Almost two months ago exactly, Prince Andrew gave his catastrophic interview to Emily Matlis at the BBC. I covered the whole thing from start to finish, and let me tell you something: the Queen knew about the interview and approved of the interview, and she was still throwing up protective shields around Andrew a full 24-48 hours after the interview aired. You know why? Because she has horrible PR instincts and she was willing to do the most to protect her favorite son, even as her incompetent courtiers were falling all over themselves, trying to change the official story and trying (in vain) to protect the Queen from her own worst instincts. It was only when Prince Charles called in from New Zealand that the Queen understood that Andrew had to be sh-tcanned. But the damage was already done – the Queen looked tone-deaf, her staff looked incompetent and her power (and the power of the Crown) was diminished.
I bring this up because one of the arguments in the wake of the Andrew debacle was that the Queen had been poorly served by her staff. That argument was true, although we absolutely should not give the Queen a pass – she has spent almost all of her adult life as monarch, and she’s NEVER shown good instincts in any kind of crisis. Time and time again, she chooses the worst course of action. And it’s happened again with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Instead of protecting them, she allowed them to be thrown to the wolves by her own courtiers, Charles’ courtiers and William and his people too. So much of what happened to the Sussexes happened with the Queen’s implicit or explicit approval. So now, obviously, her private secretary (who is like a “chief of staff”) is getting the blame.
Princess Anne and Prince Edward have called on the Queen to sack her private secretary for failing to handle Prince Harry’s split from the royals and the Prince Andrew scandal. Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary, began his roll when Lord Geidt was ‘ousted’ two years ago by Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. But now he has become a scapegoat for the Royal Family’s recent troubles, with senior courtiers and even members of the family — understood to include Princess Anne and Prince Edward — thinking he has failed to get a grip on the scandals.
According to The Times, insiders said Young had let down the Queen because he was unable to tell Charles, William and Harry things they did not want to hear in the way Geidt was able to do. It has been claimed that courtiers privately admitted that a lack of personal authority has made it difficult for him to defend the Queen’s interests during the crisis.
Sir Edward Young will help oversee crunch talks at Sandringham tomorrow with Charles, William and Harry. A source in the royal household told the publication: ‘All the guns are blazing at Edward Young. He has not geared up the system to protect the monarch. Very senior members of the royal family think he should go.’
Up until this point Anne and Edward have both stayed out of the royal drama, including Harry and William’s ‘feud’. The source added that it has now become a ‘blame game’ and said that Young has failed to be ‘wise and intuitive’.
It was also claimed that senior officials like Geidt were warning about Harry and Meghan and Prince Andrew years ago, which is why Charles and Andrew got rid of him. A second source close to the royals called for courtiers to get a grip on the crisis, saying that there has been a lack of discipline and that things would have been different if Geidt was still around.
All things can be true – the royals are scapegoating Edward Young AND Young is bad at his job. But once you start to unspool why Young is there, it gets fascinating, right? Charles has been making power plays within Buckingham Palace for years, and he pretty much gets veto power on the Queen’s senior staff at this point. Charles wanted Geidt out and so Geidt left, and Young was seen as more of a “Charles guy,” more of a yes man to what Charles wanted. Which implies that Charles, Young and the Buckingham Palace staff were implicitly fine with the way the Sussexes were treated. Anyway, all of this to say… sure, it wouldn’t surprise me if several senior staffers get thrown out after the dust settles on Sussexit. But it won’t really change the fundamental fact that this family sucks.
Photos courtesy of WENN and Avalon Red.
They can shuffle the chairs on the deck and fire this one and blame that one but it still doesn’t change a few key facts here. To wit: the fish rots from the head, for one; additionally, and whether or not the BRF wants to believes it or not, WE SEE THEM. We see the racism and cruelty. We see the rumblings about rose bushes. We see the caping for Pedo Andy. We see.
Changing QE’s staff isn’t going to change things. Soul-searching and major shifts in the landscape might change things. But not this whack-a-mole bandaid strategy. Things are way too far gone at this point.
I’m so glad that the Sussexes are sussexiting.
