If you have republican tendencies, then this book may tip you over the edge. Ostensibly about Prince Andrew – the Duke of York – and his former, yet strangely not estranged, wife Sarah Ferguson it is impossible not to see the sub-plot which reads a bit like “why did Her Majesty the Queen (Elizabeth II) indulge this utter cretin at all and for so long?” But she did, and thus inflicted on the world one of the worst British royals in living memory.
Andrew Lownie’s book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (Harper Collins, 2025), presumably negotiating a delicate minefield of injunctions and non-disclosure agreements, is the ultimate page-turner. Once you have recovered from yet another description of the terrible behaviour of either of these royal twats, all that you can think is “what on earth did he/she do next?” And you don’t have to wait long.
Almost every page contains a revelation. Both the main characters are described perfectly by the Entitled title of the book. Him by birth and the lack of any discipline as a child, adolescent or young adult. Her by the luck of the draw, marrying a Prince and milking that position for all it was worth. He has, for well publicised reasons, withdrawn from public life. She is still at it.
To describe Prince Andrew as ‘boorish’, a word used frequently in the book by Lownie’s sources, seems euphemistic compared with the actual excesses of his life. Those excesses include some of the most selfish behaviour imaginable: I.e. being flown at huge expense to some venue to meet and greet and then, after keeping people waiting hours, completely ignoring them and leaving; the expectation of flights for even the shortest distances – private jets when commercial first or business class was offered – and probably accepting payments in defiance of royal protocol. And that is before we get to his sexual exploits.
It is hard to sum Sarah Ferguson up in one word, but one – not used in the book – would be ‘deluded’. The product of a broken home and a semi-entitled upbringing by a lecherous father, she acquired a taste for the high life early. Her marriage provided her with a title and connections to exploit to her own financial advantage. But her delusion is surely her impression that people liked her for who, rather than what, she was. She also holds to the delusion that she was a great mother, while evidence to the contrary abounds in her equally entitled royal daughters (whose care was mostly accomplished by nannies). This is one of her grandest delusions.
Ferguson also considered herself a gifted writer with a stream of books proving that she was not. She fancied herself as some kind of global businesswoman, hoovering up enormous fees and backhanders while racking up eye-watering debts, along with her equally inept husband, that seemed not to worry her in the least. All part of the entitlement. Without exception, her businesses were expensive failures. She also achieved world record level as an international pincushion (think pricks) that, while she may not have equalled Randy Andy’s conquests, did require a great many horizontal encounters.
Andy seems to have shagged everything attractive that hoved into view. While only alleged in the book, that probably also included some young lads. Certainly, his nephew Harry’s description of him as a ‘poof’ would bear that out. That was, allegedly, delivered to him verbally just before a punch on the nose from said nephew which left him bleeding.
Much has been made of Andrew’s naval career. His bravery in the Falkland War, sometimes questioned, seems beyond doubt. But his rise through the ranks under his own steam seems doubtful. He is intellectually dim, virtually incapable of taking orders, insolent to those above and a bully to those below. Not exactly officer material, he rose to the rank of rear admiral (haha!) and finally, at the time of his removal from public life to admiral. This seems to have been a royal bone thrown to him along with Knighthood of the Garter, by his eternally doting mother.
His ultimate undoing was his long-term association with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, using Andy for his own ends, indulged Andrew’s taste for underage flesh and unspecified but copiously hinted at, sexual perversions. Lownie does not couch his coverage of Anrew’s own paedophilic exploits with the ‘alleged’ device; he is in no doubt that Andrew was as guilty as hell. Accumulating evidence and the possibility of having to defend himself in front of lawyers in a US court when he could not explain himself to Emily Maitlis on television, led to a royal payoff for his most vocal victim Virginia Roberts. Many take this as a proxy admission of guilt.
