Prince Andrew: The Indulged Prince and the Making of a Black Sheep
Andrew has been in the news lately. A lot. Once the press get hold of a story they don’t let go. They milk it to destruction which is why the King has stepped in late in the day and obtained Andrew’s agreement to walk away from his home of about 20 years, The Lodge, and be funded in retirement by Charles at a home on the Sandringham estate. He has a cast iron lease on The Lodge so the only way to get him out was with his agreement to vacate. Charles seems to have achieved that with MONEY! Something Andew covets very much.
Here is my take on why Andrew turned into the black sheep of the royal family and so different to his older brother, Charles.
Among the British Royal Family, few contrasts are starker than that between King Charles III and his younger brother, Prince Andrew, Duke of York. One is disciplined, thoughtful, and steeped in duty; the other has become a cautionary tale of privilege gone astray. While scandals and poor judgment explain part of Andrew’s fall from grace, the roots lie deeper — in family dynamics, psychology, and the subtle shaping influence of royal favouritism.
Prince Andrew was born in 1960, twelve years after Charles, at a time when Queen Elizabeth II was more settled in her reign and family life. Unlike Charles, who spent much of his childhood at a distance from his parents, Andrew was raised in a period of greater domestic stability. The Queen, then in her thirties and more confident in her role, is widely believed to have been openly affectionate toward her second son. Many royal biographers — including Ingrid Seward and Gyles Brandreth — have said that Andrew was “the Queen’s favourite.” He was vivacious, good-looking, and confident, a child who made his mother laugh. That warmth, while understandable, also became the soil in which Andrew’s later flaws took root.
As the indulged child of the monarch, Andrew grew up receiving praise and protection that few dared to challenge. He developed a self-assurance bordering on arrogance and, crucially, a belief that he could do no wrong. Courtiers and aides have long hinted that discipline was rarely applied to him in the way it was to Charles, who, as heir to the throne, was subject to relentless expectations and scrutiny. Where Charles learned caution and self-restraint, Andrew learned charm and entitlement. The result was a prince ill-equipped for the self-discipline demanded by modern public life.
Psychologically, Andrew’s situation was paradoxical. Though he was loved, he was not destined for greatness. The throne would never be his, yet he was raised amid the same privileges and deference as the future king. That mismatch — status without purpose — left a void. Charles’s life was defined by preparation for kingship; Andrew’s was a search for identity. His naval service gave him structure for a time, but once he left the military, his role became ambiguous. In seeking to carve out significance, he turned toward wealth and connections, often of the wrong kind.
It seems he believed that achieving extreme wealth would match his ego. He needed to have status equal to his brother and the way to get there according to him was to be extremely wealthy. And for him it had to come the easy way which meant hobnobbing with unsavoury types.
His years as the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment should have been a dignified way to serve the Crown, but instead they exposed a weakness: a susceptibility to flattery and a fascination with the rich and powerful. Andrew’s associations with questionable figures — from oligarchs to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein — reflected a prince eager to be relevant, to win the success and admiration he may have felt denied by the accident of birth. The pursuit of influence through money and glamour became a poor substitute for genuine duty.
The Queen’s lifelong affection only compounded the problem. Her maternal instinct to protect Andrew shielded him from consequences long after others saw the danger. Even after the disastrous BBC “Newsnight” interview in 2019, she was said to have hesitated before stripping him of royal duties. Her final public gesture — allowing him to escort her at Prince Philip’s memorial service — was interpreted as love triumphing over judgment. It was an act of maternal loyalty, but also a poignant symbol of how that loyalty had contributed to his downfall.
By contrast, Charles’s temperament and trajectory could hardly be more different. Trained for duty, guided by tutors, and shaped by criticism rather than indulgence, he learned patience, reflection, and the importance of restraint. Where Andrew was the “golden child,” Charles was the lonely heir. Ironically, it was the hardship of that role that produced a man better suited to bear the weight of the Crown.
Prince Andrew’s story, then, is not merely one of scandal but of psychology and circumstance — of a man loved too much and guided too little. In the royal family, affection was a blessing, but for Andrew it became a trap. The Queen’s unwavering love, intended to protect her son, instead left him unequipped for a world that demands accountability. His fall from grace is thus not just personal failure but the inevitable consequence of a lifetime spent basking in unconditional approval.
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