I’m glad they’re Sussexiting, too, Frida. I don’t write to famous people as a general rule, but I am feeling compelled to write a letter of support to Harry and Meghan about this.
Okay, it’s not just me who wants to do this too!
Yup I want to write a letter of support too
Frida…👏👏👏
I’m also predicting a rise in tokenism i.e. a sprinkling of newly minted brown courtiers….
Can they actually do that? Just mint some new courtiers? IDK how that works… but if it’s possible, I see them trying.
They can do what the fuk they want, when it suits them. For example if they can can show or argue that the current system makes it virtually impossible to increase representation via organic means (i.e. bc its based on hereditary peerages), they can change the rules to introduce ‘fresh blood’ into the equation to more adequately mimic the changing population of the UK.
The PM and his MP’s are elected so their racism is ‘the will of the people’, but un-elected RF courtiers and members showing the same institutional racism could get very messy for the RF.
WHO ARE THE COURTIERS??? Like what are their jobs? Who are they? I’ve asked this multiple times and literally no one has answered.
I want to know too. They are always described collectively and never by name or specific job title – i.e. private security, personal assistant, lady in waiting, etc.
Edited to add: I get the sense that they are pretty powerful and are really the ones driving the bus. Individually the royals don’t seem very bright, with the exception of Meghan. Everythiing they say is scripted (by their staff), they always speak through their staff and off the cuff remarks are usually pretty lame.
LOL people have answered! I think ArtHistorian gave a good response a few days ago.
They’re just the high level palace staff. They used to be all members of the aristocracy (think of Henry VIII surrounded by various lords/dukes) but that’s not the case anymore.
Several people answered that question on other posts. The so-called courtiers are senior staff in the various royal households, such as the man this article discusses. The Queen’s Private Secretary is basically her Chief of Staff and within a royal context, such senior staff are often referred to as courtiers.
This shouldn’t be confused with the days of old (a couple of centuries back) when courtiers were high level aristocrats who had positions within the royal household such as ladies in waiting, gentleman of the bedchamber, gentlewoman of the royal robes, etc. Fx in Tudor times the Gentleman of the Bedchamber was a very important position because he would have influence and access to the monarch.
Start here Lucia. Each house has a huge staff, and people hired to advise them in all of their affairs. In a nutshell, those people are the courtiers. This page lists a lot of names and what exactly they do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Households_of_the_United_Kingdom
Removing this comment because it was answered in the time it took me to type! Thanks!
Sorry to hear about your broken Google. Here are the Wikipedia entries for courtier and Sir Edward Young. Now you can learn about what a courtier’s role has been throughout history, and what the roles are like now from reading about Young’s career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Young_(courtier)
Whoever they are, I just looked at the wiki link and there are WAY TOO MANY of them. Jeez, no wonder all the royals are all confused.
Ask Siri, or Alexa 😀
The courtiers are the staff who know where all of the bodies are buried.
One of the racist royal reporters actually tried that on This Morning, she was like some of the people who work at the palaces are not white so that means none of the Sussex treatment has been racist. What a silly argument.
Doesn’t matter how many branches you cut off if the root is rotted. And the root is QE herself.
VERY good analogy, VV!
These people do not need yes men. The fact that that’s the basis in which they hire them is an issue in and out itself.
It’s absolutely pathetic that this family cannot manage their drama without secretaries and god knows what else.
And by this family I mean the Queen.
They are definitely going to fire people over this. And I agree with Kaiser’s point – Young is being used as the scapegoat but he also seemed to be pretty bad at his job, so he needs to go anyway.
I did see a quote over the weekend about how someone at the palace realized that the pictures for the Christmas broadcast were poorly chosen, and there was now a sense that they were seen to be sending a message about the Sussexes but the intention was more to show stability post Andrew. Basically someone finally realized how bad those pictures look, especially in the current situation, and even though she did specifically mention H&M and showed the picture of Archie with the queen, the image in this post of the queen with those framed pics is the one that stands out for people.
Basically in general I think its interesting that we are getting these acknowledgements that this whole situation has been handled poorly – its like someone at the palace finally realizes how incompetent they are.
