That Queen Elizabeth II was “very keen” for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to take on a “prominent role in the promotion of national interests” as a trade envoy in 2001 demonstrates the fierce support the late monarch always gave her second son.
Knowing he was “the spare”, and undoubtedly acutely aware of the pitfalls of that position – her sister, Princess Margaret, had struggled to find her own role – a mother’s instinct would be to protect, so far as she could.
Presumably, she believed it would give the then Prince Andrew structure and purpose as he was steadily bumped down the line of succession, as well as highlighting the family’s own royal brand of usefulness to the country.
After a Royal Navy career, during which he even briefly enjoyed “national hero” status, posing with a rose on his return from combat in the Falklands, it could offer him direction away from the luxury yacht parties and golf courses. How wrong she was.
Royal commentators have long espoused the theory that when it came to Andrew, the late queen was blinkered. It is rumoured he was her favourite son. Perhaps he was.
What is quite evident, however, is that he was the first of her four children she was able to spend more time with as infants. When Charles and Anne were born, she was undertaking many engagements on behalf of her ailing father, George VI. On his death, she was dealing with the stresses of being a young mother and a monarch. Overseas engagements kept her away from the royal nursery for extended periods.
When Andrew was born, having settled into her position she was able to spend more time with him, cutting back on evening engagements, sometimes taking charge of bedtimes. A closer maternal bond, perhaps, was formed with Andrew and then his brother Edward.
As he grew older, it was evident, too, that the former Duke of York’s character was very different to that of his older brother, Charles. He was, according to the royal biographer Robert Hardman, “not as bright as the others, he could be boorish and everyone knew that”. His mother saw him as “vulnerable”, and continued to shield him.
Her support for him was made public in many seemingly small but nevertheless significant gestures.
Two days after the immediate fallout from that car-crash Newsnight interview in November 2019, when he spectacularly failed to quell concerns about his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she went out riding her horse around the grounds of Windsor Castle. Mountbatten-Windsor was at her side.
She would have been aware of the possibility they would be photographed. She was savvy enough to know those photographs would be interpreted as tacit support for her beleaguered third-born.
After she gave him permission to step down as a working member of the royal family, even after he was stripped of his military affiliations and patronages, there would still be invitations to family Christmases at Sandringham and picnics at Balmoral. Royal blood is thicker than public ire.
It has been widely reported that she contributed to the substantial 2022 settlement he reached with Virginia Giuffre, his accuser. Two months later, at the memorial service for his father, Prince Philip, it was Mountbatten-Windsor’s arm she leaned on as he escorted her into Westminster Abbey.
It would, ultimately, be left to Charles to strip his sibling of his peerage, his prince’s title and his HRH style.
