Downfall of a Prince

It was a speedy 140-mile trip that began in Windsor at midnight on 5 February 2026. Its destination was Sandringham with those involved hoping no one would see the former Prince Andrew leaving Royal Lodge, his 30-room home, for good.

Although he was inevitably spotted by the press, the now ordinary citizen Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was moving to Wood Farm, a secluded five-bedroom cottage, well out of people’s way, that Andrew’s father Prince Philip often used and for months before he died. Andrew’s permanent home will be Marsh Farm, a five-bedroom, two-bathroom residence on the Sandringham estate, when renovations are finished.

What won’t disappear is the continuing stream of documents highlighting his nauseous behaviour with women, nor the secret papers that highlighted his connections in China with the help of Yang Tengbo, a suspected Chinese spy who placed himself in the highest circles of the British establishment. He also ‘leaked confidential trade envoy docs’ to Jeffrey Epstein. Or his ridiculous comment in October 2025 that he “always put my duty to my family and country first.”

Andrew began life on 19 February 1960. He was a handsome child, second in line to the throne and a favourite of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, who had a blind spot for him

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By 1970 he was a philanderer regularly caught in the girls’ boarding house at Gordonstoun school in rural Scotland. The British press seized the opportunity to call him “Randy Andy”. He moved on from boarding-school girls to having ‘fun’ with actresses, models and socialites and was soon also labelled the “party prince.”

In 1979 he joined the Royal Navy where he stayed for 22 years. He was a helicopter pilot, served in the Falklands War in 1982, and retired with the rank of Commander.

Prince Philip liked his action-man image but as Andrew grew older he worried about his son’s negative effect on the family.

Andrew and Sarah Ferguson knew each other from childhood but had gone their different ways. Princess Diana wanted them to meet again and in 1985 invited them both to a party at Windsor Castle during the week of Royal Ascot. They married a year later.

Recent biographies have alleged that even during the first year of his marriage Andrew was involved with multiple other women, a pattern that continued into his post-naval career and his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, American financier, child sex offender, serial rapist and human trafficker

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Andrew’s navy career meant he was often away at sea for several months at a time and only with Sarah for about 40 days a year. She found it difficult to accept and began to find her own fun. In 1992 she took her young daughters Princess Beatrice, four, and Princess Eugenie, two, to a private villa in St Tropez along with John Bryan, a Texan millionaire financial advisor

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Prowling paparazzi took photographs showing Bryan kissing and sucking Sarah’s toes, with Eugenie in the picture in at least one

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The Queen was furious and told Sarah to leave the Royal Family and banned her from Balmoral. Instead, she and Andrew curiously decided to live together at Royal Lodge in Windsor, calling themselves “the world’s most friendly divorced couple”.

After the navy Andrew served as the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment from 2001 to 2011.

He also spent time nagging the Queen about his status, role and money. He tried to persuade her to drop Prince Charles as heir to the throne and let him take over. He disliked Camilla Parker Bowles and endlessly told the Queen she would not be suitable for Charles to marry.

He didn’t, however, think that Jeffrey Epstein was an unsuitable friend despite him spending 18 months in jail for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. A couple of years later in 2010 Andrew was seen peering around the front door of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and giving a young woman a cheerful farewell wave. He claimed he went there to tell Epstein he was ending their friendship, but he soon sent a message saying “keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.” Epstein died in jail in August 2019, the same year Andrew had to step back from royal duties.

Despite his disgrace, the Queen put on a public show of support to protect him by allowing him to accompany her into Westminster Abbey for Prince Philip’s memorial service in March 2022. But that same year she also stripped him of his military titles, royal patronages and his title of Royal Highness. She died the following September.

Andrew has continued to deny any wrongdoing, often with a superior impression of entitlement. This included a photograph with his arm around a young girl called Virginia Giuffre, who, at 16, had worked as a masseuse for Epstein. In her posthumous book Nobody’s Girl she says that Andrew thought it was his “birthright” to sleep with her at 17. She alleged they had sex three times. He insists they never did and claimed to know nothing about the photograph

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But the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice reveal that Ghislaine Maxwell, a close friend of Epstein’s, stated that it was indeed Andrew whose hand was round Virginia.

In another email from the DoJ files Andrew tells Epstein he wants to be his “pet”.

Andrew also invited Epstein and Maxwell to several high-profile royal events and private residences between 1999 and 2006. Notably, he continued these invitations even after the US authorities began investigating Epstein for sexual offences in 2006.

The invitations included a stay at Balmoral in 1999 and to Windsor Castle: Dance of the Decades, several royal birthdays including Andrew’s 40^th in June 2000, and a shooting weekend at Sandringham in December 2000.

After the Queen’s death it was difficult for King Charles to maintain his patience with a brother who felt he was superior. He has managed the task, but slightly late. The royal staff also now have the option not to work for him. Andrew is very curt towards them, using the phrase, “Staff are there to serve.” Most had left Royal Lodge, leaving him with just a valet, butler and chef, as he cannot cook at all. Should anyone make his bed, they will also have to line up 72 teddy bears in correct order.

His food is simple. He likes prunes for breakfast, meat and potato pie, or salmon and salad during the day, and cheese twists and crème brulé for a treat.

Staff at Buckingham Palace have made it clear that media inquiries about him will no longer be answered. He will have to handle such requests for himself.

Sarah will not be with him any more. She behaved shockingly by taking Eugenie and Beatrice with her to see Epstein when they were 19 and 20 a few days after he was released from prison for child sex offences.

The documents recently released show that she wrote to him in June 2010 after she said she would have nothing more to do with him. “You are a legend. I really don’t have the words to describe, my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness ... I am at your service. Just marry me.” She asked him twice to marry her.

Not surprisingly her charity ‘Sarah’s Trust’ has now closed. She was asked to resign from positions in other charities last September. She also, it seems has a ghost writer who will help produce a memoir with ‘secrets’ about the royal family.

Beatrice and Eugenie are devastated but have to decide how to behave towards their appalling parent

It’s not known where Sarah is. But Andrew has an invitation to go to Abu Dhabi from its ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, where he has use of a 16,000 square feet palace with a gym, pool, cinema and private chefs as gratitude for a long-standing friendship and his previous work as a UK trade envoy in the region.

It would be no surprise if Andrew prefers such comforts to a medium-sized house in a remote corner of Norfolk. A large percentage of the public might welcome it too.