The frame of Archie was added after the Daily Mail leaked the frames of the Queen’s speech the evening before….
What is the point of having a monarch and a royal family full of people in exulted positions if they apparently don’t make any of the decisions themselves? They are constantly shifting blame to their secretaries (the queen’s former secretary, the queen’s current secretary is blamed for sussexit, Andrew’s Secretary was blamed for the interview). If you are so useless on your own and don’t make any of your own decisions, plus you’re constantly hiring bad people who give you bad advice, then why do we have you? Why have a “head of state” who gets sent boxes of secret government information so that she can advise the government and “lead the people,” if they don’t even make their own decisions and are so easily led astray by courtiers? I know they’re trying to blame shift so they come off looking good, or at least neutral, but they also come off looking like idiot ostriches who have no idea what’s going on with themselves.
@AmyToo – agreed. Its a bad look either way – either the Queen/PC are making these bad decisions on their own, or the Queen and PC are being given horrible advice repeatedly by their staff – after the first big mistakes, like Andrew’s interview, you would think they would stop listening to them. The truth is prob somewhere in the middle in terms of who is making these decisions, but the queen and PC are coming off looking weak, inept and isolated.
You’ve said so much better what I’ve tried to say below. Pulling the curtain back on this, basically how they function as a family and as an organization, is not a good look for the BRF. They’ve probably been delegating to staff for so long that they’ve essentially lost connection with and authority over their one sh*t.
The role of a competent adviser is to offer differing perspectives and challenge the status quo. Maybe HM’s secretary gave her bad advice and she chose to follow it, or maybe he gave her great advice and she chose to ignore it. In the end, she made the decisions that led to this moment.
Response re BECKS1 comment on Picture of Queen released for her Christmas message: I’d buy that excuse of — not realizing the message being sent with the photos — except that this was done before. The day after the Sussexes documentary first aired, there was all that hoo ha ha by the press that in a photo released of the Queen just meeting a dignitary or someone at BP it was noted that the photo of Harry & Meghan that had been sitting on a table in the room had been removed. The press and many blog sites made much of “the Queen sending a silent message that she was most displeased with the Sussexes. The courtiers trotted the same BS out then of, oh the photos are often rotated, even though none of the others were different.
I mean, the photo thing is a bit silly. She has photos of everyone in direct line to the throne (+ their partners) and her husband. Her father (previous king), her husband, her first son (next king), his oldest son (next PoW) and grandson (in line after his father) and their immediate family. Other senior royals like her children Anne and Edward were not pictured either. Neither were Anne, Andre or Edward’s children – her other grandchildren. Honestly, I think that is one issue that is a big nothingburger. That said, maybe it became an issue for the Sussexes due to her lack of protection and support in other areas.
Many in the UK are saying the royal disasters of the last year will force the Queen to abdicate in 2020. I think Charles set up this situation for this exact reason. He knew how to damage her credibility beyond repair. Leaving her no choice if “the institution” is to endure.
Charles knew his youngest son is a loose cannon who never really wanted to be part of the family and would likely sprint off at first opportunity. He used it to his advantage. It’s quite possible Charles used the media to goad Harry into this action. How do the yanks put it? Harry went off “half- cocked” just like his father wanted him to. Prince William would be in on it since “Grandmama” was likely not dying fast enough and he wants that sweet Cornwall money.
BANG – and we have a WINNER – FINALLY someone gets what is going on. Charles is making his bid for his Regency – after all he is at an age where he may actually die before his mother so in his eyes the time is now….
Considering it was CHARLES’ BIOGRAPHER who released the “unused” portions of Charles’ book… He sure as sh!t wouldn’t do that w/out tacit permission from Charles. Something to consider.
Charles is also frantically trying to look “good” right now, with an article out about how he “threw MILLIONS of
£££s” to H&M to appease them, and get them to “stay/stay happy” (ie: paying for the personal furnishings of Frogmore), over and above what is *known* to be H’s “allowance” of £2.4M.
Charles’ hands are NOT clean, no matter how much he wrings them out.
