NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Exiled from the royal family, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a> is weighing his next move as he prepares to leave Royal Lodge, the 30-room Windsor mansion he has called home for more than two decades.\n<\/p>\n The former Prince Andrew was ordered to surrender his lease on the property earlier this year after King Charles<\/a> stripped him of his remaining royal titles and honors<\/a> amid renewed scrutiny of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. While he will be receiving a private residence on the Sandringham estate, now owned by his brother, Charles, insiders say his future remains unsettled.\n<\/p>\n Royal biographer Robert Jobson suggests the former Duke of York\u2019s exile could extend beyond the U.K. following the King\u2019s recent meeting with the ruler of Bahrain.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe King saw the King of Bahrain the other day. One never knows \u2014 it could be a place where Andrew gets the recognition of being the second son of Queen Elizabeth, rather than this,” says Jobson, whose latest book Windsor Legacy<\/a> is out on Jan. 6.\n<\/p>\n Jobson adds that relocation to the Middle East would not be unprecedented. Spain\u2019s former King Juan Carlos I has lived in Abu Dhabi since 2020 after stepping back from public life amid financial scandals.\n<\/p>\n Speaking more broadly, Jobson notes: \u201cOther disgraced people have gone to the Middle East. Andrew did a lot of business in Bahrain, and he\u2019s still relatively young.”<\/p>\n PEOPLE has reached out to a representative for Andrew for comment.\n<\/p>\n Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor pictured driving in Windsor in fall 2025.<\/p>\n TheImageDirect.com<\/p>\n Fellow biographer Andrew Lownie, whose book Entitled <\/a>was a bestseller in the U.K., also believes the Middle East remains a likely option for Andrew.\n<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn’t like the sound of being on the Sandringham estate, I think he wants to go somewhere where he can just get away from everything,\u201d Lownie adds.\n<\/p>\n While Marsh Farm, a modest property on the Sandringham estate, has been widely cited as Andrew\u2019s most immediate destination, Jobson questions whether it will be a long-term solution.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI just can\u2019t see him being on an isolated farm in Sandringham,\u201d Jobson says.\n<\/p>\n Pegusus<\/p>\n Andrew\u2019s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson<\/a> \u2014 who also called Royal Lodge home for more than two decades \u2014 is charting a separate path. She is said to be seeking an independent new life and is looking for a home of her own, possibly in the Windsor area<\/a>, but apart from Andrew. Ferguson has also set her sights on rebuilding her commercial ventures and book-writing career.\n<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a fighter,\u201d a source close to Ferguson tells PEOPLE.\n<\/p>\n Marsh Farm on the Sandringham estate where Andrew is set to have as his British home, according to speculation.<\/p>\n Lucia Graphus\/Alamy Live News<\/p>\n The couple split in 1996 but remained close, with Ferguson moving into Royal Lodge soon after Andrew took over the lease in 2003. Jobson, who has covered Ferguson\u2019s ups and downs in \u2014 and on the fringes of \u2014 royal life for decades, notes that her post-divorce years were marked by financial strain after she stepped away from the royal fold.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI have a degree of sympathy for her,” Jobson says. “When she was divorced [from Andrew] her financial settlement was not huge, unlike Princess Diana\u2019s, and she was introduced to this lifestyle and lived it in a way that almost bamboozled her and has been in incredible debt ever since. She never got the payoff she should have got.”\n<\/p>\n Ferguson and Andrew spent Christmas at Royal Lodge this year, while their daughters, Princess Princess Beatrice<\/a>, 37,\u00a0and\u00a0Princess Eugenie<\/a>, 35, chose a different path<\/a> \u2014 joining the wider royal family as guests of King Charles, 77, at Sandringham in Norfolk.\n<\/p>\n Andrew with his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, left, at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in Sept. 2022.<\/p>\n Paul Grover\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Jobson says he was not surprised that Beatrice and Eugenie chose to spend Christmas at Sandringham, where they walked to church with King Charles and Queen Camilla, alongside Prince William and Kate Middleton.\n<\/p>\n “It\u2019s easy to say this is a snub to their parents, but they would say, \u2018I\u2019m a royal princess, I\u2019m in line to the throne, I have been invited to attend the King\u2019s Christmas celebrations, and you don\u2019t turn down the King\u2019s invitation,'” Jobson says.\n<\/p>\n “It\u2019s not an invitation \u2013 it\u2019s a command, really,” he adds.\n<\/p>\n Despite the public separation on Christmas Day, the family has remained in close contact throughout the ongoing scandal. As grandparents, Ferguson and Andrew attended the christening of Beatrice\u2019s daughter, Athena<\/a>, at St. James\u2019s Palace on Dec. 12. Both kept a deliberately low profile, arriving discreetly and leaving without attending the pub after-party in central London.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThey have to focus on their own families, and we all know that\u2019s what people tend to do as they get older. There\u2019s a sense they would put an arm around mom, but dad will be left to get on with it.”\n<\/p>\n