In The Crown’s season four episode “Favourites,” Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) hilariously attempts to determine which of her four children is her favorite—meeting each for a solo lunch. Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) is too emotional, complicated, and self-involved for her taste. Princess Anne (Erin Doherty) is too fiery and hard. Prince Edward (Angus Imrie) is too vengeful. It isn’t until Prince Andrew (Tom Byrne) appears—after having hijacked a helicopter for the commute—that the queen is finally able to exhale in the company of her own offspring.
Sure, he’s mischievous, entitled, and altogether a bit much. “I was shocked,” the queen later says. “If he doesn’t change…” she adds, trailing off to imagine how Andrew’s combination of brazenness and bad judgement could horribly combust—perhaps a small nod by The Crown creator Peter Morgan to Andrew’s entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein, which forced him to step down from official royal duties last year. But in the show, Andrew’s playfulness is such an uplifting escape from the queen’s heavy Buckingham Palace business that the monarch turns a blind eye to Andrew’s crude humor and flagrant disregard for protocol.
The queen’s affection for Andrew might be further explained, though, by the timing of Andrew’s birth. When Andrew was born—nearly 10 years after the birth of Princess Anne, and eight years into the queen’s reign—Elizabeth was more settled as the monarch and, as such, able to spend more time with her newborn. Per Yahoo, “the queen had more time to teach Andrew the alphabet and how to tell the time. She would also read him bedtime stories.” According to the Telegraph, “The Queen made time for [Andrew and Edward]. She used to turn up at the school with one bodyguard and drive herself sometimes. She would attend sports days and various matches.” And the queen herself seemed to forecast her favoritism, with a note she sent her cousin shortly after Andrew’s birth: “The baby is adorable.…All in all, he’s going to be terribly spoilt by all of us, I’m sure.”
The spoiling—and closeness—seems to have never stopped. “Whenever she hears that Andrew is in Buckingham Palace, she’ll send him a handwritten note, and he always goes to see her,” a former palace aide told Geoffrey Levy and Richard Kay of the Daily Mail. “If he’s in jeans, he’ll change into a suit. And he always greets ‘Mummy’ in the same way—bowing from the neck, kissing her hand, and then kissing her on both cheeks. It’s a little ritual that she adores. Believe me, he can do no wrong.”
A laundry list of alleged offenses by Andrew—even outside his friendship with Epstein and his scandal-prone relationship with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson—that have apparently been forgiven by the queen seem to support that claim. Among Andrew’s princely lowlights:
Torturing the footmen: Andrew was reportedly such a troublemaker as a child—taunting the guardsmen on duty, kicking the dogs, and swiping the legs of the horses—that, on one occasion, according to royal writer Ingrid Seward, “two grooms picked him up, threw him into a dung heap and shoveled manure all over him.” On another occasion, Seward claimed, a footman became so angered by Andrew’s taunting that he “took a swipe at Andrew that left him sprawled on the floor with a black eye.” (According to Seward, the footman offered to resign—but the queen sided with the footman in this alleged incident, refusing to punish him.)
“Air-Miles Andy”: The helicopter jaunt in The Crown is an homage to Andrew’s real-life penchant for expensive modes of transportation. Most notoriously—as Edward Klein reported for Vanity Fair in a 2011 must-read feature on Andrew’s royal rap sheet—the prince earned the nickname “Air-Miles Andy” after “taking a helicopter just 50 miles to a lunch with Arab dignitaries, at a cost of almost $5,000.”
But that was just one astonishing incident. In 2011 and 2012, Andrew reportedly amassed a travel bill of nearly $500,000, despite the fact that he stepped down from his post as U.K. trade envoy in 2011. Just last year, the royals defended their decision to spend $20,000 flying Andrew to a golf tournament—though, in their defense, that was a lower price tag than the $97,000 paid to fly Andrew in a private jet to Azerbaijan in 2009.
The ram-cidents: In other transportation-related behavior, Andrew allegedly rammed open metal gates at the Windsor Great Park in 2016 when the sensor failed to work, rather than take a one-mile detour to his home. (Police declined to press charges.) Six years earlier, Prince Andrew was investigated for reportedly hitting a uniformed policeman with his 4x4 vehicle. (“It was a minor incident and the police are looking into it,” a palace spokesman said at the time.)
Shady connections: Even if you exclude his history with Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew has amassed an eyebrow-raising list of alleged dealings with controversial figures. Per Edward Klein’s piece:
His royal rudeness: “I’ve seen him treat his staff in a shocking, appalling way,” a former royal aide told the Sun last year. “He’s been incredibly rude to his personal protection officers, literally throwing things on the ground and demanding that they ‘fucking pick them up.’ No social graces at all.” The same year, the tabloid alleged that Andrew had such a heated exchange with a top palace aide that Prince Charles, who was “mortified” by his brother’s meltdown, demanded his brother apologize. (As the Sun reported, “the Palace refused to confirm this.”)
Andrew has reportedly been as boorish in business dealings. In 2010, in a secret cable published on WikiLeaks, a U.S. ambassador described a meeting with the prince during which he openly swore, made disparaging comments about France, complained about reporters who “poke their noses everywhere and (presumably) make it harder for British businessmen to do business,” and criticized America and Britain’s “stupid governments.” (The palace said, “We do not comment on leaked documents.”)
Sir Ivor Roberts, the former U.K. ambassador to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Ireland, confirmed the prince’s clumsy approach to the Express, saying, “Prince Andrew managed to offend key people brought to see him.…He has that rather unfortunate manner of being brusque to the point of rudeness.”
Appalling language: In yet another incident, this time in 2012, Prince Andrew was accused of using the N-word in a conversation with a senior political aide about trade. (The Guardian writes that “Buckingham Palace sources have categorically denied the claim.”)
A prank on press: During a 1984 visit to California, Andrew sprayed paint on the reporters in his press pool—potentially ruining their outfits and camera equipment. Afterward, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “I enjoyed that.”
The India visit: In 2012, the Daily Mail reported that Andrew took a private jet and chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce to visit the slums of India. The prince also reportedly refused to stay at the British High Commissioner’s luxury residence for free—as Prince Charles had previously done—opting instead to stay at the expensive Maharaja Suite at the Leela Palace at taxpayers’ expense.
Shortly afterward, M.P. Paul Flynn publicly complained about the prince’s “extraordinary crassness,” describing the trip as a “scandalous waste of money.” He added, “How long will Prince Andrew be allowed to go on embarrassing the country at taxpayers’ expense?” (A palace spokesperson said that because the prince was traveling to six cities in six days the private jet was deemed the most appropriate mode of transport.)
A coda on the queen: Even after initial reports of Andrew’s relationship with Epstein made news, the queen stood by her son. In 2011, according to Edward Klein for Vanity Fair, the queen “summoned Andrew to Windsor Castle and in a private ceremony invested him with the insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, the highest possible honor for ‘personal service’ to the Queen.
Last year, shortly after Prince Andrew announced that he was stepping down from royal duties after a disastrous BBC interview about his association with Epstein, the queen showed her support for the prince by being photographed riding horses with him in Windsor. Even now, the queen’s relationship with her alleged favorite son reportedly remains close. A source told the Sun this January that Andrew has been his mother’s rock Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s split from the monarchy.
“He obviously has spare time on his hands,” the source said, “but he would have been there as a shoulder to cry on anyway.”
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