A mother’s love is blind?
Queen Elizabeth II did not believe her disgraced son Andrew “had behaved improperly” — despite all evidence to the contrary, a new book claims.
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: “Cheerful and polite and willing to please.”
“While others did not share this impression, certainly in later life, it is almost certainly that polite little boy who was fixed in the queen’s head,” royal writer Hugo Vickers states in his new book, “Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.”
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 with Virginia Giuffre, a victim of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Vickers writes that “she did not believe he had behaved improperly.”
Still, Andrew’s “problems caused her considerable distress in the last years of her life. She was deeply concerned about his future.”
So much so that “one idea, developed in the last year of her life, [was] to set up a foundation that he could administer.
This consideration came after Andrew’s disastrous on-camera BBC interview in November 2019, when he was taken to task about his friendship with Epstein — which led to the then-prince being stripped of his military titles and patronages by the queen.
Andrew had “deluded” himself the interview had gone well, Vickers writes. But “within 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.”
The queen, however, seemingly tuned out much of the public criticism of her son.
“Following the interview he could do no right,” said Vickers of public opinion. “There was even criticism when he escorted his mother into Westminster Abbey for Prince Philip’s memorial service in March 2022, both having travelled from Windsor in the same car.
“It is fortunate that she did not live to witness the dénouement” — referring to her son, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, having been stripped of his “Prince” and “Duke of York” titles by his brother King Charles last October, and his February arrest over allegations he leaked trade secrets to Epstein.
Andrew had been the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, from 2001 to 2011, when he earned him the derogatory nickname “Airlines Andy” for his frequent trips on the taxpayer’s dime.
Andrew has been in increasingly hot water for many years over his friendship with convicted pedophile Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for child sex trafficking.
He is reportedly living in a second-hand caravan on the Sandringham Estate, after being evicted from his 30-room mansion, Royal Lodge.
