The King has told Prince Andrew that after the Epstein controversy there are to be no more royal duties and no more living at his vast house in Windsor Great Park. But in an increasingly bitter stand-off, his brother refuses to budge.
When the King, then Prince of Wales, met his brother, the Duke of York, at Birkhall in the weeks before their mother died in 2022, lunch was not on offer. The brothers’ conversation was perfunctory, with neither wishing to prolong the agonising encounter.
Charles had the unpleasant task of breaking the news to Andrew that there was no way back for him in terms of royal duties. The controversy over his friendship with a convicted sex offender, the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, was not going away and the Palace was preparing for its greatest transition in 70 years. Andrew became tearful during the exchange.
For the duke, 64, there would be no more official duties, no horse riding at Trooping the Colour, no balcony appearances and no convivial Christmas dinners with the Grenadier Guards, the regiment of which he had been colonel. Despite serving in the Royal Navy during the Falklands conflict, he would later learn that he would be allowed to wear his uniform at his mother’s vigil but not at her funeral. He remains a Knight of the Garter but is not permitted to take part in the annual public procession. His royal life, as he knew it, was over.
However, if Charles thought that this might be an end to the sorry episode, then he was mistaken. The King has made clear that he is not willing to continue to fund Andrew’s lifestyle at Royal Lodge, the vast home in Windsor Great Park that was home to the Queen Mother until her death in 2002. Andrew, however, is refusing to budge, much to the frustration of his brother. Many fear the duke is making a point of the matter even though he knows that there can never be a full rehabilitation back into the fold.
It means that the King, who continues his cancer treatment, is now embroiled in a battle of wills with the brother 11 years his junior. Andrew has the lease on Royal Lodge but Charles controls the purse strings.
As one source familiar with the situation says, “The King’s kindness is not without limit and there is a very good option for Andrew to move into Frogmore Cottage, recently vacated by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, which also has the benefit of being within the Windsor Castle security cordon hence reducing the need for alternative round-the-clock security for Royal Lodge.
“He is taking longer than desirable to recognise the reality of the situation, even though it is clearly the most sensible course of action.
“If he doesn’t agree to move to a property better suited to his needs, then the King may have to reconsider the levels of support he is willing to provide.”
The name Royal Lodge suggests a far more modest property than is in fact the case. A sprawling estate, it encompasses some 40 hectares within the heart of Windsor Great Park.
Beyond the imposing front gate with the old police accommodation on either side, now used for private security guards, guests follow a road down to the main 30-room, seven-bedroom grade II-listed house. The estate includes a gardener’s residence, six cottages for live-in staff and a “police suite” providing accommodation for security officers.
Inside the property a grand drawing room, or saloon, designed by Jeffry Wyatville as a dining hall fit for a king, features five sets of arched gothic windows. The grounds, which were designed by renowned landscape architect GA Jellicoe, include a west terrace linking to the garden and, further down an embankment, a swimming pool with changing rooms and a tennis court near the woods. There’s also an area where Andrew can practise his golf.
A substantial wendy house, Y Bwthyn Bach, stands in the grounds — a gift for the late Queen from the people of Wales when she was still Princess Elizabeth.
While not part of the leased property, the private Royal Chapel where Princess Beatrice married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in July 2020 is within the Lodge’s boundary.
The imposing home, designed by John Nash, was once a peaceful retreat for the previous Duke and Duchess of York who became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, later known as the Queen Mother. When they moved into Royal Lodge in November 1931, it was announced in The Times.
It seems the property was always something of a money pit. Bomb explosions nearby during the Second World War were thought to have disturbed the groundwork of the Lodge. One author wrote that “to the Queen Mother’s dismay and annoyance, symptoms of damp discoloured and stained her pristine exterior rose-pink paintwork above the saloon”.
Yet it was the Queen Mother who succeeded in turning it into a comfortable country home. To this day, the Lodge contains priceless treasures from the royal collection. An ancient sword hangs on the wall; it made contemporary history when Princess Beatrice accidentally cut Ed Sheeran’s face when pretending to knight the musician at a party.
