ROBERT JOBSON: Underestimate Prince Edward at your peril, Andrew: How royal performed ‘pivotal function’ and eventually enacted final revenge towards ‘bullying brother’ after years of warring between the key rivals… 

He didn’t flinch. When Prince Edward was asked about the Epstein scandal, his first thought was of the victims.

CNN’s Eleni Giokos asked how he was coping with the crisis in which his disgraced brother Andrew is such a pivotal player when he was on stage at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. And the Duke of Edinburgh coolly played it back with a straight bat.

‘I think it’s all really important always to remember the victims, and who are the victims in all this? A lot of victims in this,’ he said, becoming the first royal to publicly address the scandal since Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview.

His comments came hours after his disgraced brother – who faces growing demands for him to testify in the US – left his former home, Royal Lodge in Windsor, in the middle of the night and slipped into exile at Wood Farm, Sandringham.

The two incidents – Edward commenting on the victims and Andrew’s midnight flit – exposed the huge difference in character.

Four years separate them in age. Might as well be 40.

Andrew, born in 1960 and the first child born to a reigning monarch in 103 years, was raised at Buckingham Palace. He was the Queen’s favourite, her little action man. The Falklands War hero who went straight to naval college.

Edward arrived in 1964. Quieter, more studious, he went up to Cambridge to read history. As an undergraduate he enjoyed amateur dramatics but wasn’t a member of the Cambridge Footlights.

In the nursery, Andrew was ‘a bruiser’ who overwhelmed his younger, more delicate brother.

Edward was a sweet child – good-looking with a calm nature. His flushed cheeks made him a favourite with Palace staff.

He was closer to his eldest brother Charles than any of the other siblings. The 16-year gap between them created an almost avuncular dynamic for Charles rather than traditional sibling rivalry.

Charles, already a teenager when Edward was born, would spin bedtime stories for his youngest brother during family summers at Balmoral – fantastical tales about the Old Man of Lochnagar that he’d later publish as a book in 1980.

He played games with Edward, bonding across the years in ways that seemed effortless.

Charles had found his father demanding and his mother distant, which is perhaps why he became a different kind of parental figure for Edward: he was protective towards him, imaginative and funny.

Andrew, meanwhile, was loud and robust. He would constantly swipe his younger brother. If he saw Edward going for a particular piece of cake, Andrew would try to grab it first. Edward learned to yield to him.

Not least because the Queen indulged Andrew, which boosted his sense of self-assurance. It also meant no boundaries were set and he became an accident waiting to happen.

Prince Philip saw things differently where Andrew was concerned. He was in tune with Princess Anne – they clicked. But of his sons, he was closest to Edward. He kept a photo of him in his study.

When Edward was admitted to Jesus College, Cambridge, with low A-level grades, Philip quipped: ‘What a friend we have in Jesus.’

When Edward quit the Royal Marines in 1987, it upset the Queen, but Philip – who, as their Captain General, knew how tough the training was – was unexpectedly supportive.

Whether it was nature or nurture or a mix of both, Andrew and Edward are very different characters. The former feels the system owes him; the latter always seems happy to serve the system.

When Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 at Westminster Abbey it was all bells and whistles. He was created Duke of York, and their daughters would be princesses.

Edward, in contrast, deliberately chose St George’s Chapel in 1999 for a lower-key wedding. He wasn’t immediately made a royal duke when he married – breaking with tradition by becoming Earl of Wessex instead – and insisted his children didn’t have royal titles.

Different characters, different judgments – and very different fates.

The tension between Andrew and Edward continued into adulthood. But if Andrew thought he could bully his brother in later years, it didn’t wash.

On shoots on royal estates, if Andrew made some outlandish statement, Edward would be the first to dismiss it as ‘utter nonsense’.

The reversal in their fortunes came swiftly. In March 2023, King Charles granted Edward the Duke of Edinburgh title, the honour their father Philip had held with distinction.

Andrew had lost the His Royal Highness title, his royal patronages and all but one of his military titles a year earlier. Now the younger brother was eclipsing the elder.

Where Andrew courted celebrity and counted Jeffrey Epstein among his friends, Edward continued to build his life around service. Where Andrew’s judgment led to catastrophe, Edward’s steadiness made him indispensable to the King.

The split within the family became visible when Charles made it clear he would no longer tolerate Andrew’s insistence he must stay at Royal Lodge.

Princess Anne, ever loyal to blood, reportedly questioned whether Andrew was being treated too harshly. Edward saw his treatment as a necessity.

Edward saw what the institution required. He understood what his sister perhaps couldn’t: Andrew’s scandal wasn’t just damaging – it was potentially fatal to the monarchy that Prince William would inherit.

When asked about Epstein, Edward could have deflected this week. Given the standard Palace formula.

Instead, he dealt with it as best he could.

He didn’t name Andrew. He simply acknowledged documented fact about the man who once snatched cakes from his hands at the nursery table. That there are victims in this terrible tale and they deserve our sympathy.

The boy who once yielded to his older brother tried to draw a line under the sordid saga that the world could see. Philip’s favourite did his best to save what Elizabeth’s favourite nearly destroyed.

• Robert Jobson is author of The Windsor Legacy