How much more can the palace do to Andrew, formerly known as Prince? Are the 72 mostly sailor-costumed teddy bears, which he reportedly insisted be lined up on his four-poster bed in a specific order, safe from some new brutal constitutional edict? Instead of ripping the Band-Aid off all at once, the palace’s serial demotions of Andrew since the Epstein scandal picked up heat have been a rolling thunder of belated, back-foot reactions.
“There was a forlorn hope that Andrew would do the right thing,” an insider explained to me. “But he’s never done the right thing. He’s always had to be dragged there. They lost time and momentum by giving him a chance to jump before they had to push him.” On Thursday, the king’s conclusive takedown of his miscreant brother to the commoner name of Mr. Mountbatten Windsor was the most dramatic act of family discipline since a grandson of Queen Victoria was stripped of his princely title when he chose the wrong side in World War I.