Recent pictures published in national newspapers appear to show some of the outhouses in a state of disrepair, with paint peeling off the walls. Inside, shelves heave with Sarah Ferguson’s collection of novelty teapots, while Andrew is known for his love of teddy bears. A friend and visitor to the Lodge says, “Sarah is a collector and Andrew is just as bad. He likes to surround himself with stuff, which seems to act like some sort of reassurance in life. Beatrice’s husband [who is chief executive of a property and interior design company] has tried to yank it into something much more manageable.”
Like the surroundings, Andrew cuts an increasingly tragic figure. With no discernible role, he spends his days watching television in a darkened room. Before the change of reign, Andrew was seen out riding out with his younger brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the pair have been riding together as Edward prepares to ride in this year’s Trooping the Colour parade. “Often, Andrew has the horse brought to him,” a local says. “You see it coming in a horse box three times a week to the Lodge and he goes riding from there.”
If the duke feels like it, he might hit a few golf balls in the grounds while vans arrive bringing food deliveries from the nearby Windsor Farm Shop. At the Windsor Horse Show last month, Andrew kept a low profile. He arrived around 8.30am, went to see a horse that had belonged to his mother and was back at Royal Lodge shortly afterwards.
This latest vanishing act was quite different from his demeanour in February when he proudly led the royal family down to St George’s Chapel for the memorial service of King Constantine II. The “optics” of Andrew heading the party were judged to be “sub-optimal” according to one insider, who was only too aware of the “reputational risk” that the duke still poses to the family. His continued tenure at Royal Lodge has irked those at the very top of the institution.
Former aides are not rushing to help the duke. They still remember being on the receiving end of his “hairdryer” treatment, where he would shout at them for various misdemeanours. They know too that Andrew is stubborn. The situation over his lodgings has now reached such a stand-off that it has been dubbed “the siege of Royal Lodge”.
It is precisely the sort of military language that the duke might understand. Despite fighting from a disadvantaged position with no discernible allies, Andrew nevertheless has one key weapon in his arsenal: a 75-year lease on the property that does not expire until June 15, 2078.
Andrew took over Royal Lodge from his grandmother, the Queen Mother, who lived there until her death at the age of 101. He moved in the following year, paying nearly £7 million to carry out extensive repairs and renovations on the property. If he left during the first 25 years of his tenure, Andrew would be entitled to get some of the initial outlay back on a sliding scale.
Rather than a grace and favour residence, Royal Lodge is let under a commercial lease agreement with the Crown Estate. Andrew paid an initial £1m with a notional rent understood to be £260,000 (about $538,000) a year. If the duke dies, the lease can only pass to named members of his immediate family.
The lease, which I have seen, stipulates that Andrew must also “repair, renew, uphold, clean and keep in repair and where necessary rebuild”. Under the “planned maintenance guide” set out in the lease, he must clean the external paintwork, have it repointed and paint the walls “with two coats of paint” every five years from 2008 onwards. It means that this work was due to have been completed last year. Inside, he has committed to “paint with at least two coats of paint and to paper, polish, decorate and otherwise appropriately treat” the interior walls every seven years from 2010 onwards. This is due to be completed this year.
While the landlord is listed as “The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty and Her Successors”, it makes clear that the duke is a tenant of the Crown Estate, which returns the profits from its £16 billion property, land and seabed portfolio to the Treasury. While it is operated independently and not owned by the King, it helps fund the royal family from a proportion of the profits. From this year, this will be reduced from 25 per cent to 12 per cent, with Charles saying that he wants the profits to be used for the “wider public good”.
A friend of the duke says, “The facts remain the facts. He’s got a long lease on Royal Lodge, the family has lived there for 20-odd years and still have 50-odd years to run on the lease. It’s in perfectly good repair because they spent the lion’s share of the sale of their previous house [Sunninghill Park] renovating it from top to bottom, thereby saving any draw on the public purse or the private finances of the royal family. Them’s the facts.”
