Prince Andrew, Duke of York

Prince Andrew (2013)

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD (Andrew Albert Christian Edward; born 19 February 1960) is a member of the British royal family. The third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; his elder brother is King Charles III and as of September 2022, the Duke is eighth in the line of succession to the British throne. He is the father of princesses Beatrice and Eugenie with his former wife, Sarah, Duchess of York.

Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. During the Falklands War, he flew on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation, and Exocet missile decoy. In 1986, he married Sarah Ferguson and was made Duke of York. They have two daughters: Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Their marriage, separation in 1992, and divorce in 1996 attracted extensive media coverage. As Duke of York, Andrew undertook official duties and engagements on behalf of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He served as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for 10 years until July 2011.

Virginia Giuffre claimed that, as a 17-year old, she was sex trafficked to Prince Andrew by the American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The prince denied any wrongdoing. Following criticism for his association with Epstein and his interview with Emily Maitlis in a special edition of Newsnight in November 2019, he resigned from public roles in May 2020, and his honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were returned to his mother Queen Elizabeth II in January 2022. He was the defendant in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault filed by Giuffre in the State of New York, which was settled out of court in February 2022.

Quotes

Falklands War

• So whilst I think back to a day when a young man went to war, full of bravado, I returned a changed man.
• I put away childish things and false bravado and returned a man full in the knowledge of human frailty and suffering.
• My reflection makes me think even harder and pray even more fervently for those in conflict today, for those family’s [sic] torn apart by the horrors they have witnessed.
  • I returned a changed man’: Prince Andrew deletes Falklands war post An instagram post on his ex-wife's count reported by The Guardian (2 April 2022)

Lunch with Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson 2009

• It’s a simple answer. That’s my life. That’s what I expect. Right? That is because of who I am and that is because of the life of the family within which I’ve been brought up. So to me this state of affairs is not extraordinary. To anybody else who looks in, they think I’m bloody mad! But that’s what we do.
  • Dinner with the FT: Prince Andrew] Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson Financial Times 23 October 2009.
  • Prince Andrew describing his view of the his role as a member of the Royal Family fulfilling over 500 engagements a year.

Prince Andrew & the Epstein Scandal

• [T]he people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful.
• I kick myself for, on a daily basis, because it was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family [...] And we try and uphold the highest standards and practices and I let the side down, simple as that.
  • "Prince Andrew Says He Doesn't Regret His 'Very Useful' Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein" Time magazine (18 November 2019) cited from Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis (broadcast 16 November 2019).

• [On his alleged meetings with Virginia Giuffre, his accuser] I don’t know if I've met her but no, I have no recollection of meeting her.
• [On the 2001 photograph of himself with Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell] I have absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken.
• [Asked on how the photograph might have been faked] I don't believe it's a picture of me in London because . . . when I go out in London I wear a suit and tie. [...] Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don't recollect that photograph ever being taken. [...] I'm at a loss to explain this particular photograph.
  • "Prince Andrew interview: 'I've got to have a thick skin and get on with it'", The Sunday Times (London, 16 November 2019)
  • See Virginia Giuffre v. Prince Andrew for her civil litigation against the Prince. The case was resolved out of court in February 2022 without the Prince admitting liability; he was never criminally charged. The financial settlement was not disclosed, but was said to run into millions of pounds.

• If you're a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody [...] You have to … take some sort of positive action and so therefore if you try to forget it’s very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.
• [Explaining that he could not have had sex with Virginia Giuffre at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell] I was with the children and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose four or five in the afternoon. And then because the duchess [Sarah Ferguson] was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other is there.
• [Explaining why he stayed at the New York home of Epstein, a convicted child sex offender, in 2010.] It was a convenient place to stay... At the end of the day, with the benefit of all the hindsight one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do. But at the time, I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do. And I admit fully that my judgment was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable but that is just the way it is.
  • Quotes from the interview with Emily Maitlis. Cited in Jamie Doward "Prince Andrew: I didn’t have sex with teenager, I was home after Pizza Express in Woking" The Guardian (17 November 2019).

About Prince Andrew, Duke of York

• Andrew, unfortunately, exhibited classic symptoms of what is scientifically recognised as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias in which people come to believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. The combination of minimal self-awareness and dim wattage leads sufferers of this condition to overestimate their own capabilities. Years of enjoying unearned obeisance to his royal position allowed Andrew to bang on with a combination of overweening self-confidence and unchallenged ignorance. It also made him an easy mark for con men and crooks.
  • Tina Brown, extract from her book The Palace Papers, as cited in "'Jeffrey Epstein told people that Prince Andrew was an idiot – but a useful one'", The Telegraph (11 April 2022)