Seven bedrooms, servants: Andrew’s demands revealed
The disgraced former Duke of York is reportedly “digging his heels in” after being officially evicted from his vast estate.
At Christmas, the adults in the royal family give one another gag gifts, heavy on the lols, like the time that Prince Harry supposedly gave the late Queen a singing Big Mouth Billy Bass or Prince Philip gave Kate, The Princess of Wales Warwickshire.
No need to shop for Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for whom you’d have to reopen a Thatcher-casualty Yorkshire mine to find a lump of coal adequately large enough to reflect the deep, deep damage he has done to Crown Inc.
So you would think that right now Andrew is busy doing some, at least, low grade reflecting and experiencing something like shame, having been stripped of his titles, dumped on the ‘Mr’ pile and given the old heave ho from this grand, hotel-sized home Royal Lodge.
You’d think. But this is Andrew we’re talking about, a man with the self-awareness of a blinkered mule and an ego about as inflated (and dangerous) as the Hindenburg.
Now want deposed former Duke of York is reportedly currently doing is demanding things like a stroppy Little Lord Fauntleroy. His wants are simple stuff: A home large enough to house a five-a-side rugby scrum, servants to iron his socks and open his Twix for him and bodyguards to prevent him from being egged by a ropeable public.
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Because while Andrew has been officially evicted from the Lodge, a 30-room monster so grand it would make a simple earl a bit nervous, the question is, where the dickens can King Charles go with him?
In the least shocking news since it was reported that water is wet, the former prince is being a rotter about the whole thing and is not going quietly into the exiled night.
Recently Tom Sykes ofThe Royalistand The Daily Beast, a man better sourced than the ketchup aisle, reported that Andrew is “still reeling off demands and ultimatums about his future living arrangements”.
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Right now Andrew is reportedly up to his neck waddle in negotiations with the Palace and is
“demanding a substantial six or seven bedroom house … complete with staff including a cook, gardener, housekeeper, driver and police security”, per Sykes.
One of his friends told the Royalist: “He is giving up the lease on one of England’s finest houses and expects to be treated fairly.”
Meanwhile a former courtier told Sykes: “Knowing Andrew, this was always going to be about money. Andrew is essentially being bought out of the lease, so he will haggle over every last detail of the deal.”
What this stroppy foot stomping means, according to historian Andrew Lownie, author of the incredible Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, is that Andrew going to have a much softer landing and cushier future than you might assume.
“He’s basically digging his heels in to say that he wants to have a pretty large house on the Sandringham estate. He wants to have servants, a driver, a gardener, a housekeeper. So it’s not going to be the fall from grace that everyone’s assumed,” Lownie told USA Today.
“What’s been said in public and actually what’s happening in private are two very different things.”
Still Palace sources are “adamant”, the Times has reported, that they will extricate Andrew from the Lodge in the first quarter of next year despite there being “there are significant logistical issues” with his relocation.
Issues like he technically, under the terms of the terms of the official paperwork handed to him on October 30, doesn’t have to get out of the Lodge until October next year, something he is seemingly dragging his hoofs on.
Issues like, Andrew technically has a 75-year lease on the Lodge, of which he has only been there for 20-years, giving him some leverage and meaning the King can’t just instruct the Tower’s armed yeoman warders simply escort him down the drive way.
And issues like, where on the Sandringham estate is Charles going to stash his terrible brother? It would be a PR disaster if he was seen handing him the keys to too grand of a home but then again, nor will he be able to get away with dumping Andrew into some pre-fab two up, two down worker’s cottage.
Andrew’s ego might not be downsizing but logistically, he’s going to have to. The Lodge is far more than just a huge mansion but is a fiefdom of sorts, sitting on 98 acres that includes eight cottages, a “police suite”, its own chapel, and a purpose-built bar for staff.
Complicating things further is the historic property is full of priceless artefacts from the Royal Collection, a holdover from the 50 years the Queen Mother lived there. (Should someone check Fergie’s stuffed-to-the-gunnels Waitrose bags for life on her final way out the door?)
However, there is another option, one that would not see Andrew having to sulkily stomp around Sandringham in muddy wellies yelling at undergardeners for daring to make eye contact. He could do a Juan Carlos.
In 2020 King Juan Carlos of Spain, facing a $12 billion corruption scandal, fled to the United Arab Emirates to work on his perma-tan, leaving son Felipe to rule and deal with the fallout.
The prospect has been repeatedly raised that Andrew could similarly skip town altogether.
We know thanks to Lownie, Andrew has access to a fully staffed actual palace in Abu Dhabi, courtesy of the ruling royal house of Nahyan. Should that not appeal, the former prince also spent many years cultivating contacts in Bahrain, and in June this year was busy emailing Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa and affectionately addressing him as “Dear S”, in emails revealed by the Times this week.
Bahrain, just in case you are curious, is not a nation bothered by anything like extradition treaties with the UK or US.
For now Andrew (and Fergie) will get one last Christmas at the Lodge. And in 2026, I hope someone has found a way to just dump them both in a Sandringham manger.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
