Martin Rowson on the end of Prince Andrew – cartoon

3 days ago7 min read

The final, unceremonious curtain has fallen on the saga of Prince Andrew, and what a spectacularly tawdry final act it was, my darlings. Picture the scene: a man once known by the grandiose title of His Royal Highness The Duke of York, a naval commander, a son of the sovereign, now stripped of his remaining working roles and military affiliations in a move so definitive it felt less like a retirement and more like a social exorcism.This wasn't just a quiet stepping back; this was the palace equivalent of being scrubbed from the yearbook, his royal persona digitally remastered out of existence like a disgraced Politburo member in an old Soviet photograph. The catalyst, of course, was that car-crash-of-an-interview, the one that will be studied for generations not as a masterclass in crisis PR, but as a 'how-not-to' guide of epic proportions, where claims of a medically impossible inability to sweat and a pizza-party alibi in a Woking branch of Pizza Express became the bizarre, meme-generating soundtrack to his downfall.It’s a fall from grace so steep it makes the plotlines of *The Crown* look like gentle historical reenactments. We’ve watched celebrity reputations implode before—think of the frantic tabloid chases, the tearful interviews on daytime sofas—but this was different, played out in the hushed, gilded corridors of Buckingham Palace with a grim, bureaucratic finality.The royal brand, that most precious and fragile of commodities, is built on a foundation of perceived duty, dignity, and distance, and Andrew’s associations with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became a corrosive acid eating away at that very foundation. One can almost imagine the crisis meetings, the hushed tones, the weighing of ancient tradition against modern public sentiment, all culminating in this decisive severance.It’s a stark reminder that in today’s world, even the most ancient institutions are not immune to the court of public opinion, and that a title, no matter how grand, is no shield against the consequences of poor judgment and toxic associations. The palace, in its ultimate move, has effectively placed Andrew in a gilded box, shelved away from public view, a permanent resident of the royal wing reserved for problematic relatives, his story now a cautionary tale whispered in the halls of power and splashed across the front pages of every gossip column from here to Hollywood.

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