The claims by Andrew Lownie, an acclaimed historian and author, will put the duke back in the spotlight after a separate scandal earlier this year about his close ties to a suspected Chinese spy<\/a>. Andrew, 65, has stated that he severed ties with the alleged agent after he was warned by the authorities. <\/p>\n The duke\u2019s approach to loyal royal servants is said to have been encapsulated by an incident at Hillborough Castle in Northern Ireland following a severe storm in 2005. <\/p>\n \u201cHe could be unbelievably cruel,\u201d Lownie claims. \u201cAndrew asked the head of the household, David Anderson, if there was any damage. \u2018Yes, sir,\u2019 responded Anderson. \u2018The tree which was planted by the Queen Mother.\u2019 This was followed by a withering silence, then Andrew said in a mocking voice, \u2018Did you mean Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother?\u2019 <\/p>\n \u201cHe then asked the poor man how long he had worked for the royal family. Anderson replied, \u2018I joined in 1984, sir.\u2019 \u2018And you still don\u2019t know the proper way to refer to my grandmother? You fing imbecile. Get out,\u2019\u201d the book alleges.Colin Burgess, a former equerry to the Queen Mother, alleges in the new book that Andrew had a particular catchphrase for staff: \u201cI want this done and I want this done now. Do it!\u201d<\/p>\n Burgess claims the duke\u2019s approach was in stark contrast to the respect afforded to servants by King Charles and his son, William. \u201cI saw [Andrew] about once a month when he came to visit Clarence House and he would talk to the staff, including me, as an officer talks to his subordinates,\u201d Burgess says.<\/p>\n Lownie claims that prior to stepping back from his royal duties in 2019, the duke would dispatch his taxpayer-funded protection officers to collect golf balls that he had driven up the fairway.<\/p>\n The new allegations are recounted in Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which is being serialised by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, and will be published next week.<\/p>\n Andrew\u2019s downfall was precipitated by this relationship with Epstein and claims by Virginia Giuffre<\/a> that she had been forced to have sex with the duke on three separate occasions when she was a teenager. Andrew has always denied the allegations.<\/p>\n In 2022, he reportedly paid \u00a312 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by Giuffre in the US courts. There was no admission of liability.<\/p>\n Epstein died in a prison cell in New York in 2019, aged 66, while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking offences.<\/p>\n His former girlfriend, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, 63, was jailed in the US for 20 years in 2021 for her role in Epstein\u2019s sex trafficking network.<\/p>\n Maxwell recently pledged to give evidence about Epstein\u2019s connections to powerful figures, including Andrew and President Trump. She is hoping her co-operation might lead to her being pardoned. Last week it was revealed that Maxwell has been moved<\/a> from her cell in Florida to a minimum security prison in Texas.<\/p>\n Representatives for the Duke of York did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Duke of York is alleged to have castigated a member of the royal household as a \u201cf***ing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-312719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-royal","9":"tag-royal-families","10":"tag-royal-family","11":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114960917185213092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/c2ae4b38-ee41-4edd-93cd-88b218bbf576.jpg\")
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