Peter MacDonald
Prince Andrew has always been an enigma, not so much by mystery as by contradiction. He was born into a world where he was told from his first breath that he mattered more than others, yet that sense of importance was never backed by purpose. Like many royals, he was waited on hand and foot and, as second in line to the throne for over two decades, that treatment was amplified. Every whim was indulged, every flaw excused. It is no surprise that such early mollycoddling fermented into arrogance and self-entitlement.
Prince Andrew’s fall from prominence began quietly but decisively with the birth of Prince William in 1982, pushing him further down the line of succession. For someone raised to believe he was the centre of the royal solar system, this shift was more than ceremonial – it was existential. What followed was a steady decline, not only in status, but in self-awareness. His errant behaviour, temper and inflated sense of self were not mere personality flaws, they were the predictable outcomes of a life built on constant affirmation and minimal accountability.
Princess Margaret’s story mirrored his in striking ways. Like Andrew, she grew up in an environment of privilege, adulation and intense scrutiny, yet constrained by royal expectations. Her glamorous social life, romantic entanglements and indulgent tendencies often drew public fascination and gossip, much as Andrew’s actions would decades later. In both cases, lifelong entitlement amplified personal flaws, turning private impulses into public scandals. The parallels are unmistakable. When constant attention replaces accountability, self-indulgence and risky behaviour are the inevitable legacies.
I once saw this up close. At an ANZAC service at the Auckland War Memorial Museum some years ago, I watched Andrew arrive with then Prime Minister Helen Clark. After the service, as the dignitaries moved toward the museum for lunch, Andrew suddenly sprinted ahead, leaving the prime minister trailing behind him. It was a cringeworthy display of entitlement. He entered the museum as if it were his private club – the centre of attention – leaving others in his wake. It was a small scene, but it said everything about the man.
On another occasion, during a military exercise in New Zealand, I met an ex-SAS security guard who had worked on Andrew’s protection team. He told me something that has stuck with me ever since: “Andrew’s never had to chase a woman in his life: they always come to him.” It was said half-jokingly, but it spoke volumes. Here was a man who had never experienced rejection or consequence in any form. That kind of life warps the mind. It breeds a twisted sense of entitlement, not only toward people but toward the world itself.
To be fair, Andrew was a capable naval officer and, by all accounts, a brave helicopter pilot during the Falklands War. Flying decoy missions over hostile territory required courage. But even there, within the strict discipline of the military, he was insulated by rank, privilege and the quiet sycophancy that surrounds a royal. He was never first or last in anything, but always the ring-fenced special exception. When you live that way for decades, it becomes your truth.
When his military career ended, the palace faced a problem: what do you do with a prince who has no kingdom? With no defined role or purpose, Andrew gravitated toward the fast lane to reclaim a sense of worth: parties, travel, social climbing and the company of the ultra-wealthy. The spare royal syndrome took root and boredom became his greatest enemy. The mix of idleness and ego is a dangerous one.
Prince Andrew’s downfall has often been attributed to arrogance and poor judgment and, while both are true, they are also symptoms of the environment that shaped him. Even the now infamous BBC interview in November 2019 cannot be seen purely as his doing. It was, in large part, the product of the dynamics within his inner circle and the culture of deference surrounding him.
In September 2019, Andrew hired Jason Stein, a former special advisor to Amber Rudd and spokesman for Liz Truss, to mastermind his PR fightback. Stein reportedly advised rejecting the interview request, suggesting instead that Andrew focus on charitable work and agree to two newspaper interviews the following year. His advice was ignored and, by mutual consent, he departed two weeks later. Stein’s resignation highlighted the limits of professional counsel in a household where deference often overrode sound judgment.
