The price that Prince Andrew will pay for settling the Virginia Giuffre civil lawsuit will go far beyond the reported millions it has cost him financially.
As he celebrates his 62nd birthday on Saturday, the duke will undoubtedly contemplate what a future without the red carpet and royal trappings he has enjoyed since birth will actually look like.
“He has been de-royaled. He has now got to live a private life, and any suggestion he could return to public life is delusional,” said Robert Lacey, a royal historian.
Once called the “playboy prince”, who was feted for the part he played in the Falklands War, Andrew was part of the international jet-set. Photographs of him aboard luxury yachts surrounded by beautiful women earned him the soubriquet “Randy Andy”.
He swapped that for “Air Miles Andy” when, as a roving business ambassador for brand UK, royal accounts revealed a life of first-class travel, private jets and helicopters to golf courses.
His connections with controversial foreign figures – including politicians in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Libya and Turkmenistan – also raised concerns.
His relations with Timur Kulibayev, a son-in-law of the then-president of Kazakhstan, were also scrutinised after Kulibayev bought the duke’s Sunninghill Park home for £3m more than its £12m asking price in 2007. A spokesman for Kulibayev said it was a “commercial, arm’s length transaction” using “entirely legitimate” funds.
Simon Wilson, Britain’s deputy head of mission in Bahrain from 2001 to 2005, wrote in the Daily Mail that the duke was “more commonly known among the British diplomatic community in the Gulf as HBH: His Buffoon Highness”.
“The problem has been his judgments and his friendships,” said Lacey. “The price is total obscurity. If you are looking outside the royal family for a parallel, John Profumo, who suffered abject disgrace at the time of the Profumo affair, actually through totally private quiet charity work eventually redeemed himself in the eyes of himself, his friends and in due course the world.
“It’s an existential challenge for Andrew. He’s got to reinvent himself.”
He added: “The problem with Andrew is he is a dreadful reminder of the distinction between the family and the institution, and a reminder that the institution is ultimately more valuable than the family, and the family are only custodians of the institution.”
Andrew may attend next month’s thanksgiving service for his father, Prince Philip. “He has a right as a family member and the family has a duty to accept him on family occasions,” said Lacey. “And the challenge for the royal family is those occasion are public.”
Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations. The settlement statement does not dispute them, nor admit them.
Lacey believes Andrew is unlikely to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the platinum jubilee. “That’s the occasion when the institution outweigh the family”.
Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty magazine, said of Andrew’s future: “My guess is he will do now what he’s been doing for the last two years, seemingly not very much, certainly not in public. We would occasionally see him out riding in the grounds of Windsor Castle and driving in and out of Royal Lodge. And that was pretty much it.”
The riding was to improve his performance in his role as colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a position he has since lost, so he would be able to take part in the trooping the colour birthday parade.
“Well, clearly, there is no longer a need to do that,” said Little.
Golf has always been Andrew’s passion. He was captain of the Royal and Ancient, but has been forced to give membership of that up, too. Little said: “He can continue to play golf, but in a private capacity. There is a golf course at Windsor Castle so he could do that in total privacy. But that is no more than a pastime for him nowadays, whereas it previously had a wider meaning. His positions meant he could travel around the country to use the various golf courses.”
Of Andrew’s promise to support victims’ right, Little added: “How will that manifest itself? Will he attach himself to a charity for that purpose? Given that he has a very tarnished reputation, do charities want the Queen’s second son these days? I am inclined to think that they won’t.
“Will it help to rehabilitate him? I’m not sure it will. I think we are past that point now, and I think he’s reputation is so badly dented there is no coming back, certainly in any public role.”
Without a trial to totally clear his name, and unable to speak about details of the settlement, “there will always people who wonder about his guilt or innocence, and he can’t do a darn thing about it. It will be with him for the rest of his life”.
Hugo Vickers, a royal historian, said: “I think it’s been established he is not going to do any more royal duties. One, it’s been said, and secondly, unfortunately innocent or guilty, they don’t want him any more. He’s tarnished.”
“I don’t think he is going to do anything more in the royal world, or the world of regiments or charities, because he is not a help to them, so he has to do something else.
“He would be well advised to buy himself a house in his own name, because as far as I know Royal Lodge doesn’t actually belong to him and it’s not impossible he might be asked to move by somebody in the future.
“And I’ve always said he ought to open an animal sanctuary, or do something with animals, because that’s what the British public love. It will be interesting to see where he is in five years’ time.”
