Pity the second son of any royal family.
As author Tina Brown says, “The only certainty is that, as the years go by, your importance will diminish as you slide inexorably down the line of succession.”
The ‘substitute’ he had in mind was Prince Andrew, whose career appeared to have been in decline since he left the Royal Navy in 2001.
A stint as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment did nothing to burnish his reputation.
The Duke of York stands on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping the Colour, 2016, the year that marks the Queen’s 90th birthday.
The Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his wife, Sheikha Mozah, sit with Prince Andrew, Duke of York, at a meeting of industry leaders at Buckingham Palace in 2010 .
Prince Andrew uses a private jet when leaving Sardinia in 2010
President Bill Clinton gestures to his golf partner, Prince Andrew, after teeing off.
It was a role “that allowed him to tour the world playing golf at the government’s expense,” Brown writes in his best-selling book, The Palace Papers.
‘Andrew was the Foreign Office’s desperation.
“He insisted on flying private and traveled with an entourage of servants, including a valet who dragged an absurd six-foot-long ironing board through the lobbies of five-star hotels.”
According to Brown, “Prince Andrew’s contacts with reprehensible foreign rabble went far beyond what was explainable or acceptable.”
“A series of international thugs who had nothing to do with British diplomacy and everything to do unsavory personal business filled the Duke’s otherwise sparse calendar.”
Among them was Mohamed Sakhr El Materi, son-in-law of Tunisia’s strongman president, who was later sentenced to 16 years in prison for corruption and fraud.
Saif Gaddafi, son of dictator Muammar, was another of Andrew’s lunch companions, according to Brown. He was soon wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court.
Tarek Kaituni, a convicted Libyan arms smuggler, was one of Andrew’s guests at his daughter Beatrice’s 21st birthday party in Marbella. And she was invited to her sister Princess Eugenie’s 18th birthday reception at Windsor Castle.
There was also no shortage of questions when it came to the notable sale of York’s home at Sunninghill Park in Ascot.
In 2007, it was sold to the son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for £15 million, £3 million more than the asking price, despite there being no other offers for the property, Brown writes.
Prince Harry listens to words of wisdom from his uncle Prince Andrew on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II
The Duke of York takes part in a Prince’s Trust charity golf tournament in 1998
Sunninghill Park, the house that belonged to the Duke and Duchess of York, sold for £3 million more than the asking price
Libyan Tarek Kaituni arrives at Princess Eugenie’s royal wedding at Windsor Castle with Jack Brooksbank
Prince Andrew and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev
‘Simon Wilson, who regularly received him as deputy head of the British mission in Bahrain, recalled that much of what the Prince said was “utter nonsense” and that the British diplomatic community in the Gulf mocked him as HBH – His Highness the Jester.
‘A senior Tory told The Guardian in 2011: “There appears to be no discernible mental activity upstairs as far as the Duke is concerned. I’m sorry for him. He has no friends and that is why he is surrounded by vile people.”
In short, Brown concludes, our trade ambassador was “a machine of crowned sleaze.”