A mother\u2019s love is blind?<\/p>\n
Queen Elizabeth II did not believe her disgraced son Andrew \u201chad behaved improperly\u201d \u2014 despite all evidence to the contrary, a new book claims.<\/p>\n
Until her 2022 death, the monarch continued to cling to the image of her favorite son as he was described by the photographer Cecil Beaton, dating back to when Andrew was just four years old: \u201cCheerful and polite and willing to please.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queen Elizabeth II did not believe her disgraced son Andrew \u201chad behaved improperly\u201d \u2014 despite all evidence to the contrary, a new book claims. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile others did not share this impression, certainly in later life, it is almost certainly that polite little boy who was fixed in the queen\u2019s head,\u201d royal writer Hugo Vickers states in his new book, \u201cQueen Elizabeth II: A Personal History<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n According to multiple reports, the queen is believed to helped her favorite son fund the reported $12 million settlement in his 2022 civil sex abuse case <\/a>with Virginia Giuffre, a victim of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n Vickers writes that \u201cshe did not believe he had behaved improperly.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew\u2019s \u201cproblems caused [Queen Elizabeth] considerable distress in the last years of her life. She was deeply concerned about his future,\u201d writes Hugo Vickers in his new book, \u201cQueen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n Still, Andrew\u2019s \u201cproblems caused her considerable distress in the last years of her life. She was deeply concerned about his future.\u201d<\/p>\n So much so that \u201cone idea, developed in the last year of her life, [was] to set up a foundation that he could administer. <\/p>\n This consideration came after Andrew\u2019s disastrous on-camera BBC interview<\/a> in November 2019, when he was taken to task about his friendship with Epstein \u2014 which led to the then-prince being stripped of his military titles and patronages<\/a> by the queen. <\/p>\n Andrew had \u201cdeluded\u201d himself the interview had gone well, Vickers writes. But \u201cwithin the week he was asked to step down from public life, and from that day onwards the only events he took part in publicly were family funerals, and he sometimes joined the Royal Family for Christmas and Easter services.\u201d<\/p>\n Epstein sex trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre claimed she had been forced to have sex with the former prince. US District Court \u2013 Southern District of New York (SDNY)\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n The queen, however, seemingly tuned out much of the public criticism of her son.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing the interview he could do no right,\u201d said Vickers of public opinion. \u201cThere was even criticism when he escorted his mother into Westminster Abbey<\/a> for Prince Philip\u2019s memorial service in March 2022, both having travelled from Windsor in the same car.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is fortunate that she did not live to witness the d\u00e9nouement\u201d \u2014\u00a0referring to her son, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, having been stripped of his \u201cPrince\u201d and \u201cDuke of York\u201d titles<\/a> by his brother King Charles last October, and his February arrest over allegations he leaked trade secrets<\/a> to Epstein.<\/p>\n Andrew had been the UK\u2019s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, from 2001 to 2011, when he earned him the derogatory nickname \u201cAirlines Andy\u201d for his frequent trips on the taxpayer\u2019s dime.<\/p>\n Andrew was arrested and released on February 19, accused of leaking trade secrets to Epstein in his role as a trade envoy. REUTERS<\/p>\n Andrew has been in increasingly hot water for many years over his friendship with convicted pedophile Epstein<\/a> and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for child sex trafficking.<\/p>\n He is reportedly living in a second-hand caravan<\/a> on the Sandringham Estate, after being evicted from his 30-room mansion<\/a>, Royal Lodge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother\u2019s love is blind? Queen Elizabeth II did not believe her disgraced son Andrew \u201chad behaved improperly\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[15345,5636,9,24,63,1312,122,124,123,486],"class_list":{"0":"post-183628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-andrew-mountbatten-windsor","9":"tag-king-charles-iii","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-royal-family"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}