Buckingham Palace is still unable to confirm whether Prince Andrew will turn up for the King’s pre-Christmas lunch on Thursday.
Awkwardly, the names of the Duke of York and his ex-wife, Sarah, remain on the guest list of the festive party for around 70 members of the extended Royal Family at Buckingham Palace, the Mail understands.
It’s claimed Andrew has insisted he has every right to attend. He is said to have told friends ‘he should be there’, and that as it’s a family occasion, ‘why shouldn’t he go?’
Royal aides couldn’t hide their relief on Monday after it was revealed the Duke had decided to ‘do the decent thing’ and spare his brother’s blushes by pulling out of the official festive celebrations and the walk to church at Sandringham next week amid the furore over his association with alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
However, each year the monarch also invites his large extended family – aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, husbands and wives – who don’t make the cut to Sandringham, to meet up for a big festive meal in London.
Sources said today they still have ‘no idea’ whether the beleaguered royal will show up – and may not even be sure until they see who pulls up at the gates.
In the meantime, senior royal aides are optimistically operating on the ‘working assumption’ the Duke will ‘see sense’ again and decide to ‘keep his head down’.
They feel his presence at ‘monarchy HQ’ would send a ‘conflicting and confusing message’, having taken what was described as ‘the gentlemanly option’ over Sandringham.
Prince Andrew (pictured, right) with Yang Tengbo (pictured, left) who befriended the Duke of York
Buckingham Palace is still unable to confirm whether Prince Andrew will turn up for the King’s pre-Christmas lunch on Thursday
The Duke of York attending the Christmas Day morning church service at Sandringham in 2022. Royal aides couldn’t hide their relief on Monday after it was revealed the Duke had decided to ‘do the decent thing’ and spare his brother’s blushes by pulling out of the walk
The lunch is private, but guests are usually photographed going in and out of the palace gates.
Andrew could try to sneak in undetected but sources have told the Mail he should either come through the front door or not at all – ‘preferably the latter’.
Privately, there are grave concerns about the depth of Andrew’s involvement with Yang who, it has emerged, referred to himself as the ‘special envoy of Prince Andrew’ and was appointed by the royal as head of his Pitch@Palace China, a Dragons’ Den-style initiative from which the Duke took a cut.
Andrew insists he has done nothing wrong, despite a judge raising questions about how the alleged spy could have become such a ‘close confidante’.
It follows on from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and concerns over the Duke’s role as an official UK ‘trade ambassador’.
But the most damning revelation of recent days was the emergence of correspondence in 2021 from his ‘senior advisor’, Dominic Hampshire, found by security services on Yang’s phone.
Hampshire emphasised the ‘strength’ of the relationship with the Duke and his family, adding: ‘Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree many, many people would like to be on.’
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at Ascot in 2019. Awkwardly, the names of the Duke of York and Sarah remain on the guest list of the festive party for around 70 members of the extended Royal Family at Buckingham Palace
More worryingly for palace officials, Hampshire wrote that after a meeting with Andrew, they had ‘wisely navigated our way around former private secretaries and we have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust.
Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor’ – a reference to Royal Lodge, Andrew’s Berkshire home.
There is no clue who these individuals are – or why they would be so keen to circumvent security to smuggle people into his home.
Investigations continue into what access Yang had when he visited royal residences several times on Andrew’s invitation.
