By their own financial disclosures, the Windsors exceeded their Sovereign Grant money by £16.1 million for 2021-2022. A few people suggested that perhaps the large discrepancy could be explained by Prince Andrew’s settlement out of court with Virginia Giuffre. Which is an interesting theory, but I doubt it – I think that money came from the Queen’s vast private funds, the extraordinary wealth which she does not have to disclose publicly. Giving away Sovereign Grant money to pay off Andrew’s victim… well, that would lead to even more questions.
Anyway, now that Andrew has settled with Virginia and months have passed since Andrew “stepped down” from his royal patronages and stopped using his HRH, what now? The Queen and Buckingham Palace will do the most to “support” him financially, that’s what. They’ll also try to ensure that he’s back in the royal fold completely, even if he’s not allowed at some of the public events. What’s even more interesting is that as the months pass, people are realizing that Andrew barely stepped down from jacksh-t. He’s still a knight of the Garter. He still has a few military patronages. And he’s still, remarkably, an aide-de-camp to the Queen:
Prince Andrew still holds a ceremonial role as a personal aide-de-camp to the Queen despite being stripped of a host of his military titles earlier this year. The disgraced royal, 62, appears in a list of appointments to Her Maj in an official Ministry of Defence document published weeks after he settled an alleged sex assault case.
Palace sources say the duke remains in the personal and honorary position, which is within the gift of the Queen. The role, also occupied by Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Edward, is similar to the Knight of the Garter honour which is also bestowed by Her Majesty.
Andrew, who was spotted out riding at Windsor yesterday, was made the Queen’s personal aide-de-camp in 1984 when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. The role is essentially that of a personal assistant to the sovereign. The positions can be granted to members of the Royal Family and senior officers in the forces. ADCs wear an aiguillette — an ornamental braided cord — on uniforms. With royal appointments it is worn on the right shoulder.
The steady drip-drip of “well actually, Andrew still has this role and that honor and this patronage” months after he was supposedly stripped of his patronages and royal honors is pretty outrageous, actually. The Queen and her aides completely and totally lied to the British public. They did the most to not only protect a credibly accused rapist and predator, they actively covered up the fact that the rapist/predator was NOT in fact stripped of all of his royal positions. For those keeping score at home: Andrew is still an aide-de-camp, a Knight of the Garter, he still wants to use his HRH (and does use it on correspondence), he still remains in at least one military patronage, he still resides in Royal Lodge (a huge mansion he “rents,” with his mother paying for all of it), he still has royal protection and his mother still has an open door policy for him, and he sees her every day.
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And so it will remain.
The royals/Queen need to stop trying to force Andrew down our throats, much like how he tried to force underage girls to have sex with him.
If they insist on not only keeping him around, but also shoving him in our faces, it’s high time the people stop paying taxes so nothing goes to the Sovereign Grant, as well as take back/redistribute the wealth these generational nonces and dunces stole from the rest of the world in order to self-annoint themselves holier than thou.
Well said. As an American, I’ve got no skin in the game, but the blatant thumbing of Royal noses in the faces of the British taxpayers and the rest of the world AND EACH OTHER is beyond offensive.
Yes, their utter refusal to bounce his raping ass off of BP balcony is enough to send a strong message that they have NO intention of “punishing” Pedrew. He is there to stay and be protected as long as his Mummy around….
As an American, I don’t care as it’s not my tax dollars funding his private security as well as his other needs for his lifestyle as we know he can’t live off of his pension.
The Sovereign Grant doesn’t come from tax money, it comes from the revenues of a specific real estate investment portfolio the UK government owns…although if there was a significant drop in tax revenues collected you can certainly bet that Parliament would be scrabbling to yoink every penny from the SG agreement that they could.
Also, the security stuff certainly comes from tax money, and Parliament could always deny the constant requests for more money to fix the Buckingham Palace disaster as those extra gobs of cash always come from taxes.
SnoodleDumpling, if I remember correctly from what I’ve read, doesn’t the brf get something like 15% of the money? In recent years that percentage has gone up. I think to 25%? Perhaps you have the specific percentages if I’m wrong. I know that part of that is money for restoration of BP–something that has been paid twice because the first time around the funds were used somewhere else. So, that is money that could have gone to the government and would have lessened the tax burden for the British people, isn’t it?
It just seems that the slimmed down Monarchy should be getting less because they shouldn’t need it. What’s going on there?
