News

Prince Andrew last night faced calls to ‘come clean’ and reveal the secret sources of funding that are bankrolling his stay at Royal Lodge in Windsor.

Prince Andrew last night faced calls to ‘come clean’ and reveal the secret sources of funding that are bankrolling his stay at Royal Lodge in Windsor.

The King stopped paying his disgraced brother’s £3 million-a-year security bill at the 30-room mansion last month and urged him to move into more modest accommodation as part of an extraordinary row dubbed ‘the siege of Royal Lodge’.

Now it has emerged that Andrew has been allowed to stay at the property in Windsor Great Park after convincing Palace authorities that he has secured enough funds to support himself.

It has been reported that the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Michael Stevens, has approved the financing as coming from legitimate sources.

But Buckingham Palace last night faced a fierce backlash after refusing to say where the money, likely to run into millions, is coming from.

Earlier this month, the Daily Mail’s acclaimed royal writer Robert Hardman revealed in his updated biography of Charles III that the King has also severed his brother’s annual personal allowance, believed to be £1 million a year. Andrew, however, claims to have found ‘other sources of income related to his contacts in international trade’, a source told Hardman.

In an explosive intervention last night, a French socialite who claimed that she lost more than £3 million in a dispute with Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson over the sale of a luxury ski chalet voiced her fury at the Duke’s mystery bailout.

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Isabelle de Rouvre said: ‘I am missing millions as a result of this man. I reduced what he owed me because… they told me he did not have the money. I was left with little choice.

‘Now he is saying he has plenty of finances – but where does this money now come from? They [Andrew and Sarah] were apparently so poor before they had to pay me, and now they are so rich.’

Labour politicians also demanded to know the Duke’s sources of funding. Leeds MP Alex Sobel said: ‘Full disclosure of these funding arrangements is vital to uphold the reputation of the Royal Family.’

York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell told the MoS: ‘When the funding for the Royal Family is due to rise by £45 million next year to a staggering £132 million, serious questions need to be asked as to why the monarch’s brother continues to reside at his mansion.

‘There must be greater transparency on the source of the money that has allowed Andrew to stay at Royal Lodge.’

It emerged last night that Chancellor Rachel Reeves could be dragged into the row. Andrew leases Royal Lodge from the Crown Estate, which hands its profits over to the Treasury, which has ‘general oversight of the Crown Estate’s business’.

The Duke signed a 75-year lease agreement with the Crown Estate for Royal Lodge in 2003. He pays rent reported to be £260,000 a year and must also ‘repair, renew, uphold, clean and keep in repair and where necessary rebuild’ the sprawling property.

In an increasingly acrimonious stand-off, the King, 75, has been attempting to persuade Andrew, 64, to move to nearby Frogmore Cottage, recently vacated by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sus𝑠e𝑥.

The revelation that he has found the funding to remain in Royal Lodge will raise fears that Andrew is exploiting the foreign business contacts he accumulated during the decade he spent as Britain’s trade envoy.

In 2019 the MoS revealed how he used the taxpayer-funded role to quietly promote a private

Luxembourg-based bank for the super-rich, owned by controversial multi-millionaire David Rowland and his family.

Despite living the lifestyle of a billionaire for years, with an extensive collection of watches, including a £150,000 Patek Philippe, and a small fleet of luxury cars, mystery has surrounded Andrew’s finances. Charles’s decision to sever his allowance means his only official income comes via a small Navy pension of about £20,000–a-year.

Buckingham Palace refused to comment on reports that Sir Michael, a former accountant with KPMG who was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse in 2018, had approved Andrew’s apparently new funding as coming from legitimate sources. It is unknown what checks took place – or, crucially, how long Andrew said the funding would be in place for.

The secrecy will fuel fears that Andrew’s dealings could plunge the Royal Family into a fresh scandal.

In December 2010 Andrew orchestrated a plan for paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to give Sarah £15,000 to help pay off a debt, just 18 months after the financier was released from jail for soliciting prostitution from underage girls. Sarah later said the decision was a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.

And in 2007 Andrew sold his 12-bedroom Sunninghill Park mansion in Berkshire, a wedding present from Queen Elizabeth, to Kazakh oligarch Timur Kulibayev for £15 million – £3 million over the asking price. Mr Kulibayev, the son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s then president, demolished the house a few years later.

