Prince Andrew, Duke of York News and Events 8: Sep 2022 -


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OK for the house size, I don't know if I should say as maybe private or a securiry thing but Edward and Sophie apparently live or lived in 1/3 or 1/4 or their place and rest was sectioned off into self contained large flats and rented out to people who where security vetted. This may be what happens at a large part of KP in the future.

Andrew had a large house bought by the late Queen and she also bought Sarah at least one. All sold for cash then they wanted another house from the Crown estate. Although divorced Sarah apparently pushed (and insisted in living with Andrew - people think he wasn't able to move on to a sensible 2nd as she never really left) to be able to live on Royal Windsor land as she knew the value.

She has a number of other houses shared with Andrew, Portugal, Spain, New York and fornerly Switzerland and 1 or 2 homes in London. Edward and Sophie, for all anyone knows just have Bagshot they earn rental on and get to stay over at Balmoral, Sandringham. Edward and Sophie look to be small spenders by comparison who have the odd skiing holiday.
Edward and Sophie have been able to rent out the old stables as office space which brought in enough to cover their rent to the Crown Estate (though the office / old stable space as on the market for rental not that long ago)
I've never heard of them renting out space in the main house, though as I understand it part of it is used as their main office space for their office / staff.

Sarah was brought a house out of the money in her divorce - £500,000 was set aside for a house for Sarah. She went through a number of houses quite quickly - I think she rented or leased a lot of them.

As I see the late Queen provided all of her three youngest children with the same - a country residence and as Monarch allowed them a place to stay in one of the official royal palaces in London. The difference is the way they were purchased or funded:

Anne - Gatcombe brought by the Queen for Anne upon her marriage and extended later by the purchase of Aston Park

Andrew - firstly, Sunninghill built on land purchased by the Queen from the Crown Estate. This was sold and Andrew moved into Royal Lodge after the Queen Mother's death.

Edward - moved into Bagshot Park, leased from the Crown Estate, after his marriage to Sophie.

I suspect part of the reason for the use of Crown Estate properties, bar the fact they are suitable properties close to Windsor and the fact that divorce wise Crown Estate leasing is better as its not counted as Edward or Andrew's property, is that although mega rich paying out tens of millions of pounds for a large country estate for Andrew and Edward as she did for Anne would eventually have diminished the Queen's capital. Income was never going to be a problem while she had the Duchy of Lancaster income so why not help her boys out by meeting the lease payments (or using Trust Funds to meet them) instead.

So I think they were treated the same by the Queen. Sophie and Ed's house is very large and a lot of comment was made about that when they moved in and even after ( which is why I think it would be much more public knowledge if they were only living in part of the house and renting out other parts of it beyond the already reported stable block). Anne's house is also big, though not as large as Gatcombe, but it has hundreds of acres of land so in that way is bigger.

That said, Andrew's personal spending is clearly much much more than the Edinburghs and Anne's. Anne is IMO old school rich - cash poor, asset rich and while happy to use private jets for official work is also happy to use the sleep train to Scotland and prefers a two person sailing yacht over a billionaires luxury yacht. Andrew is more "nouveau riche" in that he is ostentatious about wealth in a way his siblings aren't.
 
Any PR expert worth anything would tell him to go away to a non-Commonwealth, non-US country and let himself be forgotten about for a while. His reputation is impossible to rehabilitate in Britain, especially with the status quo.

But Andrew doesn't care about that. Andrew wants to live in the style to which he believes his mistaken self-image entitles him, and Andrew wants to feel important. Both of which he gets by remaining at Royal Lodge.

It will be interesting to see what the resolution finally is.
 
I do think its not a sustainable position to expect Charles to not give him any money but for Andrew not to make his own money somehow. What he is doing now by selling his contact list in effect isn't illegal and is basically the only thing he has left to make money from. I don't like him at all but the situation as it was left on the late Queen's death was wholly unsustainable in many ways.

I actually very much agree. I thought the proposed move to Frogmore Cottage, which does not need work and is move in ready, was an attempt to work through the unsustainable position, by moving Andrew to a house that was affordable to maintain and wouldn’t lead to press criticism.

I truly believe it would have been in his best interest to quietly agree. Not much would have changed- he’d still be on the Windsor estate and he’d still have a house more than sufficient for his needs and the needs of his ex-wife, but it wouldn’t be a conspicuous line on the budget.
 
OK for the house size, I don't know if I should say as maybe private or a securiry thing but Edward and Sophie apparently live or lived in 1/3 or 1/4 or their place and rest was sectioned off into self contained large flats and rented out to people who where security vetted. This may be what happens at a large part of KP in the future.

Andrew had a large house bought by the late Queen and she also bought Sarah at least one. All sold for cash then they wanted another house from the Crown estate. Although divorced Sarah apparently pushed (and insisted in living with Andrew - people think he wasn't able to move on to a sensible 2nd as she never really left) to be able to live on Royal Windsor land as she knew the value.

She has a number of other houses shared with Andrew, Portugal, Spain, New York and fornerly Switzerland and 1 or 2 homes in London. Edward and Sophie, for all anyone knows just have Bagshot they earn rental on and get to stay over at Balmoral, Sandringham. Edward and Sophie look to be small spenders by comparison who have the odd skiing holiday.