I can definitely get on board with this theory. Charles is not innocent at all and has been known to brief against his sons. His own mother is definitely not free from manipulation. When (or IF) this situation gets cleaned up I can see him grabbing credit for the resolution and the press once again questioning his mother’s ability to be an effective leader.
I dont fully buy this theory, that this is part of some long game by Charles in a bid to force his mother to abdicate – but I do think that Charles is making a conscious choice not to help the situation and to sort of let the chips fall where they may. He knows Sussexit makes the monarchy look bad, and he’s okay with that because it may end up benefiting him. That’s why he is letting it play out like this.
I think that is a reasonable middle ground way to look at it. I would only remind you that Charles is a known opportunist. He’s also the only Windsor that actually kind of gets how PR works. I would expect the spin in a couple of days.
The Queen’s not going anywhere.
You can lay that to rest right here, right now. That is absolutely not going to happen.
I wouldn’t be so sure…
If TQ would ever consider stepping down, it’s not likely to be before she gets her centenary big bash. Would TQ abdicate though to become the Duchess of Whatever, and have to curtsy to King Charles?
She’d be the new Queen Mum. Dowager Regent Queen Elizabeth.
Yeah, with how obsessed the BRF are about rank and protocol, there’s not a chance Liz is going to demote herself.
That scene from The Crown between Charles and Wallace Simpson keeps coming to mind.
Simpson: “Watch out for your family.”
Charles: “They mean well.”
Simpson: “No. They don’t.”
It probably never happened but that doesn’t mean it’s not absolutely true.
What season and episode is this?
Its from season 3 – its the episode where the duke of windsor dies, and Wallis is back in the UK for his funeral.
That was literally one of the best moments. Cause even if she never said that to Charles in real life, she should have cause it’s true as hell.
Definitely the standout moment of the season. And true as hell.
I JUST watched that yesterday! And that REALLY stood out to me, too.
(Although I could retch at the way they’re trying to paint C&C as this great love story á la Romeo and Juliette).
Yes to all of your points Frida_K! So happy the Sussexes are sussexiting. I think they can see that there is less and less room in this changing world for a messy AF royal family, I wonder if it all won’t come crumbling down when the Queen dies. They are smart to carve out a different space for themselves before that happens. Pedo Andy does not jive with their brand. And poor Bea is having the worst engagement ever! What a hot mess this all is!
something awful occurred to me last night — maybe the BRF is reading the Boris Johnson and Brexit votes as a signal to hew to their own racist values…because they think that’s what their public wants? So beyond bad PR instincts, bad human instincts. Even if not fully consciously…just ingrained racism, and shock now that Meghan & Harry are standing up to it. In any case, the conflict here seems to mirror the broader one going on in the UK, raising important qs about the soul of the country…
I think you’re onto something but not quite in this sense. Sadly Meghan joined the family at a horrible time i.e. post Brexit vote at a time of increasing nationalism.
She also didn’t have an Obama administration to symbolically have her back. The RF cannot be seen to be political in any case but maybe they are stupid enough to believe that issuing a statement about the racism she faces may alienate them from their core supporters i.e. boomers who are disenfranchised with life and in the main voted Brexit,
good point re the broader int’l context…thanks for that… Now I’m imagining how the wedding itself, with its joyous celebration of her heritage might have helped ignite the haters…
A prominent right wing politician’s gf got into a lot of trouble for making comments about how Meghan’s blood would pollute the blood line.
I’m convinced that Meghan, who’s used to dealing with toxic family, and also I suspect has had some therapy, took one look at the royals and their lackeys and told Harry, “you know this isn’t normal, right?”
Same. I think Meghan brought to light how messed up his family is and how bad it was for him to remain within it. In the past, Meghan has shown herself to be decisive. When she has sized up a situation and has done what she can to help salvage it and that ship is going down anyway, she gets the hell off the sinking boat. I think the way the RF has protected Andrew after all he has done reallllllyyyy sunk in with both Harry and Meghan and really made them realize that the family could have done more for them if they really wanted to and they just didn’t.
someone pointed out, maybe here, that while Harry initially expressed hope that Meghan would find in his family the family she’d always wanted, she instead found in the BRF the family she already had. She was able to see past the sashes and tiaras and epaulettes the truth…
These rats will live on through this crisis as they invariably do as long as the media sustains them by printing lies and puff pieces.
