Author Nigel Cawthorne believes the beleaguered Duke of York could ultimately even be driven out of Britain by public hostility and forced to live in exile abroad.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Express US, Mr. Cawthorne declared: “He has passed the point of no return and now faces a very dismal, hermit-like future shunned by almost everyone, including members of his own family.”
The royal writer said he supports the result of a UK opinion poll last week in which an overwhelming 69 per cent – almost seven out of ten Britons – said they want to see Andrew removed from the line of succession to the throne.
This could only be achieved through an Act of Parliament but Mr. Cawthorne said: “The mere fact we are even talking about such an extreme measure shows just how low Andrew has sunk in public esteem. The British people have had enough and most now simply want him gone.”
The prince, who turns 64 next month, has already been stripped of his military ranks, charity patronages and public use of his HRH title by the late Queen in January 2022, more than two years after his infamous BBC Newsnight interview about his friendship with convicted peadophile Epstein.
Her Majesty acted a month before lawyers for Andrew, who has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing, agreed an out-of-court settlement of £12million with alleged Epstein “sex slave” Virginia Giuffre.
The scandal has been reignited by this month’s massive US document dump of court papers relating to late financier Epstein in which Andrew’s name features more than a hundred times.
Mr. Cawthorne, who told of the prince’s behind-the-scenes dilemma in his 2020 best-seller Prince Andrew: Epstein, Maxwell and the Palace and returned to the subject in his latest book, last year’s War of The Windsors, said: “He knows this will never, ever go away.”
Two US attorneys representing more than a dozen Epstein victims are pressing the FBI to release mountains of evidence collected by agents from his private Caribbean island and mansions in New York, Miami and New Mexico.
“Had Andrew handled things differently – such as agreeing to be interviewed by the FBI at a venue of his choice and cooperating with authorities still investigating Epstein – then perhaps the public’s perception of him would be different.”
At the same time, the prince is said to be bracing for a battle royale on his own doorstep with his brother King Charles, who wants to move him out of his palatial, ten bedroom Royal Lodge estate in Windsor and into a smaller home.
Mr. Cawthorne said: “He’s destined for a lonely existence well out of public view and it may be that he eventually finds a more peaceful bolt-hole abroad, perhaps in Switzerland or France.
“He might need help to do this financially, but he still has a small circle of wealthy friends as well as possibly being able to call on family for assistance. Whichever path he chooses, there’s no way back to the life he once had.”
In a quirk of fate, if the Duke does seek haven abroad, he will be following in the historical footsteps of his own grandfather – and namesake – Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, who was banished for life from Greece in 1922 for disobeying a military command during an attempted coup.
Though he was allowed to briefly return to his homeland, Andrew spent most of the rest of his life on the French Riviera (while his son, the late Prince Philip, fought for Britain during World War II), living in small apartments, hotel suites and on board a yacht with his mistress, Countess Andrée de La Bigne.
He died from a heart attack aged 62 at the Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo in December 1944, having not seen anyone from his family – including Prince Philip – for the previous five years and leaving a trail of debt behind him.
