The four children of the late Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward, trailed behind their mother’s coffin on Monday, September 12, as it was driven from Palace of Holyroodhouse to St. Giles’s Cathedral. But the otherwise solemn procession was not without incident.
In a video of the procession, a heckler can be heard yelling, “Andrew, you’re a sick old man,” at Prince Andrew as he marches alongside his siblings. Per Sky News, a 22-year-old man was later arrested for breach of peace.
Prince Andrew, the third child of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, has been the subject of “a steady stream of criticism,” as BBC News put it, after his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became public. In February of 2022, Andrew paid a settlement to Virginia Guiffre, a woman who alleged that Andrew sexually abused her when she was a teenager at Epstein’s estates. In the month prior to the settlement, Buckingham Palace stripped Andrew of his military titles, which is why he was the only one of the queen’s children not in military uniform during the procession.
“With the queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to the queen,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement at the time. “The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.” Andrew’s public duties and royal charities were redistributed to other members of the royal family, and he has stopped using the style His Royal Highness in an official capacity.
The queen’s death marks one of Andrew’s first public appearances since his disastrous BBC interview in 2019, which a source close to the palace reportedly called “one of the single worst PR moves in recent history.”