Speaking of – did you see Kate made up to the nines papped doing a “school run?” They don’t even attempt to be subtle.
That was pretty funny since they have an agreement to NOT be photographed on school runs. I guess she and Will made an exception this time 😉
…and the next time…they’re a desperate lot aren’t they.
This is not the first time an ‘exception’ has been made about papping them at the school run.
Got to keep that embiggening Katie Keen narrative going.
Me go that was a riot. Just Normal Glammed up Kate doing the normal mom school run.
Ok, so they all have functionaries that act as gatekeepers and who help them to manage day to day activities,e.g., what one sees and what one doesn’t see. I am somewhat of a QEII apologist but the buck stops with her, not her staff. If she’s essentially phoning it in these days, there is nothing staff can really do to some extent. News accounts say that she was alerted but punted it to Prince Charles’ and his office. As a result, her staff probably thought it was successfully dealt with.
On the other hand, if Anne and Edward are questioning the coordination of this, then ok. I get it. However, this type of thing ultimately raises the question: who’s running the joint?
I don’t think Anne and Edward have any thing to do with this. I think the first thing that happened was the family crisis meeting, which the powerful courtiers Three Great Officers of the Royal Households, Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse attended. Edward Young then did the expected thing, which is to resign and accept blame. With the advice of The Three Great Officers and Prince Charles’ agreement, TQ decided to let Young be the fall guy — with Young’s consent even if it wasn’t his fault. (He will be highly compensated and placed in a great job somewhere.)
A decision was then made to use a low key non-controversial member of the RF as the source of this demand — someone the tabloids will have no resent drama to rehash. Anne and Sophie are perfect choices, but it’s better to use TQ’s children, so Edward replaces Sophie. Then they leak the story.
In the end, Young won’t publicly be blamed nor fired. It will be announced that he has resigned for some made up reason. The world will believe he was fired, but it won’t go on his resume and he will get great letters of recommendation from TQ and PC. His future employers know the deal anyway. They know the political game.
Cool. Thanks. I’ll watch for this.
This family being surrounded by ‘yes men’ is a BIG problem and why they always are so out of touch and stupid. They need people from the real world who will tell them the truth about themselves, but I doubt that’s gonna happen.
You’re right-but I don’t think it’s gonna happen either. They don’t even trust each other, and with all the ego/white fragility there I don’t think they’re emotional maturity to handle someone who will speak to them frankly and give them solid advice.
This reminds me of the exchange from the movie A Few Good Men:
“I want the truth!”
“YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!”
So apropos in these circumstances.
Really appreciate your use of the term, Sussexit, instead of the one meant to ‘other’ Meghan.
It’s like all those people know how to do is scapegoat & throw those close to them under the bus.
I know I don’t get a say in this but… just get rid of it all. QEII, too.
Reading the bios of Young and Geidt on Wikipedia, they are pretty impressive – Geidt more so than Young – but it strikes me that neither of them have a background to help the queen negotiate familial conflicts/relationships that play out publicly. Young does look like he has PR experience. He is the one (apparently) who had the queen participate in the Olympics James Bond skit, so you would think he is more sensitive to how to make the queen more appealing to younger people (including via her grandchildren). So, I don’t know why he has led the queen poorly on this issue, unless maybe, he has led her skillfully and she decided to take someone else’s advice instead.
I actually don’t understand why the queen, Charles, or William aren’t open to revisiting the Royal Rota issue. It’s only been around for 40 years, it’s not like it’s set in stone, any PR strategy should be revisited after 4 decades!… Was it just b/c it was H&M asking for it to be reconsidered that the senior royals vetoed it?
They can’t. The media has too much dirt on them. They have to play the game. Otherwise, the press couldn’t make them dance on commend as they do now. Who’d allow someone to hold them hostage if they could free themselves.
