than the press in the United States. In 2010 and 2011 their prime target was Prince Andrew, Britain’s special representative for trade and investment since 2001. His global peregrinations earned him the nickname “Air Miles Andy,” and he was severely criticized for his contacts with unsavory dictators in places like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, not to mention the American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who had served time in prison for pedophilia. Reporters routinely questioned the value of Andrew’s unsalaried role, which cost the British government nearly ?600,000 annually for overseas travel, hotels, and entertaining—plus his ?249,000 annual allowance from the Queen to run his private office.
Government officials credited Andrew with helping British firms win multibillion-pound contracts for such projects as the Dubai metro and jet engines for Air Asia. His lobbying for British industry was most effective in Asia and the Middle East, where he was friendly with leaders such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, with whom he hunted in Morocco and Tanzania. “It’s not about the power of royalty, it’s about personal relationships,” said Andrew. “If you know the right people you can have a positive outcome.… If you are competing with other countries, you have to deploy as many assets as you can. I am one of those assets.” Nevertheless, Andrew’s questionable associates and poor judgment disturbed the Queen and her advisers, and in July 2011 he stepped down from his job after serving for ten years. He still intended to promote British business, but on an unofficial basis, while focusing on helping develop apprenticeships for young people.
Andrew’s image had also been badly dented when his ex-wife got caught a year earlier exploiting her husband’s position in a mortifying episode that recalled the royal family’s misadventures of the late twentieth century. After their divorce in 1996, Fergie had been more than ?3 million in debt, but she had returned to financial solvency by pursuing an array of lucrative business ventures. She even won the approval of her former mother-in- law, who included her in a weekend at Balmoral in August 2008 with Andrew and their daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, the first time the outcast duchess had been to the royal Highland retreat since her hasty exit in 1992.
Fergie continued to maintain a profligate lifestyle, however, employing eleven full- and part-time staff, compared to Andrew’s five. Her finances began to implode again in 2009 as her income declined and her debts grew to more than ?2 million. In the spring of 2010 the fifty-year-old duchess was in a desperate mood when Mazher Mahmood, the
In an effort to defuse the potential damage from the incriminating footage, which was an instant sensation on YouTube, Fergie quickly issued a statement saying she was “sincerely sorry.” She explained that her finances were “under stress,” but said this was “no excuse for a serious lapse of judgment.” Both she and Andrew said that he had been unaware of her contacts with the phony businessman. After consulting with the Queen, Andrew covered a portion of his ex-wife’s debts and helped her restructure the rest. That July Fergie fired all her employees and agreed to operate under the supervision of Andrew’s office.
The following month, the Queen and Philip gathered their children and most of their grandchildren (William and Harry were off on military duty) for a nostalgic ten-day Western Isles cruise aboard the
For the first time since the royal yacht was decommissioned in 1997, the family re-created
IN HIS SEVENTH decade, Prince Charles had not only found contentment in his new life with Camilla, but fulfillment in the job he had invented to give meaning to his role as heir to the throne. The Prince of Wales doggedly promoted a wide-ranging agenda embracing architecture, historic preservation, the environment, sustainable farming, rain forest conservation, health, education, and job training. A number of his views, such as the value of organic produce and the need for human-scale architecture to build new communities, were initially derided but later moved into the mainstream. He raised more than ?110 million each year for his personal charities, which have extended his reach to projects in China, Afghanistan, Guyana, and Jamaica.
He had grown more comfortable in his own skin and committed himself to establishing his legacy through the job that, as he frequently said, “I made up as I went along.” “He has made a full life for himself,” said Nancy Reagan. “He does so much more than any previous Prince of Wales.” Yet his approach to his role is diametrically opposed to his mother’s more deliberate operation at Buckingham Palace. Much of what the Queen does she is advised to do, while her firstborn son tends to do mainly what he wants to. Charles “is high octane because he is so driven,” said one of his aides. “He is always at full tilt.”
The differences in temperament between mother and son are striking. “He is probably an instinctively glass half empty person, while she is more a half full one,” said her cousin Margaret Rhodes. The Queen “has no illusions about what can and can’t be changed,” said her former press secretary Charles Anson. “She has an acceptance of the way life deals its cards that is rare in the Western world, and stems partly from her religious conviction and partly from her life experience.” Prince Charles is more emotional than the Queen, easily offended and short- tempered, with an inclination to brood and to need reassurance. “Camilla soothes things and anticipates what could go wrong,” said Anne Glenconner.
He is more impressionable than his mother, and over the years was influenced by gurus such as Laurens van der Post and the mystical poet Kathleen Raine. But while the Queen can be persuaded by a well-crafted proposal, Charles dislikes advice contrary to his beliefs. There are few, even among his close friends, who feel comfortable challenging him for fear of being judged insensitive or disloyal. His father, by contrast, welcomes robust argument. While Philip can squash an opponent on occasion, he is more than happy to accommodate the views of someone he feels has mastered his brief.
Charles is also less direct than either of his parents, who can be counted on for a straight answer. “You sense he maneuvers,” said a longtime friend of Camilla. “People have to maneuver with him.” Charles enjoys gossip more than the Queen (although she likes political scuttlebutt) and wonders whether “that person is for or against me, in this or that camp,” said one of Elizabeth II’s former advisers. “The Queen doesn’t think that way. It is more, ‘What is the problem? What do we do?’ She only wants to know who is in what camp if it is obstructing a decision that needs to be taken.”
No one would deny that the Queen sets high standards for her household, but Charles is more extravagant. Elizabeth II knows what everything costs and economizes when necessary. Guests at routine Buckingham Palace receptions are served wine, potato chips, and nuts, while at Clarence House they get gourmet hors d’oeuvres, and the dinner parties have elaborate floral displays and theatrical lighting. “It is fair to say when he feels something should be done well, he doesn’t stint,” said Patricia Brabourne. When he goes to stay at Sandringham for a week on his own, Charles brings along vans filled with vegetables and meats from Highgrove, even though there is a farm on the Norfolk estate. At dinner parties, he is known to eat a different meal from his guests, sometimes with his personal cutlery.
Such behavior may seem persnickety and spoiled, but Charles has a capacity for empathy that was underestimated in the Diana era. His ability to engage with people is “as good if not better than the Queen,” said a former courtier. “He has natural warmth with the Queen’s sense of duty and Philip’s ability to make a guy laugh.” He is more imaginative and intuitive as well, and his thoughtfulness is legendary. When Anne Glenconner’s sister got cancer, Charles wrote her a seventeen-page letter with ideas about alternative treatments.
While the Queen has four private secretaries, Charles has eleven—nine full-time and two part-time—plus separate directors for each of the twenty charities he founded and a commercial enterprise that produces his Duchy Originals line of organic products ranging from Sicilian Lemon All Butter Shortbread to Mandarin Zest and Rose Geranium shampoo. All the profits, totaling more than ?6 million in two decades, have been donated to charitable