The Yorks have descended into a squalid pit of their own making. Ferguson perpetuates the delusion, literally, of grandeur. Andrew, mainly confined to quarters, watches television all day or plays golf. They live under one roof, but live very separate lives. The Royal Lodge from which they cannot seem to be dislodged, is falling into disrepair and Andrew is a pariah in royal circles. Ferguson makes the occasional media appearance with her latest hare-brained idea. Both are, beyond doubt, damaged goods. But they were damaged goods to begin with.
The House of York, as depicted by Lownie, is testament to squandered privilege and moral vacuity. Andrew and Sarah are likely to be best remembered for turning the concept of public service into an expensive joke. We had Scoop last year but I suspect, probably not in my lifetime, that when the bones of Andrew and Sarah return to dust there is another great film waiting to be made.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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(Photograph: Chatham House, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
I just wish Roger Watson would come out and say what he thinks instead of all this nicety nice skirting round the subject [smiley face here].
Well, I commented on an MSM report about Prince Andrew yesterday, and it is now crystal clear that I am the only person in the entire UK who feels sorry for him and wonders if he is being scapegoated a bit by those who really don’t like having a royal family and would not-so-secretly prefer a President Starmer. Please, spare us.
To tell the truth, however, I didn’t know any of those allegations listed in Roger’s article, except the well-worn Epstein case. However, while all such sexual behaviours (exception only sexual intercourse within a valid marriage between a man and a woman) is to be abhorred, in my considered opinion, since it’s become “cool” in contemporary society, and is even taught as desirable to schoolchildren, I wonder why, all of a sudden, it’s so wrong for Andrew to so behave. Signed Puzzled, Glasgow.
As for being “entitled” – well, I think most of us could write a book with that title, seeing the antics of those who allegedly govern us, the politicians and the celebrities. It’s not an attractive characteristic but there are many other just as unattractive characteristics, such as making an “entitled” person’s life a misery by, as they were doing in yesterday’s MSM article, calling for him to leave the country, live elsewhere, have his dukedom removed. No, I’d sooner organise some meetings, some way of helping him to behave better, and leave the vengeance to the Lord (Romans 12:19).
I prefer a constitutional monarchy to a republican state but the House of Windsor just doesn’t seem to cut the mustard now. ‘Green’ King Bonkers 111 and his offspring appear to have thrown their lot in with the globalists, multiculturalists and the ‘Green’ activist billionaire set so what is the point of their continued presence. Even Bonkers 111 mother broke her Coronation Oath by giving Royal Assent to the European Communities Act in 72.
I agree entirely with all that. We were rather spoilt with 70 years of EIIR doing her duty and keeping her thoughts to herself. As soon as Mama breathed her last King Bonkers III should have had his jaws wired to keep him quiet. The same should apply to the Prince of Baldness as he’s becoming a bit gobby. It’s a pity that Her Late Majesty didn’t do what the King of the Belgians did over abortion and abdicate for 24 hours, rather than giving Royal Assent to the European Communities Act.
Dear Patricia, have you not read newspapers and seen the TV news over the past 40+ years? His Royal Randiness has been at it for years, as has Her Royal Gingerness. You must remember Fergie’s infamous toe-sucking episode which hit the headlines when they were still pretending to play happy families. I wouldn’t want to see our constitutional monarchy disappear, but the pair of them have been playing into republican hands for years!
Yes, tenacioussweets88de5cf6c5, I do remember that but my point is that the entire western world has sunk into depravity at one level of another for years now and, while I would love it if the royal family and other leaders would live virtuous lives and not follow the awful fashions of our time, I just think that it is unfair to insist on draconian action against one of the perceived worst offenders in one particular group – in this case said royal family.
After all, it was the atheist, George Bernard Shaw who pointed out that “It is difficult, if not impossible, for men [people] to think differently from the fashion of the age in which they live.”
In our “anything goes” society, where, literally, anything goes, why should the toe suckers be treated any differently from the rest of the suckers, i.e. the gullibles who follow the unhealthy and dissipated “fashions” of our age?
The most striking thing surely is just how much of a paragon of duty and a secular saint was EII if she went along with her, by all accounts, bad egg son? Increasingly the European Communities Act will also bring into question EII’s legacy.