RICHARD EDEN: Prince Harry or Prince Andrew could still become our monarch if disaster strikes. Now courtiers tell me why King Charles won’t act

Prince Andrew is considered such an embarrassment to the Royal Family that Buckingham Palace insiders briefed the Press this week that he should ‘do the decent thing’ and voluntarily withdraw from public view over Christmas.

No sooner had these insiders’ opinions been published than the Duke of York said he would not be joining the rest of his family at Sandringham at all following the fallout from the so-called ‘Chinese Spy’ scandal.

His ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, whose presence after a 30-year absence during the public walk from church on Christmas Day had been considered so significant last year, would also stay away from the private Norfolk retreat. The couple’s daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, had, reportedly already decided that they would spend the festive season with their in-laws rather than with the Windsors.

Then it emerged the Duke and Duchess had also pulled out of King Charles’s pre-Christmas private lunch for extended family and friends at Buckingham Palace today.

Yet, despite all of this, Andrew still holds a prestigious and potentially significant role in the monarchy.

Just like his nephew Prince Harry, who also ‘stepped back’ from royal duties, Andrew is a Counsellor of State.

That means he is one of seven members of the Royal Family legally entitled to deputise for the King, who is still undergoing cancer treatment, ‘in the event that [he] cannot undertake his official duties as Sovereign on a temporary basis due to illness or absence abroad’.

Until 2022, the Counsellors of State were Queen Camilla, Prince William, Harry, Prince Andrew and his elder daughter, Princess Beatrice. But, many considered this situation unsuitable as the Dukes of York and Sussex, as well as Beatrice, aren’t working royals.

Prince Andrew drives his car away from Royal Lodge on Wednesday

The Duke of York and King Charles together at the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in London

Later that year, the King asked Parliament to add his sister, Princess Anne, and brother, Prince Edward, to the list.

It was reported he decided not to remove Harry and Andrew because he didn’t want to escalate family tensions.

So not only are Andrew and Harry both Counsellors of State, they retain their places in the line of succession, the Duke of Sussex in fifth, the Duke of York in eighth.

Think about that for a moment: Andrew is seen as such a danger to the reputation of the Royal Family that he cannot be seen with them in public, yet he is considered a suitable candidate to stand in for our head of state.

Harry, meanwhile, who publicly criticised the royals and betrayed his family with his tawdry memoir, Spare, would be in line to succeed the King if disaster were to strike the Windsors.

This situation seems to be the wrong way round to me.

The King should be stripping Andrew and Harry of their formal roles, and their places in the line of succession, while treating them as loved ones in private, if he so chooses.

Andrew has repeatedly shown that he has terrible judgment when it comes to friends and associates. His ten-year friendship with the Chinese alleged spy Yang Tengbo, who was named this week, is just the latest example.

The letter sent by the duke’s senior adviser Dominic Hampshire in 2020 telling Yang that, ‘outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on’, is excruciatingly embarrassing and highly damaging to the monarchy.

So, too, is the document found on Yang’s phone that had ‘main talking points’ for a call with Andrew, which said the prince was ‘in a ‘desperate situation and will grab on to anything’.

A courtier told me this week that the King wouldn’t take further action against his brother – or younger son – because he prefers to avoid confrontation wherever possible.

‘His Majesty does not want to exacerbate family tensions further,’ the source said. ‘By nature, he is a unifier, not a divider.’

But my fear is that the events of recent days have left the King looking weak. Using officials to plead with Andrew to ‘do the decent thing’ and stay out of public view, and even urging his estranged wife, Sarah, to help talk him out of going to Sandringham, put our monarch in the position of a supplicant.

Instead, he should be the one in charge: stripping Andrew of his formal positions, but then inviting him to spend Christmas with his family as a brother.

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