How many anni horribiles can a monarch have? King Charles may have believed that 2024, when he and Princess Catherine were diagnosed with cancer, was as bad as it could get. But 2026 has brought little peace. This week alone, Meghan Markle has returned to public life, nipping into Claridge’s for tea with the Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai; Prince Harry has released a MasterClass on grief (in the teaser: “I consider myself a student of grief”); Charles Spencer has continued his press tour for his incendiary memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister; and now even the King’s disgraced brother is venturing back into polite society.
The persona non grata formerly known as Prince Andrew is suddenly feeling emboldened, poking his head over the parapet of Marsh Farm, a relatively modest five-bedroom farmhouse on the King’s Sandringham Estate, in Norfolk. The Mail on Sunday recently reported that after just eight months in relative exile, certain “turnip toffs”—Norfolk’s Barbour-wearing aristocracy—are starting to soften on the once notorious “Randy Andy.” If anyone can appreciate the horror of a demotion from a 30-room, Grade II–listed Georgian mansion to a farmhouse previously occupied by a farmer, it’s this lot. The paper reported that he had recently dined with the Earl and Countess of Leicester on their 25,000-acre Holkham estate.