Yet Andrew’s lack of self-awareness, rooted in an entitled upbringing that shielded him from accountability, revealed just how vulnerable he was to those seeking to manipulate him, turning his inner circle’s loyalty into a liability. Amanda Thirsk, Andrew’s private secretary and director of his Pitch@Palace Global operation, played a pivotal role. A former banker who joined Andrew’s office in 2012, Thirsk was described as a “force of nature” who believed that the Duke had done nothing wrong. She reportedly clashed with Stein, ultimately persuading Andrew that the Newsnight interview was the best way to draw a line under the rumours surrounding his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
By the time of the interview, Thirsk’s influence had grown to the point where she effectively managed Andrew’s public persona and shaped decisions that would have profound consequences. The interview, widely regarded as a public relations disaster, became a stark illustration of how privilege, loyalty and uncritical management can combine to amplify personal flaws into public catastrophe. Even seasoned advisors, whether Stein or Thirsk, could not counterbalance the forces of entitlement and self-delusion that shaped Andrew’s decisions.
This outcome can be traced to Andrew’s failed sense of survival – a product of his cloistered upbringing that deprived him of natural self-preservation. By relying entirely on hired staff for guidance, he exposed himself to manipulation and misjudgement, an inherently risky approach as Andrew lacked the instinctive ability to evaluate character and exercise sound judgment. In essence, his insulated upbringing left him a loose cannon, vulnerable to both public scrutiny and the influence of those around him.
The interview fallout was followed by the legal and financial entanglements with Virginia Giuffre. In 2022, Prince Andrew reached a £12 million settlement with her, reportedly with financial assistance lent to him by Queen Elizabeth, to cover the debt. That interview and settlement crystallised the wider problem: Andrew’s world was full of people paid to protect him, not to correct him. The courtiers, staff and even family members who surrounded him were incapable of offering the one thing he needed – honest advice. They enabled him, shielded him and ultimately walked him straight into a public firing squad.
Now, with the release of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir, a book that curiously names no alleged perpetrators and feels strangely sanitised, we are told this is the definitive reckoning. I don’t buy it. The text seems watered down, or deliberately ambiguous, perhaps shaped by legal handlers keen to protect their own reputations of legal liability from potential costly slander laws. Yet it is being wielded as a moral cudgel, used to finish Andrew off once and for all.
Andrew is being discarded, much like the unfortunate cousins of the Queen, who were kept institutionalised and out of sight. This seems to be his fate as well: a royal castaway removed from public life and treated as a problem to be managed, rather than a family member to be guided or supported. In both Andrew and Margaret, we see the enduring consequences of royal privilege. The same environment that fosters charm, poise and opportunity also cultivates entitlement, impulsivity and vulnerability. Both were surrounded by people paid to protect them, not to correct them, and both suffered public consequences when private impulses collided with scrutiny.
Margaret’s life was a dance between rebellion and duty. Andrew’s has become a cautionary tale of misjudgement, amplified by advisors, deference and a lifetime insulated from accountability. Their stories, decades apart, reveal the same enduring risks of a gilded upbringing: a life that offers the world, yet when coupled with a lack of self-awareness and sound judgement becomes a classic recipe for disaster.
Here is what troubles me most. Why is Andrew the only one truly being dragged through the mud? The Epstein network was vast, filled with billionaires, politicians and powerbrokers from every corner of the globe. Yet the spotlight remains fixed on Andrew, the not-so-clever royal – the one who can’t defend himself effectively and has no institutional power left. It’s convenient. Andrew has become the sacrificial symbol of scandal, a lightning rod to draw attention away from others whose names will never appear in any official file.
Andrew’s story, then, is both personal and systemic. He is a man ruined by his own failings, yes, but also by the machinery of privilege that shaped him, protected him and ultimately discarded him when he became too embarrassing to save. In that sense, his tragedy is not just his own. It is a mirror held up to the entire institution of monarchy: a system that breeds entitlement, denies purpose and destroys those who can’t adapt to irrelevance.
When I met him, I saw not just arrogance, but insecurity – a man desperate to matter again. And now, stripped of his titles, cut off from funding and left to fade into silence at a backwater Royal Lodge, he remains exactly what the system made him: a prince without a kingdom, a soldier without a war and a man who has outlived his usefulness.
