Andrew has to face some hard realities as he prepares to be booted out of Royal Lodge, amid reports that youngest daughter Eugenie has cut ties with her disgraced dad
Next month, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will mark his 66th birthday – but it’s unlikely he will be in the mood to celebrate. The disgraced former prince is in the process of being evicted from his home of 22 years, Royal Lodge – and, according to reports, he is pretty repulsed by his reduced new digs.
Andrew is said to have been given a January 25 deadline to be out of the sprawling Windsor estate, and in recent days, removal vans have been spotted at the property. Similarly, work is underway at Marsh Farm – his new future home. It is said to be need of renovations and, as such, Andrew will stay in a temporary house, also on the Sandringham estate, until work is complete.
READ MORE: Laughing Andrew spotted as disgraced prince uses royal removal firm for evictionREAD MORE: ‘Real reason’ why Fergie won’t leave shamed Andrew despite moving out
Packing up Royal Lodge will be no mean feat. Andrew, along with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, have lived there for two decades, and will likely have accumulated a great deal of possessions. Sarah’s love of spending is well documented – there are reportedly a huge number of often unopened Amazon deliveries that have been left to pile up, adding to the complexities of downsizing.
Perhaps bizarrely, some of Andrew’s most prized possessions have already been packed up ahead of the move – his famously extensive teddy bear collection. According to Charlotte Briggs, a former staff member, the disgraced royal had 72 in total, which had to be lined up in size order, and arranged precisely on his bed.
She once told the Sun: “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them. I even had a day’s training. Everything had to be just right. It was so peculiar.”
The stuffed animals have now been safely stowed away – bar one. Andrew has retained a cuddly monkey, presumably to remain with him over the coming weeks, according to the Mail on Sunday. The remainder may well now be stored in a south London warehouse, where the majority of his possessions are being housed, protected by 24 hour guards.
The fact of the matter is, many of those items simply won’t fit in Andrew’s future home. The King’s son is said to be “appalled” that “poky” Marsh Farm only has five bedrooms; in contrast, Royal Lodge has seven bedrooms within the main 30-room mansion. “He really didn’t want Marsh Farm,” a source told the Mail. “He won’t have lived anywhere that small since he left his apartment at Buckingham Palace.”
Adding further to Andrew’s woes, his new home is reportedly on a flood plain, with residents advised to sign up for alerts in case local measures fail to stop a torrent of water from a nearby bog. According to The Sun, a flood risk assessment from last year for Wolferton Barns – located just metres from Marsh Farm – said it would be ‘prudent’ for the owner to be added to the flood warning system in case the pumping station which drains marshland had a mechanical breakdown.
He might also have trouble with some less than desirable neighbours. A pest control company’s van has been seen driving into Marsh Farm in the village of Wolferton ahead of Andrew’s arrival. It is not known what Command Pest Control were doing at the farm, but the company deals with removing unwanted rats, mice, squirrels and wasp nests.
Then there is the issue of staff, which Andrew apparently won’t have the space – nor, presumably, the means – for. It’s been said that his brother the King has offered him a Sandringham cleaner, groundsman and cook on an ad hoc basis – but that “hasn’t gone down well”.
It’s said that Andrew might have struggled to recruit staff. While one might think his tremendous fall from grace would have humbled the father-of-two, Andrew is said to retain an extraordinary level of entitlement, with reports that he has continued to insist his Lodge staff use HRH titles, and bow or curtsy when he enters a room.
Rob Shuter’s #ShuterScoop previously reported that “nothing has changed inside Royal Lodge.” A household source said: “The butler still says Your Royal Highness, and the staff still bow. Andrew’s made it clear – palace rules don’t apply inside his walls. He insists it’s his birthright – not something the King can erase.”
For years, Andrew has been dogged by rumours about his reputation behind closed doors, described by insiders as being both arrogant and entitled, with allegations he would bully and humiliate staff. He is also alleged to have made bizarre requests of royal employees, and would reportedly ‘scream and shout’ if they were not followed through.
In his explosive biography on Andrew and Fergie – Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York – Andrew Lowrie quotes one former equerry for the Queen Mother describing Andrew as a “rude, ignorant sod”. He further alleges that Andrew insisted maids in his home climb four floors of stairs just to open his curtains for him in the morning – whilst he lay right beside them.
A source claimed: “His bedtime habits as a single man left a lot to be desired, and a collection of scrunched-up, soiled tissues usually lay scattered around the bed each morning for staff to collect after they had made his bed.” On one further occasion, Andrew is said to have brought a television technical worker to his royal home in the middle of the night, insisting the technician explain how the remote worked.
Andrew has a far more pressing problem than a lack of staff, however. The most recent reports suggest that his younger daughter Eugenie has ‘cut ties’ with her father over the fallout from his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced former royal is said to be “devastated” about the estrangement. It’s claimed that Eugenie did not visit Andrew at Christmas and is refusing to speak to him. A source told the Mail: “There is no contact at all, nothing. She has completely cut him off.”
Eugenie, who established The Anti-Slavery Collective to help counter sex trafficking, is allegedly angered by her father’s refusal to apologise to the Epstein victims. But her older sister Beatrice is said to be adopting a more nuanced approach to her relationships, as she seeks to maintain connections with both her father and the wider royal family.
Beatrice invited Andrew to the christening of her daughter, Athena, last month, but he was not in attendance for a party after the event. It is unclear whether Andrew and Eugenie spoke during the christening. The source continued: “Beatrice is trying to walk the fine line of not cutting her father off and yet remaining close with the Royal Family. They aren’t exactly in regular and close contact at the moment, but Eugenie isn’t trying to walk that line. She’s not speaking to him,” they told the Mail.
Meanwhile, sources say that Fergie is “very upset” but is ready to “spread her wings” by not moving with her ex-husband to his new Sandringham home. It is believed she has ruled out moving into eldest daughter Princess Beatrice’s Cotswolds home but could use other daughter Eugenie’s Portugal pad as a temporary measure.
Despite Fergie’s upset over the situation, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond believes that Sarah and Andrew will always have a close tie. The pair share daughters and grandchildren, and given their shared scandals in recent months, are likely to still lean on each other for support.
Jennie told the Mirror: “Unless Fergie knows something about her ex husband that we don’t, I think she’ll continue to be part of his life, even if she doesn’t share his new home. They’ve shared so much, good and bad, it’s hard to see how they would ever be truly divorced.”
