It was the talk of the town for weeks, the midsummer party to celebrate the publication of Andrew Lownie’s Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, the unauthorised biography of the then Prince Andrew and ex-wife Fergie.
Inside the soaring, wood-panelled walls of the London Library, an elegant cream terrace on London’s leafy St James Square, Lownie, a renowned British biographer and historian, mingled and chatted with more than 150 guests, elated by the turnout but oblivious to the extraordinary storm that was to come.
I had interviewed Lownie a few weeks before the publication of his blockbuster book after being genuinely shocked by its lurid contents, complete with a lifetime’s worth of indiscretions, epic money-grubbing and cringeworthy faux pas. With my own glass of wine in hand, small talking with launch guests that night, I realised looking around the room that among those who had turned up – elegantly attired and patrician with a sprinkling of fabulous eccentrics in bohemian feathers and sequins – were many of Lownie’s sources: diplomats, colleagues from Andrew’s navy days, ex school friends, former house staff and protection officers, even the odd ex spook. All were milling around together openly, the buzz upbeat and engaged.
What struck me then – but makes so much sense now, in retrospect – is that the very people who surround the royals and usually operate under a veil of discretion and omertà were so candidly upfront at the book launch, seemingly united by a profound distaste for the Queen’s second son and most of all, for his appalling behaviour.
“I honestly struggled to find anyone to say anything positive about him”, Lownie told me almost apologetically himself this week.
The buzzy book launch party was held on August 14, 2025. Then, it seemed that things could not have gone any further downhill for the former Prince Andrew. London’s Daily Telegraph – conservative and ferociously pro-monarchy – had published a long article under the headline “How do you solve a problem like Prince Andrew?”. An early batch of 943 Jeffrey Epstein court papers had just emerged that mentioned his name 67 times amid words such as “underage” and “orgy”, and only a few months later, he was publicly entangled with a Chinese businessman, Yang Tengbo, banned from entering the UK for alleged spying.
Then, in April 2025, the death of Virginia Giuffre, 41, who had sued him for sexual assault and won a six-figure out-of-court settlement, but whose family spoke of a “toll of abuse so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle”. Her own book, published posthumously, would reveal the extent of her suffering.
Fast forward six months and the unimaginable has unfolded: the Prince has been stripped of his titles, evicted from his home at Royal Lodge and arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, spending 11 hours in custody on his 66th birthday.
The now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, accused of sharing sensitive economic and political information with the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, has now been released under investigation – but not before he was photographed by Phil Noble of Reuters, an image of such utter disgrace that seasoned Royal commentators have struggled to contextualise with the long history of the monarchy.
The British Parliament has now passed a motion to release all files relating to his time as trade envoy, and Sir Chris Bryant, the UK trade minister no less, told the House of Commons this week that the King’s brother was “rude, entitled and arrogant”. The Parliament, he said, was working “at pace” to bring forward legislation to extract him from the line of succession while the Times of London thundered that the “weak and seedy Andrew had imperilled the whole Royal family”.
For Lownie, who has penned several biographies, including the spy Guy Burgess (Stalin’s Englishman), the Duke of Windsor (Traitor King) and Lord Mountbatten and wife Edwina (The Mountbattens), this is the monarchy’s ‘MeToo’ moment – an historical turning point that could ultimately lead to its demise.
Known for his no-holds-barred approach, he spent four years researching Entitled, battling with Freedom of Information requests for documentation of Prince Andrew’s years as a special trade representative and arguing for an end to the convention that stops questions being asked about the royals in parliament.
Perhaps, however, the scandal could also be turned around, seized as an opportunity for Britain to say goodbye to the age of deference and for the modern House of Windsor to abandon the old ‘never complain, never explain’ mantra.
“They have to become much more transparent, much more engaged with the media and questions …. There is huge concern about the opaque nature of Royal finances, there is no reason why we should not know the total costs, of security for example, how it is allocated, the exemptions from inheritance and capital gains tax, the sources of income,” Lownie says.
“This crisis is a huge opportunity for the Royal family … it could lead to their demise, but in fact, if they play it smartly, it could be the making of a truly modern monarchy”.