Another acquaintance who has visited Royal Lodge says, “It’s really rather sad but if it’s a case of who will blink first then Andrew is going to dig in. He ain’t going anywhere. He has had a stay of execution with Sarah and the King’s illnesses and he will be hoping that Charles won’t want to be seen as vindictive by turfing him out.”
The law may well be on his side. Tim Foley, property disputes partner at Freeths, says, “That lease means that not much can be done to change that without his agreement. His landlord, the Crown Estate, will expect him to maintain it as a royal property to an agreed standard, but even if there is a dispute over that, the dispute is unlikely to mean the duke has to move out.”
Even if he can keep the tenancy by law, the question remains: how can Andrew possibly find the money to continue to live in such a lavish property without his brother’s largesse?
Charles funds Andrew’s £3m-a-year security bill — the Home Office removed his police detail once he had stepped down from official duties — providing static security guards (manning the gate) and mobile ones (who travel with him when he goes out). The King grants the duke an additional living allowance, thought to be well in excess of £1m a year.
If Charles were to withdraw these payments, Andrew would have to fund his own security, housekeepers, gardeners and home improvements.
Andrew receives a modest naval pension but it is understood that he did not receive a windfall from his mother’s estate, a fortune estimated to be worth £650m. The sovereign’s will remains private; upon their death, however, the estate passes to the heir and successor — in this case, Charles. The Yorks did, however, get to keep the corgis.
When Andrew and Fergie married, the Queen gifted them Sunninghill Park on the edge of Windsor Great Park, a new-build 12-bedroom mansion unfavourably likened to a Tesco superstore and nicknamed South York, a play on JR’s vulgar pile Southfork Ranch in the Eighties soap opera Dallas.
The Yorks divorced in 1996 and the house was put up for sale in 2002. Timur Kulibayev, a Kazakh oligarch, curiously paid £15m for the property, £3m more than the asking price. Representatives for the duke and Kulibayev have always stated there was another potential buyer and that it was a purely commercial and legitimate transaction. Kulibayev demolished the house a few years later and started again from scratch. Meanwhile, Andrew had relocated to Royal Lodge, with his ex-wife moving in later.
The couple put their Swiss ski chalet on the market for an estimated £17m but it is thought to have sold for less than the asking price and some of the proceeds were used to clear debts related to the property. The previous owner, Isabelle de Rouvre, claimed that the Yorks owed £6.6m on the chalet but later confirmed the debt had been settled.
In 2022, Sarah Ferguson bought a £5m townhouse in Mayfair as an investment. While his ex-wife has a career as a novelist, it is not known whether Andrew has additional income.
While friends of the King say that he is willing to afford his brother a comfortable lifestyle out of his private funds from the Duchy of Lancaster, the level of funding must be appropriate.
One friend of the King says, “Unfortunately, if Andrew refuses to leave within a reasonable time frame, then the King may be forced to reassess the whole package of support he provides and the duke would be required to fund the lion’s share of his security, accommodation and lifestyle costs all on his own — which, given the sums involved, is highly unlikely to be possible in the long term. Everyone is mindful of his well-being, and has his best interests at heart, but there are limits of patience and tolerance.”
A move to Frogmore Cottage for Andrew would make an immediate saving. While friends of Charles say that the King would continue to pay for mobile security, he would not also have to provide static security for the building. Those with knowledge of Frogmore say that it is a “turnkey” property, meaning that it is in good condition thanks to work carried out by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex before their relocation to America.
Andrew can’t have been cheered by the latest opinion poll, which revealed him to be the least popular member of the royal family by far. A YouGov survey showed that he was popular with only 9 per cent of people, while 76 per cent said they disliked him.
Yet it wasn’t always the case. A story in The Sun in 1977 reported that 17-year-old Andrew “wowed the crowds with his movie-star looks and elegant charm”. Even Charles ruefully admitted that Andrew was “the one with the Robert Redford looks of the family”.
