The highly announced cut in the royal treasury’s share of the annual prerogative has become effective Prince Andrew, Duke of York, ‘black sheep’ of the Windsor house, overwhelmed by involvement in the sexual scandal linked to his interactions with the late American fixer Jeffrey Epstein, and already excluded for some years from any role representing the British monarchy. To support him, after months and months of anticipations, is now an experienced court biographer, Robert Hardmanin a soon-to-be-published book whose juiciest excerpts are previewed in installments by the current tabloid, the Daily Mail.
According to this source, the 75-year-old rand Charles III decided to go all the way in the tug-of-war with Andrewgiving formal instructions to the Keeper of the Privy Purse, a sort of palace treasurer, to stop the payment of approximately one million pounds disbursed to his younger brother – third born and once favorite son of the late Queen Elizabeth II – for personal maintenance and of the real property residence in which he lives. As well as putting an end to paying for the security that surrounds it.
A decision which, if confirmed, demonstrates the iron will of the sovereign – in a season of generalized savings imposed on court expenses – to stand up to the resistance of the cadet, who according to rumors in the popular press had bet on a possible “bluff” of Carlo. The objective attributed to the monarch, whose never easy relations with the 64-year-old Duke of York are now described in minimal terms, is to push his brother to move out of the sumptuous residence of Royal Lodge, in the Windsor Castle complex: a 30-room property in need of renovation that the duke shares with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson. Property that is far too expensive for the monarchy’s coffers and from which the king has been trying to evict him for some time, through an order to pay the maintenance costs from his own pocket from now on (which Andrea is unable to do). be able to remotely afford it, much less if deprived of the extra benefit). Hoping to persuade him to move to Frogmore Cottage, a smaller home given as a wedding gift by Queen Elizabeth to the prince Harry and Meghanonly to be taken away from them after the break from the Royal Family and their self-exile in the USA in 2020: always assuming that this alternative offer still remains on the table.