Nothing’s gonna change.
How much positive coverage would Charles get if he stripped Paedrew of all those honors as soon as possible after Mummy keels over? He could use some good PR, after all, and those who prey on children are low-handing fruit. I think the only people who’d object would be Andrew himself and probably Fergie.
Charles has his own scandals like the suitcase full of money he got
Let’s not forget Lord Brownnose that he bestowed with some douche honours last week that bailed him out as well as refinished BoZo Johnson’s new palatial pad last year, or whenever.
I so badly want to see this ship of pompous fools go down. The fact that these ghouls get paid with tax dollars to promote and enrich themselves is intolerable. I sincerely hope that when The Queen passes, the entire enterprise sinks. That’s a show I would enjoy.
Of course, he has. And he still has his honorary promotion to vice-admiral and is a counselor of state. The only reason he was removed from honorary military positions and charities is because the troops and the charities protested and dropped him themselves in some cases. Even if the money to pay his victim didn’t come from the SG this year, it still had its origins in that sort of funds at some point in the past.
This is all about money and the royal honors crap is just that (woohoo, he gets to wear a braided cord on his left shoulder). It’s just a pretense to keep feeding him.
This just makes the contrast with how Harry was treated all the more stark. I guess this is more proof that Vampire Tina Brown was right, the royals do regard Harry as more of a problem than Andrew.
MsIam, Harry will always be a problem because he’s independent of them now. Pedrew is going to be malleable as long as he has money. He is not seen as having done anything wrong by the brf, so they will probably continue to push him out there. These people have some serious mental health issues they need to deal with.
Just when I think I can’t be more disgusted by the difference in treatment between the two spares, the palace throw in another grenade.
I’ve said once and I’ll say it again the most petty and spiteful thing they did to Harry was to strip him of all his military patronages. We watched him as a boy play dressed up in army uniforms and joyfully play around on tanks. We observed him serve his country with pride. When he was no longer in the army he tried to give those who were injured a sense of purpose by setting up the hugely popular IGs. I can remember watching a documentary where he joined a group of injured soldiers walk to the North Pole (or somewhere really cold and remote). He left then a few days before they reached their destination because he didn’t want to take the spotlight away from them. Even now I get upset on his behalf because the “Big Three” decided he wasn’t worthy of just one miltary patronage.
There is something terribly wrong with that family’s moral compass when Harry (who has done so much for servicemen and women) is not allowed one patronage because he needed to leave to save his wife and family. Yet, that awful Andrew has been allowed to keep “several” of his patronages and numerous other titles even though there is enough circumstantial evidence for him to pay £12 million to someone he’s never met.
RANT OVER
The thing is that the monarchy has its own moral compass – everything the monarch does is right because he/she has been appointed by god. The people around the Queen aren’t human beings, they’re servants of the Queen and the morality is how well they serve her, not how good they are as human beings. Harry left and Andrew didn’t – that’s all the morality the monarchy needs to know.
I’ve always wondered what those braided cords signified. TIL, they are more unearned shiny objects bestowed by the queen.
I think we need to create a model for wrongdoers that accepts that they will still have a place within their families. That the family is wealthy and powerful doesn’t change that. It sucks and is terrible in so many ways, but it’s also human nature.
What’s terrible about Andrew is that he doesn’t show a shred of remorse, refuses to accept consequences, and is a grifting asshole louse. That he goes to see his mother every day isn’t the issue.
I really wish BP realized that if Andrew were actually to face consequences for his actions, and more importantly accepted them, no one would really care how much he saw his mother.
@ Concern Fae, wouldn’t that be a wonderful action on Pedrews part, but he has spent a lifetime of not taking responsibility for his treacherous actions so why would he now?
I find it comical that they are more concerned about Pedrew and his resolve to return back into the fold of the Royal family!! Pedrew wants to return and Betty is ensuring that he is allowed to. Nothing to see here except their usual lack of morality as well as optics.
I think the BIG thing is that PH, who committed no crime, has been treated radically differently than PA. Do we accept that somebody who just wants to not be attacked in the media every day can have the support of their family?
The Queens father, before becoming King, was Duke of York. Her mother, Queen Mother Elizabeth, was Duchess of York. There is a lot of sentimental baggage there, bestowing her father’s title on her second son. Maybe that’s part of why Andrew is so special to her. She was devoted to her father and he to her. Those feelings never go away.