This Crisis For The Royals Is Worse Than 1936

A week or two ago, I was reading that the ongoing crisis over Andrew's relationship with Epstein was "the worst for the royals since 1936", referring to the events that led to Edward VIII's abdication over his intent to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Although there were rumors of Edward's intent prior to the crisis, without belaboring details, the entire matter was resolved in a ten-day period that December after it finally reached the press on December 1. Having abdicated on Deceember 10 in favor of his brother Albert, who became George VI, he left the country on December 12, and everything was over, long live the King.

But as I noted the other day, the Andrew-Epstein scandal first reached the press in 2011, 15 years ago. It seems pretty clear that the royal family, the government, and the family's own advisers never anticipated how the matter would fester. In fact, in recent days in the UK (and Norway as well), having largely blown over in the US, it now seems to have become a full-blown moral panic. I think several factors led to this. Chief was the family's reactive and piecemeal attempts to handle each successive sub-crisis. The UK Independent lists each attempt:

2011: Steps down as trade envoy

After facing severe criticism for his continued association with Epstein, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor agrees to step down as trade envoy with Buckingham Palace confirming he would only support businesses in the UK.

2015: Virgina Giuffre allegations emerge

In April 2015, allegations emerged in court documents filed in Florida that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had sexual intercourse with Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 years old.

Both Buckingham Palace and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor strenuously deny the allegations.

. . .

2019: BBC Newsnight interview

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was criticised for a car crash BBC Newsnight interview that aired on 16 November 2019 following further reports about his relationship with Epstein.

. . . He denied he slept with Giuffre, saying an encounter could not have taken place because he was at a branch of Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter, Princess Beatrice.

He also said Giuffre’s claim he was sweaty at a nightclub was untrue because an “overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands war” had left him unable to sweat.

The royal faced a public backlash, with equality campaigners claiming he was “too stupid to even pretend concern for Epstein’s victims”.

2019: Step back from public duties

Four days later, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor announced the Queen had given him permission to step back from public duties in the wake of the interview.

. . .

2021: Virginia Giuffre sex abuse case

In 2021, Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan alleging she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor on three occasions when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

. . . In October 2021, it was claimed that the Queen intended to spend millions of pounds privately funding her son’s defence against the allegations of sexual abuse made by Giuffre.

2022: Stripped of military titles and royal patronages

In January 2022, the Queen stripped Mr Mountbatten-Windsor of his military titles and royal patronages in the wake of a US judge allowing Giuffre’s civil sexual abuse case against her son to move to trial.

. . .

2022: Out-of-court settlement

In March 2022, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor paid Giuffre a multi-million-pound out-of-court settlement, meaning both sides avoided the case going to trial.

. . . Mr Mountbatten-Windsor faced calls to confirm how he funded the settlement – which was reported to be as much as £12m – and whether the Queen or even King Charles, then Prince of Wales, contributed to the sum.

. . .

January 2025: New messages reveal ties with Epstein continued for months after New York visit

Newly surfaced messages revealed the Duke of York remained in contact with Epstein until February 2011 – despite having claimed to have cut him off in December 2010.

Emails between Mr Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein reportedly show they were still exchanging messages until at least late February 2011, when the former duke wrote: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.”

. . .

October 2025: Mountbatten-Windsor forced to renounce Duke of York title

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor is forced to relinquish all his titles, including the Duke of York and Knight of the Garter as his former friendship with Epstein threatens to overshadow the work of the royal family. [As a result, he is no longer "Prince Andrew" and is to be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He was also evicted from Royal Lodge but transferred to another royal dwelling on Sandringham Estate. Unconfirmed reports suggest that these semi-final moves were at the urging of Prince William, who is said to have favored stricter measures for some time.]

. . .

January 2026: Images show former prince kneeling over woman

New pictures from another tranche of Epstein files brought further scrutiny upon the King’s brother, with one showing him crouched over a woman as she lay on the floor.

. . . Emails also appear to suggest he invited the sex offender for dinner at Buckingham Palace and agreed to meet a “beautiful” 26-year-old Russian woman.

February 2026: Mountbatten-Windsor arrested

On his 66th birthday, the former prince was arrested by Thames Valley Police officers at his new home in Sandringham, on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Let's keep in mind that the commonplace advice in crisis management, even in situations where all the facts can make an individual, company, or government agency look bad, is to get all those facts out at once, along with what's being done immediately to solve any remaining problems. Certainly in the US corporate environment, companies routinely follow this advice, and famous cases like the poison Tylenol crisis for Johnson & Johnson established this as a successful paradigm.

The one thing that sticks out clearly from the timeline above is that nobody seems to have thought that such principles should apply to the Andrew-Epstein case. In a similar set of circumstances, the Nixon-Watergate "plumbers" scandal, successive denials of partial revelations proved "inoperative", leading to Nixon's ultimate resignation, when immediate disclosure of the whole circumstances when they seemed fairly minor in context could have saved his presidency.

In this case, David Cameron, who was UK Prime Minister from 2011 to 2016, had a responsibilty for insulating the monarch from political controversy. He simply had to have been aware of the full scope of Andrew's association witn Epstein -- certainly he should have been, and he should have been talking to MI6 about it. In turn, he should have been advising the royal family that a piecemeal approach could create grave scandal.

The same would apply to Teresa May and Boris Johnson, who were UK Prime Ministers in 2019, when Prince Andrew's BBC interview incited so much criticism. This raises a touchy set of constitutional questions. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Could the UK government have intervened to prevent Prince Andrew's controversial BBC interview in 2019?" It answered,

In theory, the UK government has no formal power to block a member of the Royal Family from giving a media interview, as they are not government officials and the BBC operates with operational and editorial independence.

. . . Under the UK's constitutional monarchy, the "Crown" (the Monarchy) and "Parliament" (the Government) generally stay out of each other's day-to-day affairs. While the government scripts or vets certain official speeches for the Sovereign, these rules do not typically apply to the personal media engagements of junior or extended royals.

. . . Decisions regarding Prince Andrew’s media appearances were a matter for Buckingham Palace and the Prince himself. It is widely reported that the Newsnight interview was authorized by Prince Andrew and his private office, rather than being a state-managed event.

But there's got to be a threshold, or Edward VIII could have married Wallis Simpson just like that. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What authority did the UK government have effectively to forbid Edward VIII's marriage to Wallis Simpson?" It answered,

Under the UK’s constitutional monarchy, the King must act on the advice of his ministers. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made it clear that if Edward married Simpson against the Cabinet's advice, the government would resign.

Because no other party was willing to form a government under those conditions, this would have triggered a general election, forcing the King to campaign for his marriage in the political arena—an act that would destroy the monarchy’s neutrality and likely the institution itself.

So why couldn't any of serveral prime ministers have had the foresight, especially given what MI6 knew, or should have known, about Andrew's relationship with Epstein, to approach the Queen with the potential for grave scandal that appears, it seems now, to pose some threat to the monarchy? The solution to the Andrew problem, 15 years in the making, should have been quietly to strip him of his titles and privileges in the 2010s and set him up in someplace like France a la the Duke of Windsor.

Instead, we're going to have the continuing problem of Andrew's arrest, the inability under UK law to discuss his charges openly, and endless rehearsal of all the dirty linen we do know about, plus all Fergie's dirty linen, plus all the Mountbattens' dirty linen, ad infinitum -- and nobody seems to have foreseen this and acted to avert it, least of all, apparently, the Queen, whose reputation will fall as well.

What a remarkable governing class the UK had in 1936.