Andrew Lownie’s biography of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, Entitled, follows the “rise and fall of the house of York,” and in a recent talk at the Oxford Literary Festival, the author claims that Queen Elizabeth was highly influenced by her favorite son, Andrew.
Per the Times, Lownie spoke about the former Duke of York and his relationship with the late Queen at the festival, stating: “By the end of her life, what people don’t realize, is that she was completely gaga. He [Andrew] would go up there and he would bully her into doing things.”
The Entitled author also claimed that “for the last few years” of Queen Elizabeth’s life, “Charles actually was running the show, rather than The Queen.”
During his talk at the festival, Lownie said he thought the Andrew crisis was worse than when King Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson. Calling the 1936 abdication a “three-day wonder,” Lownie said that Andrew’s scandal had a much greater impact on the monarchy.
“There were MI6 officers who went to [royal] private secretaries and said, ‘Look he’s been caught with $5 million in a suitcase in Kazakhstan,’ and they were sent away with a flea in their ear,” Lownie said of Andrew. “The heads of the foreign office went and complained.”
“She, I’m afraid, abetted this,” the author said of Queen Elizabeth. “The whole family abetted this—they knew about it.”
Lownie’s comments come after police announced their investigation into the former Duke of York will likely expand into other potential offenses after his February arrest. Andrew was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and the Times reported last week that he’s “set to be investigated over other potential corruption offenses on top of a scoping inquiry into alleged sex trafficking.”