I don't know if it's true but Andrew was said to have received a large amount of financial support from the Queen but needs more.

When they had to sell the half chalet in Switzerland the French owner of the other half and originally all the property said almost nothing had been paid on the mortgague of their half so I have no knowledge with what or how they pay for all those houses. It would need an investigation team to look at. I have relatives in real estate but I don't understand how the Yorks do what they do


 
Do we have the evidence to support the claim that they have purchased these other houses, or do they rent or borrow. It does appear to be confirmed with regards the London house, also the Swiss chalet but I have never read anything about Spain, Portugal or New York.
 
Somewhat I do understand Prince Andrew's insistence onto his by now far too big Manor.

It is his last connection with his former life as HRH. Losing his manor would mean, he should be very much a loser. This is hard!

Randy Andy... How the mighty fall...

Well, he falls rather soft!
 
I actually very much agree. I thought the proposed move to Frogmore Cottage, which does not need work and is move in ready, was an attempt to work through the unsustainable position, by moving Andrew to a house that was affordable to maintain and wouldn’t lead to press criticism.

I truly believe it would have been in his best interest to quietly agree. Not much would have changed- he’d still be on the Windsor estate and he’d still have a house more than sufficient for his needs and the needs of his ex-wife, but it wouldn’t be a conspicuous line on the budget.
It would have been interesting to see what Andrew would have done had his mother been the one to suggest the move to Frogmore (as it has been widely reported she was planning to do).

It is the best solution for all really, unless it is all just made up that Charles wants him out of course.
 
May I have more informatins about Lady Diana and Sarah engagement Rings. I suppose both from Garrads.
Is it a Choice or a Surprise ?
I seem to remember that Andrew stated he helped with the design of Sarah's ring.
That makes me think it was bespoke.
 
I seem to remember that Andrew stated he helped with the design of Sarah's ring.
That makes me think it was bespoke.
He chose the central stone it was a simple design, similar to the design of Diana’s engagement ring but with a ruby as the central stone instead of sapphire it was reported that he chose ruby as a nod to her red hair!
 
Mirabel, you are right. It was bespoke.

Sarah and Andrew saw a ruby ring that they liked, but the diamonds surrounding the center ruby were not to their liking so Andrew ordered a ruby cluster ring with differently shaped diamonds surrounding the ruby. You might remember their engagement interview when he referred to the pear-shaped diamonds as being "football-shaped".

I thought that was so cute.
 
Perhaps a really dumb question but as Andrew is turning 65 shortly, will he be entitled to a State pension in the UK?
 
The state pension age for men is now 66.

As Andrew was in the Navy, he will have employees' national insurance contributions deducted from his wages, and employer's national contributions paid by the Navy. You need 10 years' worth of NIC to get a state pension, although you need 35 years' to get the full amount. Andrew was in the Navy for about 20 years, so, yes, he'll be entitled to a state pension. He might not take it, but he will be entitled to it.
 
He will have to wait until he is 66 as the UK is steadily raising the pension age.

I am not sure if he would be eligible as he gets a navy pension and I doubt he would be eligible for both.
 
He will be entitled to both- my father gets a military pension and will get the state pension when he turns 66.
 
State pensions and occupational pensions are separate, so he'll get both.
 
He will have to wait until he is 66 as the UK is steadily raising the pension age.

I am not sure if he would be eligible as he gets a navy pension and I doubt he would be eligible for both.
As long as the contributions have been made he will be entitled to his state pension along with the navy pension. Many people have both work and state pensions, myself included .
 
There’s an added note of strangeness considering Andrew wasn’t a lifelong rider and only took it up relatively recently. If he hadn’t, I wonder how or if he’d be seen at all.
 
There’s an added note of strangeness considering Andrew wasn’t a lifelong rider and only took it up relatively recently. If he hadn’t, I wonder how or if he’d be seen at all.
Is that true? I assumed all of the Queen’s children grew up riding regularly
 
Is that true? I assumed all of the Queen’s children grew up riding regularly
The link isn’t working atm and consider the source (the Express in this case), but this is from 2018. (I’m also reasonably sure this isn’t where I originally heard it.) Air Miles Andy has finally reined in his dislike of riding

Here is another Express link from 2018 which mentions his intensive preparation to ride Trooping that year and his dislike of riding prior. https://archive.ph/G6824
 
Andrew started riding in 2018 when he had to during Trooping the Colour after becoming Colonel of the Grenadier Guards (after his father retired and he took on this role). And it seems he liked it enough to continue riding even when he no longer had to do so during Trooping.
 
There’s an added note of strangeness considering Andrew wasn’t a lifelong rider and only took it up relatively recently. If he hadn’t, I wonder how or if he’d be seen at all.
I guess he did learn how to ride as a kid but let's be honest, not everybody enjoys a sport just because it was part of the process of growing up. Andrew never really liked it but absolutely adored playing golf, just like millions of people around the world. When it became an actual requirement, he had a crash course refresher to enable him to fulfil his role in the Trooping of the Colour.

All these inane headlines about him riding at Windsor in the Daily Mail are just click bait. I mean . . . OMG he was seen laughing with a groom and that was an actual headline. Really.
 
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