Australia, explained.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, left, alongside his brother Britain's King Charles III (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
Tectonic shifts in English society are fundamentally reshaping the monarchy. Australia must be ready to adapt.
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Andrew is a symptom of the monarchy’s existential crisis, not the causeAndrew is a symptom of the monarchy’s existential crisis, not the cause
In the 1970s, British sociologists asked a group of schoolchildren to take part in a study testing attitudes to authority. Imagine you’re a police officer and you’ve stopped a car that was speeding, the kids were told. Then you discover that the driver is the Queen. What do you do?
A few said, the law’s the law. Give her a ticket like anyone else. The majority said they would apologise and wave the Queen on her way.
Apparently even primary school children back then knew, intuitively, that the monarch is above the law.
But now even primary school children will have seen the image of that same Queen’s son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, slouched in the back of a police car. A man not so much above the law as writhing in its clutches.
In a YouGov survey last month, more than 90% of Britons had an unfavourable view of the man who is still, for now, eighth in line to the throne. A man whose royal wedding in 1986 was a moment of unbridled national joy.
The general assumption seems to be that Andrew’s craven association with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the possibility that he may face criminal charges, have triggered an existential crisis for the monarchy as a whole.
It certainly feels that way. But it’s not as though this is the first time a member of the Royal Family has brought the institution of the British monarchy to the brink of disaster.
Britain’s populists profess to love the monarchy … But their bigger, and seemingly increasingly successful, project is to scratch away at the authority and standing of the establishment and its elites.
A hundred years are still yet to elapse since Edward VIII gave up the throne because he wanted to marry a divorcee. The British cabinet was having none of that, nor were the dominions. Australian prime minister Joseph Lyons was implacably opposed, prompting King Edward to fume that there were “not many people in Australia” and their opinion was unimportant.
Given that the King was the spiritual head of the Church of England, and the ultimate vessel of British political authority, the abdication crisis was a big deal. He was flying in the face of morality, religion and constitution. This could easily have sunk the House of Windsor, if not the entire monarchy.
The Royal Family remained afloat thanks only to the valiant, focused and self-abnegating efforts of Edward’s younger brother, George VI and his wife Elizabeth (best known as the Queen Mother), followed by their daughter Elizabeth II.
Even Queen Elizabeth’s steady hand on the tiller was barely enough. The death of her daughter-in-law Princess Diana in 1997 pitted the people against the palace. The Queen came perilously close to losing her subjects’ unquestioning fealty.
Eventually, the Queen recovered her poise and authority, and became perhaps one of the most popular monarchs of the entire millennium. She became an emblem of tradition, continuity and constitutional solidity. She contrived to rise above the soap opera of Charles and Diana’s marital catastrophe, Andrew’s errant behaviour, her husband Philip’s curmudgeonly political incorrectness, and Britain’s post-Brexit descent into political folly and farce.
Beneath this implacable veneer, however, cracks were appearing.
Prince William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales during a state visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in December (Kin Cheung via Getty Images)
Andrew’s disgrace is an existential crisis for the monarchy, but he is not the cause. He is just the catalyst, the symptom, the consequence. If it had not been Andrew, it would have been someone or something else.
British society has undergone a profound transformation. It has left the House of Windsor looking like one of those awkward historic buildings whose façade has been left standing while an utterly new edifice, modern Britain, is built around it. The class system still echoes through Britain’s economy and society, but since the social and political upheaval of the 1960s, its rules and rigidities have broken down.
This has gradually eroded, to the point of extinction, the culture of deference that sat at the system’s heart.
Many Britons still respect and even revere the royals. But the media’s licence to pursue and pillory them, led by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids, has gradually undermined the Windsors’ standing.
This has fed, and been fed by, Western democracies’ general trend towards the demotic. Populism is the spirit of the age.
William wants the monarchy to be boring and relatively functional, like the Dutch or Danish and is said to be far less interested in these vestiges of empire, almost indifferent to the English monarch’s role in the realms’ affairs.
Britain’s populists profess to love the monarchy, as a symbol and embodiment of some prelapsarian past. But their bigger, and seemingly increasingly successful, project is to scratch away at the authority and standing of the establishment and its elites. This means that even if the monarchy is not a target, it is collateral damage.
Populists’ support for the monarchy is also conditional: the King retains their faith only insofar as he continues to represent an antediluvian tradition. If he strays too far into promoting faddish causes such as climate change or multiculturalism then he, too, will be up against the wall when the revolution comes.
