This is a moment of peril for the royal family

Only a few days ago, Buckingham Palace must have hoped, perhaps without complete conviction, that their announcement that Prince Andrew had “agreed” to give up his use of various historic royal titles would be sufficient to satisfy public opinion.

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Everyone knew there was more to come out about the prince’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, particularly from the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, and whatever leaks from the “Epstein files” might find their way into the media.

The aim of the official statement issued last Friday was that it would preempt another round of disastrous stories, and soften the inevitable backlash against the prince, and, far more importantly, the institution of the monarchy itself.

It’s fair to say that things have not turned out well. The measures taken, plainly at the behest of the King and Prince of Wales, did not lessen the tumult about Andrew and what he has been accused of doing.

This story has dragged on for too long and with such little transparency that the patience of both the royal family and the British public is being tested to exhaustion. As Andrew put it himself in his infamous 2019 Newsnight performance interview, Epstein has been “a constant sore in the family”, and it clearly hasn’t healed. That, though, is his own fault.