Andrew at lunch with the Queen and Philip
THERE was a distinct absence of smiles as Prince Andrew headed for lunch with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh yesterday.
Her Majesty also wore a steely expression as she drove through the Sandringham Estate.
Andrew in a flat cap looked positively tense as he drove back from a shoot, with a blonde female companion in the rear of his Land Rover Defender.
The three Royals met at Wood Farm on the Norfolk estate where Prince Philip, 98, has lived since retiring from official public life in 2017.
The gathering was likely to be intended as a pre-birthday lunch for Prince Andrew, who celebrates his 60th birthday today.
But high on the agenda for conversation over the lunch table must surely have been the statement due out later about the future of Harry and Meghan.
And if that did not take them through to coffee there was always Andrew’s own troubles to mull over.
He had to step back from Royal duties following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
His relationship with convicted paedophile Epstein led to his own reduced status. In November Prince Andrew gave a disastrous BBC Newsnight interview when he attempted to explain his relationship with the billionaire, who was found dead in a New York prison cell while on remand. The public reaction to his interview was overwhelmingly negative.
He then announced he would withdraw from official duties for the “foreseeable future” as the scandal had become a “major disruption” to the family... a disruption since eclipsed by the decision of the Sussexes to step down.
Prince Philip has had his own troubles in the past year. Last January he was involved in a car crash as he drove off the Sandringham estate.
And he was taken into hospital just before Christmas for a stay of several days.