A Quiet Week, Until It Wasn’t
Andrew forces a brief check-in
I had intended, genuinely intended, to take the long weekend quietly. A bit of gardening. Some correspondence I have been neglecting since April. Mrs. Crown had strong views about a new restaurant that required my attention. It is the time of year when London turns briefly, unexpectedly magnificent, and this week promises to be positively sweltering, the kind of heat that makes the city feel borrowed from somewhere sunnier and better organised.
And then, of course, Andrew.
One should not be surprised at this point. The man has a gift, I use the word loosely, for arriving uninvited into one’s consciousness at the precise moment one least requires him. Thames Valley Police, which has had rather a busy spring, announced that they are broadening their inquiry to include allegations of sexual misconduct. This is, as the lawyers among you will appreciate, a material expansion from where things stood in February, when the original arrest concerned the rather tidier question of confidential government documents allegedly passed to Jeffrey Epstein during his time as trade envoy.
That charge was not, to put it mildly, a good starting position. The new territory is considerably worse.
I have sources who describe the mood in the relevant corners of the Palace as one of exhausted resignation - not panic, because one does not panic about things one has been quietly anticipating for years, but rather the specific weariness of people who have been waiting for a particular shoe to drop and are now watching it, with great deliberateness, drop.
His Majesty will say nothing publicly, as is entirely correct. The institution will say nothing publicly, also correct. The papers will say everything, loudly and at length. And I am here, in what was supposed to be a restful weekend, writing this.
London is going to be thirty-three degrees by Tuesday. Andrew may find the heat turned up even higher.
More when there is more. There will be more.
- DC
When will AMW be removed from the royal website?
I hate to be a cynic, but with AMW that is so easy to be. If this is the first respondent to the call of TVP department for "victims" to come forward, it's just as well the Palace is in a resigned mood. Because in several other like instances, the first respondent triggered a mini-avalanche of "me-too" women that added their voice, after the first brave one stepped out. One would think, with AMW's cachet as a Royal then, many of the women he was involved with (& Dr. Lownie & the Epstein files have documented AMW's prodigiousness in this part of his life) were consenual, collaborative-even partners in the sexual interludes AMW was undoubtedly addicted to. Well time will tell, none of us will be surprised, the Palace even less so. Back to our gardening, thank you for the update Mr. DC.