'Meghan and Harry will be smirking as Andrew's hopes for a new home are dashed'

As the royals show out in full force at this year's Commonwealth Day Service, Harry and Meghan will no doubt feel vindicated.

Just a few short years ago, the Royal Family gathering at Westminster Abbey had people sitting up and paying attention. In 2020, it was one of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's last ever royal engagements, and though things seemed tense between the Windsors on that occasion, the royals were decidedly relevant at least.

Now, the BBC is not even airing live coverage of the Service, which celebrates the voluntary association of 56 countries that King Charles, like his mother before him, heads up. The Beeb's extraordinary decision to ditch the event - in favour of Escape to the Country, no less - has left royal insiders speechless.

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The shadow of the scandal surrounding Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's ties to convicted Jeffrey Epstein looms over the monarchy at large, and it makes the decision to axe the broadcast seem even more significant, with experts warning it casts doubt over the relevancy of institutions that were previously at the heart of the country - the royals, the Commonwealth - and the Church of England.

Andrew may have once hoped that the Middle East could provide him with a new start after his fall from grace saw him stripped of his royal titles, but with ongoing conflict in the region, the possibility of it being the setting for his new chapter has quickly become unrealistic. After his arrest on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, he was released pending further investigation, and will be at his home in Norfolk, far away from the spotlight, as the senior royals head to Westminster Abbey for what was once a major royal event.

Once upon a time, Andrew would have been amongst them, as would Harry and Meghan. As more insight into Andrew's ties to Epstein has emerged over the last weeks with the release of the Epstein files by the US Department of Justice - he denies all wrongdoing - the way in which Meghan and Harry were handled by the monarchy when they no longer wanted to be full-time working royals looks increasingly heavy-handed, and crucially shortsighted.

The monarchy is certainly slimmed down now - only King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William, Princess Kate, Princess Anne, and her husband Sir Tim Laurence will be attending the Commonwealth Day Service of the senior royals. The average age of this group is late 60s, and with the Wales children far too young to be anywhere near the spotlight in a significant way. It will be these six (along with Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie, who aren't listed as attending Commonwealth Day) who will have to continue to lead the charge.

In light of the Andrew scandal, for royal commentator Afua Acheampong-Hagan, it seems nothing short of "petty" that Harry and Meghan were cast out of the royal fold so unceremoniously. Stripped of their taxpayer-funded royal security, after being told there was no way they could represent the crown on a part time basis, they were facing - per Harry's memoir Spare - a hefty bill to ensure their family's safety themselves.

Harry wrote that a company quoted him £6 million per year for round the clock protection - the couple did find a way of footing that bill, though it might not have been a popular one. One incredibly valuable commodity that Harry and Meghan possessed at that time was their version of events after their shock royal exit, that took many by surprise. Inking big deals with Netflix and with Penguin Random House is likely to have helped them cover the expensive security costs that came with their royal status and incredibly high-profile.

But doing so saw the couple breach the golden royal rule - never complain, never explain - and the notoriously private Windsors were left with their alleged internal dysfunction laid out for the public to dissect. However, Afua tells the Mirror that in her view, this so-called airing of dirty laundry could have been totally avoided, had the Firm reached some kind of compromise with Harry and Meghan - who still wanted to represent the crown in some capacity.

"If we had had a situation where Megan and Harry were allowed to spend some time in, I don't know, Canada and some time the UK to do some of their own work, set up their own charities, and do charity work on behalf of the Royal Family, we probably wouldn't have had Spare. We probably wouldn't have had the Megan and Harry [the docu-series]." She argues: "all of that didn't need to happen."

Andrew did represent the crown full time, and the UK as a trade envoy. He is now alleged to have found all sorts of ways to get himself into trouble at the same time. This seems to lessen the strength of the arguments made back in 2020, that Harry and Meghan becoming "financially independent" while still representing the monarchy in some capacity would have been impossible, and rife for potential conflicts of interest.

Harry has been, Afua argues, "100 percent vindicated" adding: "I mean, are we all mad?" She notes that in Spare, Harry wrote that despite serious allegations of wrongdoing levied at Andrew, he was "protected" - while in contrast, some people have acted like "Meghan and Harry are the worst thing in the Royal Family."

Some share the view that that the couple remaining half-in-half-out would not necessarily have been a bad thing, but Afua points out, "Look at where we are now, they probably wouldn't even be thinking about Commonwealth Day, they might do. But you know, good for them. They're looking at us in the rear view like, 'Gosh, we got out of the right time, didn't we?'"

A spokesperson for the BBC said: "Our decision not to broadcast the Commonwealth Day ceremony in the same way we've done in previous years reflects the difficult choices we have to make in light of our funding challenges. BBC News plans to cover the service across its platforms, including the BBC One bulletins and rolling news channel."