• Opinion: Prince Andrés, as Cristina and Iñaki, by Jaime Peñafiel

2019 was an annus horribilis for the Windsors. The first swerve was in January Felipe de Edimburgo , when, at the age of 97, his car collided with another vehicle in which two women and a baby were traveling at the gates of Sandringham. The year traced back with the birth of Archie, Elizabeth II's eighth great-grandson, but soon went awry again with Meghan Markle's growing difficulties fitting into the royal family, with her confrontation with Kate Middleton and with her role in distancing each time. greater between Enrique and Guillermo.

Everything made us think that Meghan's announced rudeness to the traditional family Christmas, also in Sandringham, was going to be the last bitter drink of the queen, who also had her own on behalf of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, when he asked him to authorize the suspension of Parliament for three weeks, which was later invalidated by the Supreme Court.

But this is where Prince Andrew appeared , ready to tell the whole truth about his ties to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Duke of York took the advice of his personal secretary, Amanda Thirsk, convinced of his innocence, and agreed to put himself within range of the journalist Emily Maitlis, as incisive as a prosecutor. The BBC interview shook the foundations of Buckingham Palace. The queen, who had given her approval a priori, was enraged when she heard her son throwing balls away at questions about his alleged sexual relations with a minor (Virginia Roberts Giuffre) and exhibiting a total lack of remorse for his relationship with Epstein.

For 22 years, since the death of Lady Di, the queen was not seen in another like it. The royal commentators even go back to 1992, christened by Elizabeth II herself as annus horribilis, when Andrew himself announced his separation from Sarah Ferguson, Princess Anne consummated her divorce and biographer Andrew Morton brought to light the dirty laundry of the bankrupt marriage between Charles and Diana , weeks before the devastating fire at Windsor Castle.

"It will not be exactly a year to which I can direct my gaze with pure pleasure," the queen came to confess, in the sarcastic tone that characterizes her, 27 years ago. The same can be said in December when the bells of Big Ben, between scaffolding, mark the end of a year to forget .

Little did he suspect the new and serious stumble of the House of Windsor at this point, after in 2018, the wedding of Harry and Meghan shot the British monarchy to the highest levels of popularity of the last three decades. "Some of the calamities of 2019 can be attributed to bad luck, and others to lack of judgment," writes royal chronicler AN Wilson in The Daily Mail . "But at least one issue is so serious that, if it continues, it may threaten the future of the monarchy itself."

The last thing Elizabeth II expected, at 93 years of age and at the end of her term of 68, was to see herself in this position when she was already beginning to unleash her heir, Prince Charles . It was precisely she, on vacation in New Zealand, who alerted her mother to the need to "relieve" her brother, eighth in the line of succession, from her duties "to save the monarchy."

Andrés, the favorite

Curiously, Prince Andrew was always considered the queen's "favorite son", above Carlos himself, his daughter Ana and the little boy, Eduardo, by far the most discreet. Andrés has been, however, the one who has given his mother the most headaches , from his early relationship with the erotic actress Koo Stark to his friendship with Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif, while he served as a commercial ambassador for the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2011 .

Andrés was then forced to resign due to his tendency to mix business with personal affairs (he sold his house for a higher price than the market price to Timor Kulibayev, brother-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan). His murky relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, maintained until 2010 with his famous getaway to Manhattan when the tycoon had already been convicted for the first time, continued to haunt him ever since and was reactivated last August, when the financier was found dead in a jail cell. New York where he awaited the review of his case.

The Duke of York wanted to leave the shadow of suspicion behind once and for all, but what he finally achieved was to reopen Pandora's box with the BBC interview. Curiously, he himself told the queen that the interview had gone very well and that he could boast of "mission accomplished". However, the British press crucified his intervention as "catastrophic" and predicted a new "train crash", this time at the gates of Buckingham.

Elizabeth II, who had already left behind the uproar caused in January by her husband's accident, did everything possible to rebuild her composure in her first public reappearance hours after Andrés announced his resignation from his "public functions in the foreseeable future." .

At the beginning of the year, after the accident at the wheel of Felipe de Edimburgo, retired from public life due to his advanced age in the summer of 2018, the queen herself was splattered by controversy. First, for her husband's delay in apologizing to the two women slightly injured in the accident (it could have been even worse). And later, when it was learned that the queen and her consort lead practically separate lives, and that Philip still occasionally received his lifelong friends at Sandringham.

The second great upset of the year was caused by Meghan Markle, before she even gave birth to Archie . Prince Henry's American wife reaffirmed her "independence" by renouncing Kensington Palace - shared with William and Kate Middleton - and taking refuge in the distant Frogmore chalet, near Windsor Castle, after an estimated 2.8 million euro renovation. euros charged to the public treasury.

Another television show, this time an ITV documentary during the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's African tour, exposed Meghan's difficulties adjusting to her new life. "I am merely existing, not living," she said of her new responsibilities as a mother and wife. Meanwhile Enrique recognized his growing estrangement from his brother Guillermo: "We are following different paths."

The couple later launched an offensive on their own account and risk against the British tabloids, without the royal advisers. Her decision to "be absent" during the Windsor family Christmas in Sandringham - under the guise of a six-week long Thanksgiving trip to the United States - served as a discreet advance for the big surprise at the end of the year.

"At the rate it is going, this year may be even more horrible than 1992," warns AN Wilson, the reporter for The Daily Mail. "The damage done to The Windsor firm by the disastrous Prince Andrew interview cannot be understated. It will serve among other things to wonder who is advising the royal family and who is running the show . " And that's not to mention the new season of The Crown , where it is hinted that Elizabeth II's close friendship with Lord Porchester (also known as Porchie ) became a source of conflict in their marriage. To be continue...

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