As the nation prepares to sit down and break bread with their nearest and, ahem, sometimes not so dearest this season of Goodwill, the King is facing a particularly vexing Christmas conundrum.
What on earth to do about his bothersome brother, Prince Andrew, whose issues seem to pop up like a particularly bad bout of the annual festive flu.
For the truth is that the King doesn’t want to have to go so far as to ban Prince Andrew from joining the rest of the Royal Family for the much-loved Sandringham church visit and walkabout.
He is, at the end of the day, his blood brother: he can’t divorce him, or indeed prevent him from seeing other family members.
Friends suggest Andrew must know his presence will put Charles in a very awkward position
But he is desperately hoping the Duke of York will ‘do the decent thing’ and ‘recuse’ himself from joining them at Sandringham to spare the rest of the Royal Family further embarrassment following his latest, and potentially highly politically damaging, scandal, having a suspected Chinese spy as a ‘close confidant’ and trusted business adviser.
As it stands, I am told, Andrew is due to join the rest of the family in Norfolk next week for the festive gathering.
He and his ever-expanding family – including his ex-wife, the Duchess of York, and daughters Princess Beatrice and Eugenie and their children – had been expected to take over Wood Farm, a large property on the royal estate.
They will then join the rest of the 45-strong gathering privately, according to Germanic tradition, to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve and then for Christmas Day lunch, which involves a very public walk to church in the morning.
Now, engulfed in yet another furore of his own making, pressure is being placed on the duke to ‘see sense’.
Charles, 76, is in an invidious position after what has been an incredibly difficult year for himself personally, and for his family, given his and the Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnoses and his wife Queen Camilla’s recent bout of pneumonia.
This year’s gathering was planned to be one of the biggest in recent memory, with even Camilla’s children invited, to acknowledge the challenges of the last 12 months and their hopes for a happier 2025.
Families are complex at the best of times and what gathering doesn’t have a difficult relation at the table, particularly at this time of year?
But friends suggest Andrew, 64, must know his presence will put His Majesty in a very awkward position.
If he allows him to attend it will be tantamount to putting his arm around his brother’s shoulder in a very visible manner just days after he became embroiled in an explosive ‘spy’ scandal.
But to ‘ban’ him would be the equivalent to a public excommunication – and with all the apron strings finally cut, who knows what the duke might do next?
Andrew, I understand, will still have the chance – should he so wishes – to see his family at the private pre-Christmas lunch the King throws his extended family (the cousins, nieces and nephews who don’t make the cut to Norfolk) this week – but a discreet entrance and exit, at least, would be appreciated.
But after that? Well, sources say, surely it is a matter for that much-vaunted sense of ‘honour’ Andrew told us all he had during his infamous 2019 interview in the wake of Epstein scandal and to politely withdraw from all royal festivities, for this year at least.
His family would certainly be grateful for it, I suspect, and he might even earn some respect.
The same applies to his insistence in remaining in Royal Lodge, the vast 30-room mansion he and Sarah are still rattling around in.
It is absolutely true that he holds a ‘cast iron’ lease on the property, as the duke’s friends like to brief. The King and his advisors have no legal right whatsoever to kick him out.
Andrew with Sarah, Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mozzi at Sandringham last year
But they are deeply concerned that Andrew’s ‘obstinacy’ in keeping such a money pit on has placed him in a position of financial jeopardy where he is being forced to go round, cap in hand, just to keep himself afloat.
As we know, His Majesty has offered him five-bedroom Frogmore Cottage, Harry and Meghan’s former home at Windsor, which has the added benefit of falling within the castle’s ‘ring of steel’, which means Andrew’s security would also be covered.
The duke has flatly rejected this attempt to get him to downsize, even in face of the King’s decision to strip him of both his annual stipend (the financial allowance previously paid to him by the late Queen out of her private fortune that was subsequently taken on by Charles) as well as all his remaining security.
Both, I understand, would be re-instated should he choose to take up the offer of Frogmore – the King’s way of ensuring that his sibling wouldn’t be under so much ‘financial duress’, and discourage him from seeking other sources of income.
But as it stands, Andrew won’t budge and the stalemate continues.
Will the ‘spy’ scandal change matters, who knows? But the King clearly hopes so.
To his credit, Andrew has never gone down the road of, say, bringing out a tell-all memoir or slinging mud at the family through an Oprah-style interview or Netflix documentary.
And the current feeling is that he is unlikely to ever do that.
But if the duke has any hope of rehabilitation, many in royal circles believe he should graciously take his brother’s remaining olive branch over his living arrangements, and withdraw completely from family events.
Starting with a polite declining of turkey and stuffing next week.
