Many people watching Prince Andrew’s television interview at the weekend will have been thinking of the impact on the Queen – watching the son she has always favoured in such a humiliating position. And then watching the reaction, which analysed the said interview as catastrophic, disastrous, a “car crash”, ill-advised and self-serving, accusing Andrew of having scant compassion for the victims of his friend Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted paedophile.
But the Queen is 93, and it is possible, even probable, that she takes a longer view. Towards the end of his life, my husband tended to react to all media-led revelations with the reflection: “’Twas ever thus.” Elizabeth may also have reflected on all the errors, transgressions and scandals she has known about throughout her life. Or even the “car crash” episodes that harmed Edward VII’s reputation before he became king – that recent ancestor also had some very sleazy friends.
