Then-Prince Charles and Prince Andrew had a meeting just days before the Queen’s death, sources have said.
According to the Daily Mail, Charles summoned Andrew for a “dressing down” after being made aware of the effect his alleged actions were having on the late monarch.
Charles had reportedly been told by the Queen’s senior staff that Andrew’s “persistent lobbying” to make him a “working royal” again following the sex assault allegations against him was “taking its toll,” an insider told the paper’s Ephraim Hardcastle column.
The meeting was said to have taken place at his Birkhall estate in Scotland, where Charles reportedly told Andrew he would never return to royal duties, as well as warning him he’d find it hard to get a charity that would make him patron.
“Andrew was totally blindsided,” an insider said of the meeting, the Mail claimed. “He is utterly bereft. He always believed there was a way back.”
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Andrew has also been left devastated by his mother, the Queen’s death, as she was his “chief supporter,” the paper claimed.
The source said, “Andrew was extremely close to the Queen and tried to raise the issue of his return to public life many times with her. On some occasions she would say mildly conciliatory things but most of the time she would change the subject immediately to avoid talking about it.”
The insider continued, “Naive as it may sound, he always had hopes of regaining his position as a senior royal.
“At the meeting, Charles told him that he can go off and have a good life, a nice life, but that his public life as a royal is at an end. He was told, ‘You have to accept this.'”
Andrew was stripped of his honorary military roles and patronages back in January following the sexual assault accusations against him.
“Until the face-to-face meeting with his brother, Andrew believed that there was a way back – that somehow he could be rehabilitated and play a role in The Firm going forward,” the source went on. “He came out of the meeting shaken. He is still in shock. He is completely lost and very depressed.”
They added, “He has no idea what the future holds and has no real plans. He is struggling to accept this is the end of the road for him as a royal. It is all he has ever known.”