The late Queen appeared to treasure Andrew in a way that must have rankled with Charles, her son and heir. After the birth of Charles and Anne, nearly 10 years would pass before Andrew was born in 1960. By then, the Queen had a second chance at motherhood and seemed able to devote more time to her younger sons, Andrew and then Edward, who followed four years later.
Until the birth of Prince William in 1982, Andrew was the “spare” at a time of male primogeniture, which pushed Anne further down the order. Andrew was therefore afforded all the privilege shown to Charles with an extra dose of indulgence from his mother and, more importantly, a good deal more freedom.
His service as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands conflict only added to his popular appeal, returning to Portsmouth on board the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible aged 22.
Andrew’s love of the good life and his willingness to accept freebie trips on rich friends’ private jets earned him the nickname Air Miles Andy. However, it was his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein that would prove to be his downfall. Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, 62, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping the disgraced financier sexually abuse young girls, were guests of Andrew at Buckingham Palace along with the actor Kevin Spacey.
Andrew travelled on Epstein’s jet and stayed in his New York townhouse for several nights after flying to the US so that he could do the “honourable” thing of telling the convicted sex abuser in person that their friendship was over. Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, brought a civil case against Andrew for claims that he has consistently denied. The matter was settled out of court, with the duke making an undisclosed payment, reported to be as much as £12m.
In November 2019, Andrew stepped down from royal duties. He resigned from his public roles the following May. His honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were removed by his mother in 2022.
If the public awareness of Andrew’s self-inflicted misfortunes was on the wane, there have been some high-profile reminders. A popular feature-length Netflix show recently recounted the duke’s disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with Epstein. The Palace is braced for another retelling of the saga when Amazon releases A Very Royal Scandal in the autumn, with Michael Sheen playing the duke.
There is a glimmer of hope, however, that the battle of the brothers might be resolved amicably thanks to Sarah Ferguson and the Yorks’ daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.
The princesses are willing to represent the royal family despite not holding positions as working members of the institution. They were seen last month supporting Prince William at a garden party at Buckingham Palace, and are expected at other set pieces of the summer including Ascot and Trooping the Colour.
It helps too that the King is fond of his nieces and their mother. Charles is mindful that Fergie has also endured a cancer diagnosis, undergoing a mastectomy after the discovery of breast cancer and then enduring melanoma too. Together with Camilla, Charles has brought her back into the fold with a warmth not seen during the previous reign. She joined the royal family for church appearances at Christmas and Easter.
There are those in royal circles who believe Sarah could even help Andrew “see sense” over his living situation by encouraging him to downsize so as not to bite the hand that feeds him. While Andrew has been bullish about his right to remain in Royal Lodge, Sarah has been sanguine. In a recent interview she said, “When I’m in the UK, I’m lucky enough to stay at Royal Lodge. I wouldn’t call it my home as that would be presumptuous.”
Yet it has been the family home for the Yorks and their daughters for years, with Eugenie holding her wedding reception at the Lodge.
The King knows that blood is thicker than water, but his responsibility to protect the monarchy and everything it represents comes first. If Andrew gave up the lease for Royal Lodge — or sold it back to the Crown Estate — it could be let to another private tenant provided they pass security checks. The Prince and Princess of Wales are adamant that they are happy in nearby Adelaide Cottage, although they would be a more natural fit for the Lodge.
Meanwhile, time is ticking for Charles, who wants the problem resolved. He does not wish to be seen as a soft touch and has met with General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the general staff, to discuss how the respected military man might help.
Buckingham Palace and the Crown Estate declined to comment. The duke could not be reached for comment.
A friend of Charles says, “It can be done tidily or untidily. It can be done with grace and dignity or it can be forced upon him. It’s all rather sad. But as things stand, life at Royal Lodge is set to become increasingly cold and uncomfortable for the duke. The only question now is when he will realise that he has become a prisoner of his own pride — and that handing back the keys will afford him far greater comfort, and the continued support of his family.”
Written by: Kate Mansey
© The Times of London