For years now, King Charles and the wider Windsor clan have been trying to run various “poor Prince Andrew” narratives. Every story about how Charles and Camilla feel regarding Andrew is inevitably loaded down with sympathy and reminders of how Charles feels a “duty of care” for Andrew. In recent months, these stories have roped in Andrew’s other siblings, Princess Anne and Prince Edward. We’ve been told that Anne has advocated for Andrew and she still speaks to him. We were also told that Edward visited Andrew just before Easter, making him the first family member to visit Andrew since his February arrest. Edward either bitched out Andrew for staying in Wood Farm, or Edward was doing a brotherly mental-health check. Who knows? Well, Richard Kay claims to know. He got some kind of briefing from Edward and Sophie, it seems. From Kay’s latest piece in the Mail:

Edward’s comments about ‘victims’ several months ago: Admittedly, he was ambushed at an official media event, but he responded coolly, insisting it was important to ‘remember the victims’ in the scandal – something Andrew famously failed to do in his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019. He then made this further point: ‘And who are the victims in all of this?’ Then, without answering his own question, he added ‘a lot of victims in this.’ Many wondered if this was an oblique reference to his brother, who has continued to deny all allegations against him, but whose reputation and name have been utterly destroyed. Friends of Edward have told me that is not the case, that he was merely emphasising his sympathy for the young girls exploited by Epstein and his vile cronies.

Edward & Anne urged restraint about punishing Andrew: Despite the damage Andrew has caused – and continues to cause – to the image of the House of Windsor, the duke and Anne were at one time urging restraint when other figures were demanding Charles strip their brother of all honours, titles and position – as well as booting him out of his home.

Edward’s frustrations: These days, I am told, Edward is more aligned with the general family view. ‘He shares their frustration at all the criticism – more often characterised as a four-letter word – that all of them are copping as a result of Andrew’s actions,’ says someone close to him. ‘It was there that day when he was trying to make a sensible speech on another subject and the first question he was asked was about his brother.’

Edward didn’t bitch out Andrew: Reports that Edward was sent by the King to have ‘a quiet word’ with his brother because he was ‘dragging his feet’ over the move to Marsh Farm are, however, wide of the mark. A figure familiar with the situation tells me that the friendly visit had more of a ‘pastoral nature’. Edward is ‘concerned about his brother’s mental welfare’. He feels that a lot of the visceral hatred, much of it online, that has been directed at the former prince has been deeply unpleasant.

Pity poor Andrew: It is a view held by other royal insiders. One told me that there was a sense within the family that some members of the public won’t be satisfied until Andrew is ‘on the dole and living in a council house’.

[From The Daily Mail]

Kay went on and on about how Andrew and Edward have always been somewhat close, even if they’ve been more adversarial at times too. It honestly sounds like Andrew bullied Edward when they were kids, but Edward never took it seriously and they grew into some kind of friendship as adults. Which… whatever, okay, I have no idea why we’re supposed to care. That’s what I don’t get with all of these stories. I buy that royalists like Richard Kay are writing in earnest about the left-behinds supporting Andrew, but why anyone thinks this is a good look is beyond me.

This is especially galling: “One told me that there was a sense within the family that some members of the public won’t be satisfied until Andrew is ‘on the dole and living in a council house’.” First of all, ALL of them live “on the dole” to varying degrees, and their lavish lives are being maintained by screwing over the very people they scorn. Second of all, “on the dole and living in a council house” is exactly what millions of royalists wanted for Prince Harry and Meghan, and there’s never been any hand-wringing from the Windsors about “those people want to see a prince broken and destroyed!” That’s because the Windsors wanted the same thing as the royalists – they wanted Harry on the dole in a council estate, all for the crime of “marrying someone they didn’t like” and “walking away from the sh-tshow.” A serial predator like Andrew inspires more loyalty from the family than Harry.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.