A royal expert has claimed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used private Sunday tea sessions with the late Queen Elizabeth II to bypass royal protocol
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used a crafty tactic to manipulate the late Queen Elizabeth II and bypass formal protocol, a royal expert has claimed. The disgraced former Prince has long been dubbed the late monarch’s “favourite” child, a status he allegedly used to exploit a specific gap in her weekly schedule.
Speaking on HELLO!’s A Right Royal Podcast, Robert Hardman, the acclaimed author of Elizabeth II, claimed Andrew would wait until royal aides were out of sight before making his move.
According to Hardman, the mummy’s boy took advantage of the Queen‘s private tea time to get his way, knowing the usual gatekeepers wouldn’t be there to stop him.
Hardman said: “He did have a tactic which was, whenever he was told he couldn’t do something or something was impossible, his favourite way of countermanding it would be to go round and have tea with Mummy on a Sunday afternoon, because there were no officials around.”
According to the expert, these private Sunday gatherings enabled him to bypass the stringent regulations imposed by the Palace’s “men in grey suits”.
Hardman said: “It was when officials were around that they would usually say, ‘Well, I’m sorry Sir, we can’t do this, we can’t do that.”
The author suggested that during these cosy tea sessions, Andrew would put forth his requests directly to the Queen, aware that without her advisors on hand to provide an opposing viewpoint, she was much more inclined to agree to his desires.
Hardman added: “So on a Sunday at tea, Andrew would say, ‘Oh Mummy, you wouldn’t believe what they’ve told me I can’t do. It’s ridiculous. I’m sure you don’t mind me doing this. It’s going to be a good idea. You must agree.
“And she’d eventually say, ‘Alright, yes.’ And then on Monday morning he’d say, ‘No, it’s quite alright. I’ve got the Queen’s permission. It’s going to happen. I’m going to do XYZ.'”
He also discussed her late Majesty’s bond with her four children, whom she had with Prince Philip. While the late Queen frequently fretted that Princess Anne, now 75, “worked too hard”, she harboured different concerns regarding her second-eldest son.
Andrew was regularly prone to making royal blunders, particularly during his naval service, Hardman revealed.
He said: “That was a different sort of worry. But with Andrew, she could see that the others were self-starters. They were confident that they would get on with life.
“But Andrew was headstrong, sheepish; he is often described as the start of her second family, because he came along 10 years after Anne, and he was a bouncy, lively child, and she adored him, obviously.
“But by the time he was a young adult, it was quite clear that he was quite impressionable. He was a bit boorish. He could say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing.
“They tried to keep him on in the Royal Navy because the one thing he was good at was flying helicopters. But by 2001, the Navy said, ‘Look, there’s nothing we can do.'”
Andrew withdrew from royal duties in 2019 after his BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis and continued examination of his connections to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
He retained his “Prince” and “Duke of York” titles until October 2025, when King Charles removed his remaining honours.
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