The foundations have been rotting under the House of Windsor for more than half a century. Andrew’s downfall has merely applied a potentially terminal amount of pressure to the walls.
King Charles’ job is to keep the structure from collapse. He is too old and too tainted, and his reign likely too short, to do anything more.
The task of rebuilding the foundations falls to earnest Prince William. It’s quite clear that he understands this, and also that he knows the repair job will fundamentally change the structure.
He has described his architectural blueprint as “royal with a small r”. No more flamboyance, eccentricity and indulgence. No more born-to-rule mentality. No more aristocratic aloofness.
Pomp and ceremony, yes – but only as much as the market will bear. No extravagance. Pageantry with a purpose. Moral authority and capital will be earned not inherited, and will be expended on worthy causes not vanity projects. Religious piety is out of keeping with the times, and will be downplayed to the point of disappearing. Spirituality is important, but will be expressed in a modern argot.
William wants the monarchy to be boring and relatively functional, like the Dutch or Danish.
Well-wishers wait for the arrival of Prince William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales during a visit to Stirling, Scotland last month (Karwai Tang via Getty Images)
But it can’t be too boring. Legitimacy in our times comes through affection as much as through respect, so the king must endear himself to the nation.
William plans to do this by being an everyman rather than a panjandrum. He will prefer to be seen sitting at someone’s kitchen table than standing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. He will listen to your story, and if it’s sad or moving his eyes will brim. He’s a national shoulder to cry on. But although he will show emotion, he won’t over-emote. Openness invites affection, but it can risk contempt. Some restraint is still necessary to win respect.
William faces a near-impossible balancing act. He needs to embody the two almost contradictory facets of Englishness: the stiff upper lip and the wobbly lower lip.
Having understood the task, the biggest risk for William (and eventually probably also for his son George) lies in the choice of spouse – the external recruits to The Firm.
Charles, Andrew and Harry all came undone partly because their wives were agents of chaos and instability. Diana, Sarah and Meghan in effect invited the outside world in, hastening the destruction of deference.
To be fair, the job of royal spouse is nigh impossible. The pressure and expectation are intolerable, the outcome almost inevitable.
In this respect, though, William seems to have chosen well. For a time in 2023, the media and public seemed to be developing an appetite to turn Catherine, or “our Kate”, into a latter-day Diana. She was losing weight, she seemed unhappy, there were rumours of William’s infidelity. A touched-up photo on social media was given runic scrutiny.
But in handling her cancer ordeal in 2024, Kate walked William’s tightrope with aplomb: she showed just enough humanity and vulnerability but kept just enough distance to avoid relaunching the royal soap opera.
Since the cancer episode she and William have, improbably, managed to rekindle a sense of deference from a British tabloid media that usually seeks blood, let alone scents it.
But this is a fragile peace. Like his predecessor King Canute, William cannot turn back the demotic tide. He has no choice but to go with the flow.
This pared down, unpretentious, vernacular monarchy has little room for bumptious, entitled, ancien-regime figures like Andrew. He will be banished from the House of Windsor, and William will do his utmost to ensure that there is no restive and rebellious younger sibling among his own brood.
The monarchy will thus survive the Andrew crisis, but only if, and only because, William utterly reinvents it.
The new post-Andrew, post-Elizabeth, post-Brexit, postmodern English monarchy that William is building also has little place for Australia and Australians.
King Charles, as the bridge between Elizabeth’s old world and William’s new one, is attached to the Commonwealth, and to the monarchy’s role in the 15 realms where he is still titular head of state. He has great affection for Australia, where he briefly went to school, and has always feared it becoming a republic under his watch.
William is said to be far less interested in these vestiges of empire, and almost indifferent to the English monarch’s role in the realms’ affairs. These postcolonial trappings are almost an encumbrance to the kind of modern monarchy that William wants, and probably needs, to create.
He won’t forcibly sever the bond with Australia, as he and his father are doing with Andrew. But he will almost certainly let it wither.
It might seem as if the “Andrew crisis” has little material impact on Australia’s immediate constitutional future. But the English monarchy is undergoing tectonic change, and this is a quake that should make Australia sit up and take notice.
Australians are not immune from this seismic event, and Australians should be thinking about how to shape our constitutional landscape in response, rather than waiting for the shockwaves to eventually reach our shores.
About the author
Hans van Leeuwen
Hans van Leeuwen is the international economics editor of the UK Daily Telegraph, based in London.
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