own sentimental vacillation (although Andrew is expected to move out soon enough).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Reports have emerged that the king even tried to secure Andrew\u2019s presence at Catherine\u2019s Christmas carol concert last winter. The request was flatly refused.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Prince William, Prince of Wales at the funeral for  the Duchess of Kent\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/X6ZCRWUGPVAYTNLCKRRNIXYDHI.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"608\"\/>Relations between Andrew (left) and Prince William (right) are thought to be less than cordial. Samir Hussein\/WireImage\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Within weeks, the Chinese-spy revelations surrounding Andrew broke, vindicating William\u2019s caution and exposing the king\u2019s misjudgment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Still, the rehabilitation project lumbered on! In spring 2025, Sarah Ferguson was at Buckingham Palace for a cancer event, invited, astonishingly, by the king himself. The message was unmistakable. The Windsor amnesia was complete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Meanwhile, Andrew was still appearing beside the king of England at family gatherings such as the Duchess of Kent\u2019s funeral on Sept. 16, to which he received a police escort and was seated in the front row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Charles is the very embodiment of inconsistency. The Sunday Times story should actually be understood, I think, as a confession. This is a ruler who cannot bear responsibility, searching for a ghost to blame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Charles\u2019 attempt to style himself as healer-in-chief has backfired in grand style. At every turn he invokes his Christian duty to forgive, even as he wages bureaucratic war on his brother\u2019s tenancy and his son\u2019s inheritance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The rhetoric of mercy cannot coexist with the reality of protecting an unrepentant (alleged) sex offender. Charles has belatedly discovered this and seeks to blame his dead mother. It\u2019s disgraceful.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios\/Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NFY7RB7VIZDGLEKUEFBWKPJPJ4.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"530\"\/>Melania Knauss (later Trump), Prince Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein party at Donald Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, Feb. 12, 2000.  Davidoff Studios Photography\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Inside the palaces, the mood has become baroque. Friends of Queen Camilla tell me she is \u201cexhausted\u201d after a brutal year managing her husband\u2019s illness. The king himself looks frail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Skeptics might say that these sympathetic leaks serve the same purpose\u2014to construct an atmosphere of beleaguered virtue around the sovereign and his consort, the better to deflect attention from strategic blunders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The truth is that Charles believed he could redeem Andrew through proximity, that the brother who shamed the family could, by standing quietly beside him, absorb a little of his legitimacy. Instead, it is the king who has absorbed the taint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The queen\u2019s alleged posthumous culpability is beneath Charles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It is also a grossly ungrateful response to her final political act, which was to name Camilla queen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">She didn\u2019t have to do that. She did it for her son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It is a huge mistake by the palace to try to weaponize Elizabeth II\u2019s long shadow, because the British public knows she was a monarch who reigned dutifully to her last breath, while her heir has turned forgiveness into a farce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The queen did not cause the Andrew crisis. She contained it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It is the king\u2014with his vanity, his fatal need to please, his confusion of mercy with weakness\u2014who reignited it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Sunday\u2019s big royal story in the London Sunday Times, King Charles\u2019 camp is blaming the late Queen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,14825,8832,42413,42412,33728],"class_list":["post-253109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-king-charles-iii","tag-prince-andrew-duke-of-york","tag-royalist","tag-virginia-roberts-giuffre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}