Prince Andrew’s image is in tatters after he was forced to give up his royal titles and honours, and now troubling claims about his life behind Palace walls have resurfaced
Prince Andrew is at risk of spending the rest of his days in royal exile as the last ounce of dignity he so desperately clung onto has been stripped away.
The disgraced duke agreed to relinquish his royal titles and honours last week in a 10-minute phonecall with his “furious” brother, the King. It has since emerged that he has barely paid any rent on Royal Lodge in 20 years and mislead his family and the public on exactly when he cut ties with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Further shame came for the Royal Family when Virginia Giuffre’s posthomous memoir was released on Tuesday, which details the horrors she suffered at the hands of Epstein. Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year at the age of 41, alleged that Andrew sexually assaulted her three times when she was a teenager, claims which the royal has repeatedly and vehemently denied.
King Charles and other senior royals will be hoping that the Andrew saga may finally be over, but his image may be tarnished even further if more details from the Epstein files are released in the US.
As the former duke finds himself drowning in controversy – with Prime Minister Keir Starmer backing an inquiry into his rent-free occupancy, and the Met confirming they are “actively” looking into the royal after an email emerged which appears to show that Andrew asked his police bodyguard to find dirt about his Giuffre in 2011 – troubling claims about his life behind Palace walls have resurfaced.
An explosive biography delving into the lives of Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson released earlier this year made a series of claims about the prince’s treatment of royal staff, and the bizarre requests he would make of them.
One source told author Andrew Lownie that Andrew’s attitude was that his staff were “there to serve and not to question his actions” and that he allegedly made extravagant demands.
According to the book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, this included insisting that the maids in his home climb four floors of stairs just to open his curtains for him in the morning – while he lay right beside them.
A source also claimed: “his bedtime habits as a single man left a lot to be desired, and a collection of scrunched-up, soiled tissues usually lay scattered around the bed each morning for staff to collect after they had made his bed.”
Numerous former Palace workers have spoken out to reveal what they saw in Andrew’s Royal Lodge bedroom during their time working there, including teddies on the bed. One of those is Charlotte Briggs, a former maid who worked at the Palace in the mid-90s, who claimed the prince had 72 cuddly toys on his bed.
She said the toys had to be lined up in size order, and it took staff an entire day to be trained on how to arrange them on his bed. She told the Sun: “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them. I even had a day’s training. Everything had to be just right. It was so peculiar.” She added: “But he absolutely loved the teddies and was very clear about how he wanted them arranged.”
The biggest teddies were said to be put at the back, and the rest were in descending order of size to the smallest at the front. The prince’s two favourite teddies were placed on mahogany thrones at his bedside, Charlotte claimed.
Royal author Ingrid Seward once claimed that his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson slept among the teddies when they were together. The expert said she was surrounded by “around a dozen teddy bears” on his bed during their marriage.