Also just wanted to say that this post is an excellent thought piece on what is going on. I love this site. Thanks.
Can’t wait to watch the Queen’s final years on Netflix in a decade.
I bet the source for that article Lord Geidt. Be careful who you oust, Charles!
After 68 years of peak authority, with people constantly bowing & scraping, I don’t think it occurs to QE that she can’t control, demand, or command her whole extended family’s activities & timing. She behaves like an absolute monarch regarding her family.
Case in point is Andrew. She was reared in times when affairs & mistresses for royals were common. Mountbatten encouraged a young Prince Chas to find suitable mistresses. It was the done thing back then. If she doesn’t see him as a rapist pedophile, he can’t possibly be one & no one else will see it that way either.
The woman is severely out of touch with modern thinking. Harry told (some of) the fam what he was planning & kept getting put off with excuses. H & M only announced after they found out that The Sun had gotten a leak & was going to immediately publish. Imagine the arrogance of telling an offspring he’d have to wait until “they” were ready to announce his plan & then repeatedly declining or postponing meetings to discuss an issue that appears to be so very important to “them.”
My question is stupid. Do you have to curtsy to Harry and Meghan if you see them out and about in real life? I’m sure you dont get arrested or anything if you don’t, but I was wondering how royalty is handled if you just seem them out in life. Especially in England.
No you don’t have to. Protocol is that women curtsy and men bow when introduced to a royal person – and even that isn’t not set in stone, people themselves can choose whether they want to do this or not.
If you see them out and about, then you just ignore them. I’ve seen the Danish royals plenty of times. Most times people just ignore them, some people yell hello or wave. However, when QMII visit the theater (which she does a lot), people generally stand up. But she almost always sneak in after the lights have dimmed.
I’m convinced that part of the reason this was such a problem was that the Firm had suddenly realized after the Andrew catastrophe that they were going to NEED Harry and Meghan to pull attention and get positive coverage.
Like, for two years the Queen especially and Charles somewhat have essentially left Harry and Meghan out to dry in their conflicts with both William AND the media. In taking their “you can’t win wars with the media” position, they distinctly gave the impression publicly (and I would bet privately as well) that they basically didn’t CARE about Harry and Meghan at all. They weren’t affirmatively negative about them the way that William was, but they just seemed to shrug their shoulders about them (especially once the excitement about their wedding settled down).
Basically, I think if the order of operations were different here and Harry and Meghan had requested permission for this BEFORE Andrew’s disastrous interview, I think they might have gotten their walking papers fairly easily. It was just that in the wake of The Andrew Affair, suddenly the Firm became interested in having Harry and Meghan onside. But by then the damage had been done.
While I agree that Edward Young will likely be used as a scapegoat, I am a bit confused about the Geidt situation. Was he not rehired by the queen on a part-time basis about a year ago to assist Meghan? Much was made at the time, some people indicating that they thought Geidt was being brought in to keep Meghan in line. Is he not still working at BP? Maybe Geidt was involved in this whole mess.
@Mary I also vaguely recall reporting on Geidt rejoining in a new roll. There was def a photo of him interacting with Meghan.
@jane, I went back and checked and, sure enough, at the end of March last year, Geidt was rehired by the Queen to work with Meghan. As I indicated above, some of the papers took this as a sign that the Queen wanted him to keep Meghan in her place. If you Google “Geidt Meghan Queen hire” you will see quite a few reports of his rehiring.
As you indicated, It was also around this time that Meghan met Geidt on one of her engagements. He was involved in some organization and when they met they gave each other a big hug and it seemed as though they knew each other very well and liked each other.
Now that I have read Geidt’s Wikipedia biography, it doesn’t seem likely that he was brought in to keep Meghan in line. I mean, I find it hard to believe the Queen would hire someone of his experience and responsibilities (who already has another position no less) to babysit a new princess. It looks more like the she asked him to actually… be useful to Meghan? I’m not a fan of Liz II so this is taking some effort to wrap my brain around. Maybe things would even have gone down easier for H&M if Geidt hadn’t been pushed to the outside of the Queen’s circle.