A Message from the People of York to their Duke

The City of York, an ancient walled settlement in the north of England, home to the splendid York Minster Cathedral and today, more than 200,000 people, was once the site of one of England’s worst atrocities.

On March 16th, 1190, the entire Jewish community of York was massacred as the ghastly apogee of a wave of anti-Semitic riots.

The 12 century saw the idea of Christianity reach its lowest, bloodiest remove from the message of Jesus. The Crusade against Islam in the Holy Land had begun, with England’s recently crowned king Richard I about to set off to kill Muslims himself. The so-called Christian fervor spurred a wave of violence against the Jews as well, one that not only infected England, but France and Germany.

Yet it was in York that the rioting became mass murder. A mob tried to burn down the home of Benedict of York, the wealthiest Jewish man in England. The terrified Jews of the city, about 150 men, women and children, were officially protected by the king, and barricaded themselves in the wooden keep of his castle.

The rioters were encouraged to take their blood lust to its homicidal end by Christians who owed money to Jewish money lenders. These Christians saw a chance to wipe out their debts by wiping out the Jews—and by burning the records of their debt, so that they wouldn’t have to repay that debt to the king.

Seeing death as a certainty when knights attacked the castle and the mob bayed for blood, most of the Jews chose to commit suicide—rather than renounce their faith or get slaughtered by the mob. The men killed their wives and children, set fire to the keep, and killed themselves.

King Richard felt this massacre was an affront to his royal self, and held an inquest. The city was fined, but no one was ever held to account. There was no atonement. And the King went off on his bloody Crusade.

The terrible events in York have stained the city’s moral reputation for more than 800 years, and they have grappled with it admirably, but today they have found a way to cleanse some of it.

Andrew, the Duke of York, has settled the civil case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged he sexually abused her as a minor. There is a kind of debt to history in this story too, an infamous photograph of Andrew, grinning with his arm around the teenage Ms. Giuffre, at the home of Ghislaine Maxwell, who “introduced” them, and who beams out at the camera—allegedly held by Jeffrey Epstein.

This photo-- ocular proof, as Othhelo put it --was going to be an issue at the trial Andrew had said he wanted to vindicate his name. The photo was not real because Andrew’s fat fingers were too thin; it was Photoshopped in Ibiza with some Irish dude standing in for Andy; the sun goes around the earth-- you name the dodgy defenses marshaled against it -- but other forces stopped that trial from happening.

Andrew will pay, reports say, as much as £12 million to Ms. Giuffre and a charity of her choice which supports survivors of sexual abuse. Where that money comes from is yet to be determined, but it’s clear Andrew saw settling as a much better option than being deposed by Ms. Giuffre’s lawyers in March 2022. After all, it’s his mother’s Jubilee Year, and there’s a memorial for his late father in March, and he couldn’t really show up with that court case hanging over him.

Of course, he will always have it hanging over him, and of all the punditry that will appear to parse why Andrew settled, the fact that he has done so has created a stunning clarity for the people of York upon learning of the settlement. They saw Andrew’s settlement, in which he admits no crime, as a way to remove another stain associated with their city. And so the Labour Party’s Rachael Maskell, who represents York, said Andrew must stop being the Duke of York.

“Although it is a relief that Prince Andrew has finally acknowledged and expressed regret for his close association with a convicted sex offender and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,” Maskell said, “his long delay in doing so and initial response to the charges and Ms Giuffre have been source of deep hurt and embarrassment to many people across the city. Carrying a title does create an ambassadorial relationship with that place, and for somewhere with a global reputation, such as York, this is extremely important.”

The city which for centuries has had to deal with its terrible massacre of its Jewish population has also spent centuries trying to atone for it. While Andrew has not been accused of murdering people in the name of religion, he did a fair job of trying to kill Virginia Giuffre’s story, and her reputation and certainly her spirit and her innocent youth. And now, the City of York’s request to the Duke of York to drop his title as an act of contrition will be mixed into the history of that city, whether he drops his title or not. The fact that York, stained by history, asked not to be stained any further by Andrew, is enough.