Queen Elizabeth II has died at the age of 96. The Royal Family were present for her “peaceful” death at the Royal Estate in Balmoral, British TV has interrupted all programming, presenters donned black ties and the overall mood in England is gloomy.
The Queen’s dealh is a huge story, though the Royal Family is never far from the public eye. Many of the headlines in recent years have centered on Prince Harry and Meghan stepping away from royal duties, but a substantial chunk have covered the disgraced Prince Andrew.
Andrew was a close friend of wealthy child abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and was himself accused of child sexual abuse by sex trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre. Andrew strenuously denied all allegations, but after a disastrous BBC interview in which he tried and failed to defend his actions by saying he’d never met her (despite a widely publicized photo of him with his arm around her), public opinion turned against him and he resigned from public life. He then tried and failed to defend himself against Giuffre’s accusations, but was forced to settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Could Andrew ever become King?
Now that the Queen has died, what are the chances of this widely despised man taking the throne? Thankfully, there’d have to be a fairly unlikely chain of events for that to happen.
Andrew is currently ninth in the line of succession. Prince Charles is obviously first, followed by Prince William and his three children. After that, Prince Harry comes in at sixth, with his children seventh and eighth in line. All of those people would have to die in order for Andrew to become the most hated King in the world, so we should be thankful that we’d have to see a very unlikely chain of events for that to happen.
Expect a lot of scrutiny over Andrew over the next few weeks. As reportedly the Queen’s favorite child, he will appear at her funeral, though his reputation means he’ll likely be excluded from any public displays of mourning. However, now that the Queen is out of the picture, expect the remaining Royals to shuffle him as far away from public view as humanly possible.