Norman Baker, a former minister and expert in royal finances, said: ‘It is stretching credibility to believe he has legitimate sources of income that enable him to pay a big rent and undertake the necessary repair work, to that building, particularly when he appeared to have nothing just a matter of weeks ago.

‘We need to understand where this money is coming from – whether it is clean or whether it is coming from one of his nasty dictator friends in the Middle East. He should come clean.’

Nigel Mills, a former Tory MP who served on the Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘If he was renting a private house then we wouldn’t have any interest in who was giving him money for rent. But while he is living in a house that is owned by the monarchy, then some transparency is necessary.

‘If the person who is giving the money doesn’t want to be named, then it’s probably a better idea for them not to give money to a disgraced prince.’

But Michael Wynne-Parker, a society fixer, said: ‘Andrew has made bad judgments in the past and he has been quite naive with people. But along the way he has met good people who really like him. I think, from what I pick up in London, that over the last couple of months people have come to support him.’

The Duke could not be reached for comment.

Related Posts

PETER VAN ONSELEN: The rot at the core of Team Albo has been exposed by these shady last minute acts – including a startling admission about the misinformation bill

The poor priorities and inconsistencies of Anthony Albanese’s government are nearly summed up by the political manoeuvres taking place as we enter the final parliamentary sitting period before the summer break. They are tangible evidence for why Labor is floundering in the polls in just its first term in power. On the one hand, Labor spent months telling us its misinformation bill was a vital reform aimed at stamping out… you guessed it, misinformation in public discourse.

Labour is a risk to Britain’s national security and it’s ‘deeply’ worrying, a former MI6 chief claims

A former MI6 spy chief has accused Labour of putting national security at risk following its ‘deeply’ worrying cuts to defence spending. Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, has claimed the new government is showing no urgency in the face of international crises. In words reported by the Daily Telegraph, Sir Richard said: ‘I’m deeply worried about aspects of this new Government, particularly when it comes to national security – and these are ultimately issues of national security.

Father who pleaded with pediatrician ex-wife not to ‘chemically castrate’ their son, 9, is dealt crushing blow

A Texas father who tried for years to stop his ex-wife from allowing his pre-teen child, who now identifies as ‘Luna,’ to be chemically castrated has been dealt a blow in California court. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas ruled that Jeff Younger’s ex-wife Anne Georgulas would be granted full custody of his 12-year-old son James and would be able to allow him to transition. It comes as a blow to Younger, 59, who announced on X that he ‘lost all parental rights’ over his twins and wished his children goodbye.

Ben Fordham left stunned as top professor exposes what Australia got wrong during Covid

A visiting UK professor of medicine stunned radio host Ben Fordham by delivering a blistering takedown of Covid lockdowns, quarantine, masks, and vaccines. Angus Dalgleish, a professor of oncology at London’s St George’s University who also sits on the European Commission Cancer Board, told Fordham Australia’s Covid response was ‘absolutely appalling’, ‘madness’ and ‘disgraceful’. His unconventional views go against the recent Covid Response Inquiry verdict that ‘Australia fared well relative to other nations that experienced larger losses in human life, health system collapse and more severe economic downturns’.

Trump plans to kick transgender troops out of the military with 15,000 service members to be ‘medically discharged’ on his first day in office, report claims

President elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to issue an executive order on his ‘first day in office’ to ban transgender members of the military. The controversial order would cause as many as 15,000 active service members to be ‘medically discharged’ – deeming them unfit to serve, according to The Times. Trump seeks to issue the executive action on January 20, 2025 or Day 1 of his term, the Times said, preventing any transgender people from enlisting in the military as all branches continue to struggle with recruitment.

Revealed: How ‘Morrisons Four’ stole £120k of goods from British supermarkets on orders of international crime gang

A gang of shoplifters dubbed the ‘Morrisons Four’ by police stole £120,000 of goods from British supermarkets on the orders of an international crime gang, an investigation has found. The shoplifters were ordered to steal from more than 50 branches of Morrisons by gangs from Romania, who then resold the goods through a wholesaler and car boot sales. A new Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, Britain’s Shoplifting Gangs Exposed, lays bare how dozens of retailers appear to have been targeted in this way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *